Google Apps is a great way to collaborate with your colleagues; now Discussions in Google Docs makes it even easier.

One of the best features of Google Docs is the way I can share a document with my colleagues. The old days of collating multiple copies of Microsoft Word documents have gone, to be replaced by the, quite frankly amazing, ability to see a document updating in front of my eyes.

And now Google have gone a step further and introduced Discussions for Google Docs. The new feature has already gone down a storm in our office, allowing us to communicate and suggest ideas without actually editing the document.  We could do this with chat before, but now it seems much more integrated and organised. The discussion can be seen within the document but will not be visible to a client if the document is printed or saved as a pdf.

Discussions is fully customisable. The default setting sends an email to each person you share the document with every time a comment is made, but this can be changed to suit the way you want to collaborate.