Most people who've tried Google Docs loves the free online document editing service, and with good reason: it's easy to use, powerful, and free, and Google continually iterates and improves the service. Case in point: today they've announced the addition of a robust discussions system, available for all newly created documents.
Google's made a fun -- and timely -- video describing the benefits of the new feature:
If you've ever used Google's ill-fated Wave, this will seem fairly familiar to you: you can leave and reply to comments on specific areas of your document in real-time, you can receive e-mail notifications of new comments, and reply to them via e-mail. Where this seems to up Google Wave's way of doing this is by shuffling the documents into the margins, rather than making the entire document the comment area.
It seems that in the long run, Google Wave's lasting impact will be on other services within the Google ecosystem, which all seem to be benefiting from the ideas worked out in Wave, if not the code itself.
If you want to try out the new Google Discussions features, simply go to Google Docs, create a new document, and invite some folks to talk to.
