I’ve recommended Google Docs and Spreadsheets as an effective (free!) collaborative online document manager before. I personally use it for most of our collaborative work. However, the chat-style interface doesn’t quite help when you’ve got a few people working on it once.

For such work, me and my buddies have had better successes with Skype even cutting the time consumed for editing an article by more than half. The reason? Talking with each other keeps everyone on the same page. It’s hard to point out contexts in a chat interface.

I know many have voiced their wishes and made wishlists for Google’s services and I think I would put this up as one. Put voice conference as an option in Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Now this would provide a more comprehensive (if they could put in video too) collaborative experience.