Google is releasing an update to Google Docs on Wednesday that upgrades comments and adds simple e-mail notifications by mentioning e-mail addresses in comments.
Google Docs already had basic commenting functions, but the new features make the collaboration experience more robust. Google last year added advanced collaboration tools to Docs, with a sidebar for discussing work on individual documents.
Comments now include timestamps and profile pictures. Google also added new editing features for individual comments, especially the ability to resolve comments. Rather than delete comments in an existing doc, users can remove them from visibility by resolving them. These comments are still accessible via the "discussions" button at the top of the document page.
The other interesting addition to comments is the implementation of e-mail notifications via @mentions. Just like the Twitter or Facebook @mention, users can now add others to a discussion just by @mentioning their e-mail address.
Say a person wants to bring a client into a document discussion. All he or she has to do is type something like "@[email protected] Can you check this out and make sure you're OK with the changes?" That person will receive an e-mail notification with the comment of the text. The recipient then can then add his or her own comments, either by commenting from the document or simply replying to the e-mail notification.