Web Collaboration Revisited

Two years ago I looked at Web Collaboration tools. My conclusion was "Close but no cigar."

This Lifehacker article prompted me to revisit the topic.

Sadly there doesn't seem to be much news here.

Lifehacker said:

There are really just two collaboration tools in Word:

• Track Changes allows you to visibly keep track of each person’s revisions within a document. Added text shows up in a different color for each person who’s made changes. Deleted text also changes color and appears struck through with a line. When it’s time to review the document, you can accept or reject each individual change.

• Comments annotate a document with notes that don’t really belong in the document text itself. These notes appear in the right margin, are color coded along the same lines as tracked changes, and include the commenter’s initials.

Really?

Maybe Lifehacker missed something. PCworld looked at this and found:

When you start collaborating from the desktop, a pop-up notification appears at the bottom of the app to alert you that someone else is editing the document. But in our tests in Word, Excel, and OneNote, several minutes passed before the desktop user received the notification. In some cases, changes to the document were available before we were notified that another person was editing the document.

Thinking/hoping that that still wasn't the situation I went to the horse's mouth, Microsoft Office Support.

Not so much.