There are many ways for people to share information with one another. Perhaps the most common way is over the Internet. Online services such as email, social networks, and instant messaging allow people to share information with their family and friends. However, what exactly we share with our friends and family can vary, depending on the service we use to share that information. In the case of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, people often share photos, videos, and other websites that they think are interesting. An example would be the following: you find a funny video on YouTube and decide to post it on Facebook. When you do, all of your Facebook friends would be able to view that video as well. You can also share photos, videos, and websites via email. However, unlike social networks, email is much more private, as it often involves sending information to at least one other person or to a specific group of people. With social networks, what you share can be seen by all of your friends.

Photos, videos, and websites are not the only things people share over the Internet. When it comes to using email, people can also share work-related items, such as documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and pdfs. Oftentimes, when we send a document to another person, we usually want that person to read, comment, and edit our work. This usually occurs between two people: the writer and the reader. The writer creates a document, sends it to the reader for comments, and the reader sends the document back to the writer with his comments for improvement. In simple cases like the one I just described, email can be very handy. However, it is not exactly the best way.

The problem with email is you can't collaborate in real-time with your peers. In other words, after you send a document to your friend, the changes you make on the document won't be reflected on the document you sent to your friend. The only way he/she can see the changes is if you resend the updated document. This can be quite troublesome and annoying. Your friend is trying to edit your paper, but you keep sending him/her a revised version of your document, making it difficult for your friend to comment efficiently.

At this point, you're probably wondering: what can I do? What other Internet service would allow me and my peers to collaborate in real-time. It turns out that there are a lot of new Internet services out there that allow you to do that. These services utilize cloud computing. Simply put, cloud computing is a form of computing in which the resources, information, and services are stored and provided over the Internet. Contents in the "cloud" are not stored at a specific physical location. Think of it like this: when you create a document on your computer using Microsoft Word, the document is stored on your computer's hard drive. Therefore, you can only open that document on your computer and not on some other computer. The only way you can open that document on another computer is if you email it to yourself or if you store it on a portable storage device like a USB drive. Cloud computing changes all of that. When you create a document and store it in the "cloud", you can open that document from any computer you want, be it your laptop, your desktop, or your friend's computer. There is no need to email yourself the document or carry it on a USB drive. With the document stored in the "cloud", you can open it anywhere.

Many of you are probably already familiar with the concept of cloud computing, but you probably don't know what it is called until now. If you used services like DropBox, Google Docs, Google Books, or Picasa, then you are using an Internet-based service that utilizes cloud computing. Let's take a look at Google Docs. Google Docs not only allows you to store documents, presentations, and spreadsheets on the "cloud" but also allows you to collaborate with your peers in real-time. You can open one document, share it with your friends by granting them access to read and edit your paper, and type your paper while your friends can read and edit simultaneously. In this case, everyone is working on the same document. There is no need for you to continuously send emails to your peers and then having to merge their revisions. Everything happens in real time. For more information, see this video: http://youtu.be/6_hJ3R8jEZM.

DropBox, Google Books, and Picasa work in a similar manner to Google Docs. Dropbox, like Google Docs, allows you to store information on the "cloud", but unlike Google Docs, it does not allow you to collaborate in real time. The changes you make will be synced across all your DropBox folders, but you can't work with your peers in real-time. Google Books allows you to store ebooks on the "cloud", allowing you to read any book you bought on any device. Finally, Picasa allows you store and share photos on the "cloud". All of these services utilize cloud computing. The information you store in the "cloud" is not localized at a specific location, like that one word document you saved on your computer hard drive. This allows you to access it from any computer you want. It is certainly a lot easier, faster, and more convenient than email.