Look, we won’t waste your time here. There are more important things going on in the world. But if you use any of Google’s G Suite products, you’ll be glad you read this.
You know how every time you want to create a new Google doc or spreadsheet, you have to go into Google Drive, and then click New, and the click on what kind of file you need, and the whole time you’re just thinking about all the other, better things you could be doing with the six seconds it takes to click those clicks? Good news: You don’t have to do that anymore. Instead, just type in doc.new, or sheet.new, or slide.new, or form.new if you’re an edge case, or whatever. And behold! A new file will unfold before you.
It’s not just those! Variants also work, like sheets.new or spreadsheets.new. And yes, it's a very small advance. But these days, even the little wins are worth celebrating.
There’s no real magic to this; Google’s just taking advantage of the “.new” top level domain registry, which it has operated since 2014 through its Charleston Road Registry subsidiary. (A TLD is the part of the URL that comes after the dot.) In its application at the time, the company said potential uses “may include but are not limited to applications such as media (tv show.new, author name.new) and marketing campaigns (cheerios.new, shampoo.new).”
“The .new gTLD will provide a new mechanism whereby businesses and individuals can differentiate their content by signifying that their offerings are ‘new,’” the application later continues. A little on the nose, but useful!
In one sense, using .new as a shortcut for G Suite files also serves as something of an advertisement; the company said in a very brief blog post that it plans to open up its fancy TLD to everyone next year. Which is to say, as useful as the Google Docs shortcut is, brace yourself for the shampoo ad sites to come.
- Bionic limbs "learn" to open a beer
- The next great (digital) extinction
- Meet the YouTube King of useless machines
- Malware has a new way to hide on your Mac
- Crawling dead: how ants turn into zombies
- Looking for more? Sign up for our daily newsletter and never miss our latest and greatest stories
