Methods and systems are provided for synchronizing and sharing data objects in a cloud based social networking environment of the type including a collaboration cloud. The method includes defining a sharing configuration based on at least one metadata key word, within the collaboration cloud, the sharing configuration including a second computing device; running a dedicated client synchronization application on a first computing device; updating a data object using the first computing device; automatically synchronizing the updated data object with the collaboration cloud; and propagating, using the collaboration cloud, the updated data object to the second computing device.