1. A method, executed at one or more computing devices, for creating and sharing virtual collaboration objects, the method comprising: receiving, at the one or more computing devices, a request from a user to create a virtual collaboration object, wherein the request comprises a selection of two or more portions of each of one or more stored digital source objects for inclusion in the virtual collaboration object and the request further comprises order information that indicates a display order of the two or more portions within the virtual collaboration object, wherein, for at least one of the one or more stored digital source objects, the two or more portions of the stored digital source object comprise less than an entirety of the at least one of the one or more stored digital source objects; creating, using the one or more computing devices, a metadata list in response to the request, the metadata list including the one or more stored digital source objects and portion information identifying the two or more portions of each of the one or more stored digital source objects; generating, using the one or more computing devices, a collaboration object identifier (ID) corresponding to the virtual collaboration object and associating the metadata list with the collaboration object ID; providing, using the one or more computing devices, a reference to the collaboration object ID corresponding to the virtual collaboration object for sharing with one or more other users, wherein the reference to the collaboration object ID provides access to the virtual collaboration object; receiving an indication that a second user having access to the virtual collaboration object has selected the reference; identifying the received order information associated with each of the two or more portions of each of the one or more stored digital source objects; automatically generating, in response to the received indication that the second user has selected the reference, the virtual collaboration object in real time at the time of receiving the indication based on the metadata list by retrieving the two or more selected portions of each of the one or more stored digital source objects, wherein retrieving is based on the identified order information associated with each of the two or more portions; and providing the generated virtual collaboration object without digitally storing the virtual collaboration object for display to the second user.