Poll: Which online collaboration platform do you use?
This week's poll was requested by a reader, who wanted to find out what online collaboration platforms R/WW readers used. The email I received noted: "While mass services such as myspace and facebook get a lot of coverage, there's not a lot of data showing how well collaborative platforms do. I think that your audience could help." It's very true, the blog world tends to get excited about the latest consumer apps - like Facebook or Twitter - but there is a lot of interest outside the blogosphere on which online collaboration apps are being used.
Below is a list of such apps - and it is a fairly wide-ranging list, and open to contention about what exactly is an "online collaboration platform". I've included the main Web Office suite players, as well as project mgmt apps and some wiki platforms. And I'm bound to have missed a couple of obvious apps (do me a favor and yell out which obvious apps I forgot to include, asap, in the comments!).
Also check out some of our posts on this topic, such as this Web Office roundup from August and indeed R/WW's Web Office category.
The poll is also multiple-choice, as I know a lot of people will use more than one of these apps (I know I do). So please participate in the poll and let's see which online collaboration platforms are the most popular.
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I work at the University of Applied Sciences Burgenland, abnd we use the Factline Community Server (FCS) for online teaching, communication and collaboration and as a document repository:
see http://fcs.kundenplattform.com/ for information about the product and http://campusib.fh-burgenland.at/ to get an impression about how the platform looks like at our institution (in German). Students and faculty also have their own individual e-portfolios based on FCS.
As a web development shop we use: basecamp + springloops + freshbooks.
Everything integrates smoothly together thanks to Basecamp integration. THE platform.
I think you should probably add Voo2do to the list...although it hasn't gotten as much hype as some of these, it is a great platform.
I use Sharepoint 2007 as intranet/extranet collaboration platform
We looked at basecamp, some open source alternatives,etc... and although most of the new collaboration platforms use ajax and make it speedy to create todo lists, buglists, task lists... they have too much functionality and they break the thought process. Instead of concentrating on your tasks, you concentrate on breaking down your task, items into actionable items... anyways I didn't find these useful, so we built our own called Stuff Manager. It allows the team to create an editable document, bullet-list the items that they want, add photos, upload or paste any content from the outside and then when you save the document, you can also tag it so you can find it in the document index. We store all our specs, discussions, referenceable items in stuff manager. Google docs is nice also, but it doesn't support tagging as I know and doesn't support categories.. or uploads... I am curious about why the other collaboration platforms are so great for many people...
Trac is our current development collaboration tool of choice.
Still using JotSpot
I also use HiTask for collaborative tasks.
Octopz is a recently launched online collaboration service that lets people work on digital documents and rich media including video, with fully integrated text, voice and video chat using only a web browser.
I have also been exploring huddle.net and foldera.com
We use a combination of basecamp and joyent's connector Suite to get our work done.
My organisation is currently investigating a new online collaboration tool called Huddle.
For online collaboration, our team uses Basecamp, Skype and Yugma.
Since available in March 2007 I'm using Mindquarry to share files and ideas. It's simple to uses with it's basic functionality, but still universal in use like a Swiss army knife. :-)
My organisation is currently investigating a new online collaboration solution called Huddle.
@Honor'cım :) Google Docs supports everything you mention - tags, uploads etc. You have too much workforce man :)
I prefer Google Apps and 37Signals products. As for wiki, I use open source DokuWiki but am looking into enterprise hosted solutions like SocialText too. Trust is the most important parameter here.
Even though it's relatively new, I'm surprised Huddle did not make it onto your poll list. I've found this the best tool for online collaboration and much more user friendly than the majority of others on the list.
The most important difference with Huddle is that it allows you to manage and view multiple projects from one central dashboard- so you have one login to access everything, whether you are managing lots of projects or a member of different teams. There are also no upload limits, thumbnailing as standard for images and a simple user interface, so those who aren't already using it should give it a try
I use Clearspace from Jive. Our company was going with Sharepoint, but Clearspace was better on almost every front.
We've also been using Huddle - its very easy to use and I don't think we've scratched the surface of what we can do with it yet.
I mostly stick with Basecamp, Skype, email, and IM (usually MSN or Yahoo!).
Great response so far; and there a few new ones here I need to check out (Huddle, Mindquarry, etc).
As for me, I use a mix of Google Apps, Zoho, Basecamp and every now and then JotSpot. But I've played around with most of the products listed.
Here is a fairly new player on the block e-LM.com, a collaboration space for managing project scope, quality, traceability, risk, issues, change and documentation.
Other: ConceptShare
For technical collaboration (i.e. working on code-like objects) in the Open Source world you have to go a long way to beat Trac - http://edgewall.com/trac - combined with a simple mailing-list for group messages.
Goplan here.
We use ProjectSpaces (http://www.ProjectSpaces.com) a home-grown product that we also offer as a hosted solution. We've focused on ease-of-use and get good feedback from users that it really is easy to use.
Hi Richard,
This is Austin from Yugma (www.yugma.com). I noticed your poll on web collaboration services, and I would like to encourage you and your readers to try Yugma, our web conferencing and collaboration service. We are completely focused on being extremely easy, inexpensive, and cross-platform compatible. In addition to having excellent service for Windows users, we’ve been getting great reviews for our ease of use and support for Mac users. We also recently launched support for Linux (8 versions supported). CNet recognized Yugma this year by selecting us as a finalist in its 2007 Webware 100 Awards.
Feature highlights:
- Extremely easy-to-use design
- Free service connects up to 10 people
- Premium services connect up to 500 people
- Real-time desktop sharing and collaboration
- Mouse and keyboard sharing
- Whiteboard and annotating tools
- Session recording and playback
- Real-time private and public chat
- Built-in file sharing
- Yugma can be embedded into any website or application
- No Spyware, Adware or Malware
It’s a snap to try Yugma. We currently offer 15 days of trial Premium Service, and our basic version is FREE forever. As you can see, the features and price are hard to beat! I hope you like what we’ve put together. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you. Just email us at info@yugma.com. Thanks!
Best regards,
Austin Sponsel
———
Yugma Marketing Team
www.yugma.com
I use Engage ThoughtWare's ThoughtTree application. ThoughtTree is a collaboration application that is far beyond anything I have seen before. Engage offers a free trial which is the best way to experience the software with your own work team. You can also get a discount for using this promotion code: E43278