Online Collaboration Tools - New Technologies And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Sep01 08

If you want to increase the effectiveness with which you collaborate with your geographically dispersed team-mates this new set of online collaboration tools should come in handy. Among the new collaboration tools I have selected for you this week: a co-browsing facility, a new way to plan and share events via IM or SMS, and a cool tool to share documents and let other people annotate them.

Photo credit: Joruba

Here all the web collaboration tools I have selected for you this week:

1. Screen2: Co-browse any webpage with other people while chatting with them
2. Zoho Share: Upload any document and let people annotate it for further sharing
3. ShiftSpace: Annotate and highlight webpages together
4. Anyvite: Create and share events with your friends via email, IM and SMS
5. Jabbify: Embed a text-chat on your site and interact with visitors
6. Twitly: Create groups with your Twitter friends and start posting messages
7. DukaDial: Call any US landline phone number for free
8. TorChat: Instant message with people through this USB portable client

 

 

 

1. Screen2
   
   Screen2 is a web based app that you can use to share your browsing sessions with anyone. Just enter someone's email, the website you want to start browsing and click: a pop-up window will come up, and you will be able to navigate any webpage being sure that the other person can see whatever you look at. Plus, you can also chat with viewers while browsing. Free to use, no registration needed.
   http://www.screen2.com/








2. Zoho Share
   
   Zoho Share is a document sharing service, part of the Zoho suite, that supports all Zoho's formats, PDF files, Microsoft Office's documents, and other popular formats. After you upload a document, up to 3MB of size, users can grade, flag and comment them easily. You can then embed all of your documents in a viewer and share them on any site. Free.
   https://share.zoho.com/








3. ShiftSpace
   
   ShiftSpace is a browser plugin, which works in Firefox thanks to Greasemonkey extension, that anyone can use to annotate and editing webpages with others. When you are on a webpage, with a click of a button you can enter notes, highlight text, add images, and even edit the HTML code of the page, and make these changes public to anyone else who has ShiftSpace. The service is free to use.
   http://www.shiftspace.org/








4. Anyvite
   
   Anyvite is an online tool that lets you create and share events with people. You can create events in less than a minute by entering a title, description, time and location, and invite people via directly email. Recipients can reply directly to the email, without visiting any page, and they can be updated of any change via IM or SMS as it happens. The service is free to use and requires registration.
   http://anyvite.com/








5. Jabbify
   
   Jabbify is a free text-chat system that you can embed on your site. With a simple HTML code, you can can embed a text-chat are that floats on the right bottom of your site, to let your visitors interact with you. You can monitor new incoming messages directly through Jabbify, or using a Jabber client like GoogleTalk or Spark. The chat area is fully customizable and the service is free to use.
   https://jabbify.com/








6. Twitly
   
   Twitly is a new service that lets you create groups on Twitter. All you need to do in order to create a group is to enter your Twitter credential and email: then, just enter a name for the group in the "create a new group" text box and add any person you want. Once a group if finished, you can start sending messages to the subscribers of that group, creating a sort of private message board. Free.
   http://www.twitly.com/








7. DukaDial
   
   DukaDial is an online service that enables you to make free calls to North America landline or mobile phones (the latter are not free). After a free registration, you can start making calls: just enter the other person's and your phone number, click start, and wait for your phone to ring. You will then be automatically connected, and you will be able to talk for free. Free to use.
   http://labs.jaduka.com/dukadial/






8. TorChat
   
   TorChat is a light-weight encrypted instant messaging software that can run from any USB drive on any operating system (Windows, Mac, or Linux). The interface is really simple, made of a clean contact list with basic status indicators. Soon, TorChat will also support file transfer, multi-chat, and other options. The service is obviously free to download and use.
   http://code.google.com/p/torchat/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi and Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on September 1st 2008 as "Online Collaboration Technologies - New Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Sept01 08"