Online Collaboration Tools

CliqMeet is a new browser-based collaboration, conferencing and webcasting platform supporting up to 250 attendees without requiring any installation and setup and while integrating:

• Whiteboard
• Presentation sharing
• Screen-sharing
• VoIP
• Video-conferencing
• Dial-up conferencing
• Unlimited recordings
• Text chat

The platform works right out of the box, and you can start your first collaboration session in an instant after landing on CliqMeet home page. Just type the name you want to give to your conferencing room and you are in. Signup is not required to run a meeting.

The interface is very simple and straightforward, and requires zero time to be learned. Swipe your mouse to the left side of the screen and you get all the extra controls you may need.

ClicqMeet offers one of the best solutions for running a webinar or an online event with hundreds of people and with zero configuration and running costs. The key advantage is its simplicity, ease of use and intuitive interface. (It works with the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox).

Definitely worth trying.

Free (ad-supported version).

Try it out now: https://www.cliqmeet.com/en-us

Pricing and features: https://www.cliqmeet.com/pricing

Slack is a real-time private team messaging platform that integrates file-sharing, notifications, searchable archives and information tagging.

You can easily create channels based on topics, tasks or teams that allow you to keep messages and information among team members tidy.

Slack is both browser-based as well as being available on all smartphones (iOS and Android).

Slack wants to be a full be replacement for internal team emails, making it much easier and faster to deal and access internal communications and files.

Fially Slack fully integrates with a wide number of cloud services including Dropbox, Google Drive, Asana and many other useful ones.

A free version allows unlimited users, 5GB of storage, 10,000 messages and up to 5 external app integrations.

The $9/mo plan moves up the limits to unlimited messages, 10GB storage, and unlimited external app integrations. The more expensive plans ($19-99/mo) offer more storage space, stats and better support among other features.

For more info: https://slack.com/ 

Tour: https://slack.com/is 

Gruveo is a secure and free web app which allows you to easily start a video-conference session with anyone without needing to register, download, install or login anything. 

To start a video session you simply input a numeric code (of three or more digits) of your choice on the Gruveo home page and then communicate that code to anyone you want to video call. That's it. Your computer and the other device will automatically create a direct connection allowing your video conversation to start instantly.

An excellent solution for instant video calls that require zero set-up time and which may benefit from secure encrypted communication and anonymity.

Free to use.

Try it out now: https://www.gruveo.com/ 

FAQ: https://www.gruveo.com/faq/ 

Kollaborate.io is a full-featured real-time collaboration app which allows you to instantly meet with customers, students or teammates without needing to login, install or download anything.

Kollaborate.io integrates video conferencing, VoIP, whiteboarding, document and image sharing, text chat, as well as the ability to auto-archive content and to easily invite other people into a meeting.

Whatever you load, resize or move on the collaboration desktop is also resized and repositioned for everyone else. Everyone sees the same thing.

One unique feature of Kollaborate.io is its clutter-free interface, which completely disappears in the background when it is not needed. 

Definitely worth a try.

Free version available.

Pro versions ($9.99 or $29.99/mo) provide ability to have private and password-protected meetings and with the more expensive plan, to access the archive and schedule meetings.

Pricing info here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/spa/782adzfe036gp2y/arsptu5j.png 

Try it out now: https://www.kollaborate.io/ 

*It's not clear from the web site information how many people are effectively supported in a conference, with or without video.

Sqwiggle is a new real-time collaboration platform which allows you to meet persistently and videoconference easily with your distributed team, as well as to have a group messaging stream that keeps you updated on everything happening.

Sqwiggle has been designed to be a persistent real-time collaboration tool, meaning, that it is ideally used to bring closer, as if they were side-by-side, teammates that work at different locations by remaining always-on and by making extremely easy to switch on the the audio-video communication.

This is why you can turn on Sqwiggle at 9am and switch it off when you go away, as it makes so easy for you to activate a video conversation with anyone of your teammates, while working at a distance.

My comment: I always thought that a persistent always-on collaboration space is the perfect way to work side-by-side when you have a distributed team, and so I wrote back in 2004 a short article entitled: Working side by side. It was 2004. Maybe I was a bit too ahead of my time. Sqwiggle may be much more in sync with the times than I was, and I would certainly recommend it to any team wanting to feel as if they were working at the same table.

N.B.: Sqwiggle comes both as a Mac app and a web-based service. 

Pricing info: https://www.sqwiggle.com/pricing ($9/user/month)

More info: https://www.sqwiggle.com/ 

Help: https://www.sqwiggle.com/help