10 Free tools for collaboration - and another two dozen better recommendations

Came across a post today titled "10 Free Tools for Collaboration" at Stepcase Lifehack.  It's a decent list, but I do want to comment on all ten.  Read their post for their comments on the tools.  My comments follow the jump.
 

Ta-da list for making collaborative lists online.   
Decent, but simple.  If you want to create more complex lists - or make comments on your list items, consider using Wridea, also free. Wridea has much more upsdie potential than ta-da list, but is not as yet as established in the market place. Note that Ta-da list comes from 37signals, a Chicago-based company and it integrates well with other 37signals tools. There are lots of free list building tools equivalent to Ta-Da, but nothing else I've seen is a functional as Wridea.

TimeBridge and Mixin for scheduling appointments.
Solid tool, but my choice is AgreeADate. The reason I prefer AgreeADate is that I have not seen any other tools that schedules meetings the way I do. I can propose a bunch of meeting times, email them off, and then everyone responds to which ones they can make. I see the results in a nice matrix. I don't think TimeBridge does exactly this. But TimeBridge does have some nice connectivity to Outlook calendars and the like. You need to know exactly what your scheduling requirements are to pick out the correct tool here. There are a couple other good free tools in this catagory as well.

Mixin strikes me more as a social tool than a workplace tool. Personally, I have no interest in twittering my schedule to my workplace to help them schedule meetings with me. Maybe you do.

Campfire is a closed IM system for businesses.
This about business IM this way: You could use an open system like AIM or GoogleTalk. You could use a web-based closed system like Campfire. Or you could put up and host your own IM software (lots of open source options available - though none at the tip of my fingers.) It seems to me that if you are concerned about security, you want to host your own IM server and control everything that it is doing. You may even prefer to keep all chat behind your firewall. However, if security is less a concern for you, then why not simply use one of the open systems? This middle ground doesn't make sense to me. But if it does to you, then Campfire is a viable solution. My choice among free open systems is Skype. The IP Telephony people have a great chat interface and you can extend to audio or video at any time you like. There are Skype add-ons (some of them free as well) that provide more extensive collaborative functionality bundled with your chat. Skype chat is very well featured and is much more businesslike than AIM.

Google Docs and Writeboard for group writing and group spreadsheeting.
There are many tools in this category. Google Docs (almost Google Office as you can do spreadsheets and presentations as well) is very good, well supported, and only going to get better. Writeboard, like Ta-Da and Campfire is a 37signals tool. There are several other tools in this category. ThinkFree has the best user interface.  My favorite is Zoho Office, which features a suite of tools much larger than Google's suite.

Evernote is note taking software.
Evernote is new to me. It looks promising, but I see some shortcomings. It all depends on what you want to use notetaking software for. Evernote supports multimedia - and has a telephone client to grab data from there. It clips for other applications or from a website. But I see two significant downsides (or at least lack of features other products have.)

If your interest is in capturing research information (or citations), take a look at Diigo and Zotero. Both are Firefox addons that do this much better than Evernote does as they provide more structure. If you are interested in multidimensional free form open note taking, take a look at Zoho Notebook. Zoho Notebook is a free tool that resembles Microsoft OneNote. Great upside potention and, unlike Evernote, you can draw freehand in it as well as type.

Task2Gather for tracking shared tasks.
As their blog says, there are so many task list tools, you can't track them all.  37signals has a leading tool called Basecamp. T2G has a nice ajax feel to it, but the interface is confusing to me. For simple tools that have been around longer than T2G try Wrike, voo2do, GoPlan, or WhoDo.es. Also, Zoho Office has a project management tool. To be honest, I have no favorite here. For my projects, the overhead of managing a simple online PM tool is greater than the return I get from one. Your mileage may vary though.

MediaWiki for building wikis.
I have no idea why they chose mediawiki. I agree that it is the most mature wiki environment out there and that lots of people are familiar with the interface as it is used for Wikipedia. But it is not a simple nor intuitive interface. And, while there are some farms that host wikipedia, it is likely software you would install and maintain - a job beyond the scope of a computer novice.

So, if you are looking for a free hosted wiki, I recommend PBWiki. Their philosophy is that wikis should be as easy as peanut butter and jelly. I have no idea what that means, but I have been running several PBWikis for a couple of years now and am very happy with them.

Delicious for shared bookmarks
There are other choices out there, but in this category I agree: Delicious is the way to go. And the software has just been upgraded to a better user interface. Go ahead and try it. Make sure to install add-ons for your browser of choice to get the full value of Delicious. And feel free to add me to your network. I am "dmittleman"

WordPress for blogging
Like Mediawiki, Wordpress is mature and full-featured. I am unfamiliar with the recent collaboration extensions mentioned in the blog. I am part of a multi-authored Blogger blog, and find that environment works well.  I used TypePad for my class blogs - and have little trouble managing the multi-author components in them. I can't argue that WordPress is not better; I can argue that the other tools work pretty well. I always recommend Blogger to someone starting their first personal blog.

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Got comments on any of these tools, let us know what you think.

Comments

[Neal]

I've heard about most of the tools you are talking about. Task2Gather was a new one for me and I desided to take a look at their site. Well, if a site is the reflection of the tool, then the tool is not worth my attention. Why should I register just to find out a bit of infrmation about them? That's just rediculous! For me sites, like wrike.com work better. They don't have product video tutorials, but they have a product tour at least.

[Andrew Brown]

Skype and GoogleDocs are part of our business, however for both project management and wiki building we use ProjectOffice.net. It's free. Moreover, Task2Gather seems nice.

[Aditya Gholap]

I think some other tools for collaboration that can be used are:
1) Deskaway (http://www.deskaway.com) - their free version is pretty neat. They have a great module which has everything from options to create a project, determine its scope, create milestones, assign tasks, upload backup material, keep a scope for issues, keep a scope for contacts relevant to the project, make notes - everything u can think of.

2) Then there is also Google Apps which allows u to manage your mail, create wikis etc.

3) There is also SlideShare - that can be used to upload company PPT's online and share them internally.

[Zoaib Mirza]

From the list and names mentioned AIM, Skype and PBWiki have been used in my department. All three have proven to be easy and effective in its use. Currently faculty in School for New Learning use PBWiki to teach courses online. We started this couple of quarters ago and so far it has been successful. AIM and Skype is used amongst our staff members for departmental chats. It keeps us intact and in the loop for any major updates.

[Rhaquel Valencia]

I think google has great collaboration tools for groups work. A good alternative is to create a group blog and add a shared google calendar and googleDocs for the group to the blog. I wish this collaborative technology options could be used more often in companies for group projects. I'm dissapointed to use tools like Novell GroupWise were you feel limited in functionality and space.

[Konrad Klimek]

That is a good list of free collaborative tools. Google Docs has become an essential tool for storing, uploading, and editing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online. Having these files stored online and having the ability to alter and access those files anywhere with internet connection has really become useful for many professionals that travel while working. The world of wiki has boomed recently and there are so many out there now. I have never heard of wridea or delicious but these tools look very interesting and promising. There are so many collaborative tools that are in development or are new to the market. And many people will never use most of them.

[Zoaib Mirza]

There are many free collaborative tools but for someone to actually use it I think either it is through "word of mouth" or if it used at school or at work. I do not think that people in general would be encouraged to try out free tools in the market. Not everyone likes to spend a lot of time to explore free collaborative products as a hobby.