Virtual Collaboration in the Workplace

The next revolution?

Posted for Rin C.

Have you seen or had a virtual world meeting experience? I tried second life and watched some demos from a couple of virtual worlds.  If you have not, see this VDO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8OAAFQaFiA and you may get some idea (it's about 10 min long). 
I think the Forttera user interface is much better than Second Life. Internet users or anyone who has some computer skill should not have much problem. It takes a while to memorize and become familiar with command buttons (i.e hold space for speak and ctrl-arrow key to move). You can teleport to any location in the "world". 
Do you think user interface is a serious issue to make virtual worlds useful? Is it only the problem with older generations? This article  says virtual worlds are the industrial revolution of our generation.

Dropbox: A handy tool

Posted for V. K.

I am starting to be a big fan of Dropbox, a Dropbox, a popular cloud-storage sharing service that is a great productivity tool when working with colleagues and clients in different locations, where you can synchronize different devices used by different people to share files.
Dropbox doesn't have to be limited to simply syncing your documents, photos, and music, however—with the proper setup you can completely synchronize your digital life across any PC.

Adding Social Content to Google Searches

Posted for Janice H.

I ran across this article  recently.  The article describes Google's Social Search feature that allows you to include content from friends into your Google search results. Google's Social Search uses your own lists of contacts from various services to build up a network, and then includes content specifically from the people you know. As an active user of Google Search this article caught my attention.  I have mixed feeling about Google’s Social Search.  Social Search seems interesting enough to tryout.  However, I’m not sure I want to weed through a lot of information from friends and family in my Google search results.

What are your thoughts on Google’s Social Search feature?  Do you think this a useful feature?   Would you use this feature?

Google Wave

By now, you’ve heard of Google Wave.  But unless you have a beta account, you are probably somewhat vague about what it is and how it is going to impact virtual collaboration in the workplace.   This Mashable post is the best short description of Wave I’ve seen.

Intervals

Posted for Zahra A.

There are a lot of collaboration tools around us,but we do not know which ones are good for us until we try them. While I was searching via Internet I found this article about a new software program tool called Intervals. It is a web-based project management software for web designers and developers and, as we all know these days, there is big competition between companies to produce the best tool for their clients...   According to this article, this tool has many features to help small businesses succeed.

Opera Unite

Posted for Leigh H.

In June, Opera, a company that makes a web browser also called Opera, released a brand new feature in their Labs section called Opera Unite. This feature allows users to run their own web server from their browser. The purpose is to allow users that either don’t have the technical skill to run a traditional web server or users that can’t put in the time and effort to run a traditional web server to easily share their content with others. Users do not have to run any other software besides Opera with Unite enabled to accomplish this and it works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and even some mobile phone operating systems.

HP Builds Collaboration Tool into workstations

Posted for Sally L.

Hewitt Packard announced that they were building collaborative tools into workstations which will provide video, application-sharing and 3-D graphics support into some of its workstation which will provide a very cost effective option to the high-definition conferencing market which is currently being offered at a much higher cost by companies such as Cisco who markets telepresence.

Online Office suites face off

InfoWorld has a review today comparing Google, Microsoft Live, and Zoho SAAS web office suites.   I hadn’t realized that Microsoft’s suite was mature enough already to review.   I do agree that Google Docs skates by a bit less impressive than the rest because it is a Google product.   Anyway, after the jump, their chart and some more remarks.

"KIS" method of webinars

Posted for Kyle F.The purpose of this blog is to create a discussion between the strengths of Keeping It Simple webinars and overwhelming 3D webinars.  Keeping it simple would be a very basic administrator giving an online presentation and phone link (in case someone can not hear sound on their computers) to users who have a simple web page to go to, sign on with 1 login and password for everyone and requires very little software downloads.  It should be a combination of web and phone but with very little 'features.'  Over the top can be anything to the imagination, even going so far as to have a personal 3D hologram (think Star Wars).   What is your feeling on where the industry should be?

Microsoft’s version on online collaboration via Microsoft Office Web Apps

Posted for Kimberly T-W

Microsoft continues to challenge the online collaboration competitors by offering its version of the well-renown desktop application, MS Office. Although its online version may lack in the complete functionality that currently resides in its desktop version, it seems that they are now implementing web applications that users can access, share and work on Office documents from virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. Have they finally realized that Google Docs, Zoho and others alike are growing faster and becoming more popular with business units offering similar functionality to its online consumers.