subject: A Look At The Three Most Popular Types Of Online Collaboration Software [print this page] A Look At The Three Most Popular Types Of Online Collaboration Software
Online collaboration software is radically changing the way people do business. It is on the basis of this software that systems like business process outsourcing have become possible; bringing with them huge cost savings for businesses. And thanks to this collaborative software, it has become possible to do things that were previously unimaginable. Through the collaborative software, for instance, it becomes possible for people who thousands of miles apart (say someone in the United States and someone in Malaysia) to work together, in real time, on a project; as if they were in the same room. In a way, we can say that the online collaboration software is one of the things that have gone a long way towards cutting down geographical boundaries and limits; making the world the village' it is said to have turned into.
There are several forms of online collaborative software. We now proceed to look at the three which, on account of their widespread usage, would be termed as being the most popular.
1. Document sharing software: through this form of online collaboration software, it becomes possible for two or more people, in completely different parts of the world, to work on a single document as if they were in the same room. The document being worked on could be anything from a website write-up to a business plan and onto a product manualand anything in between. It is easy to take this kind of software for granted until one comes to think of the limits that would be there without it. Through innovative programs such as the Google Docs program, use of document sharing software has grown exponentially in the last few years.
2. Instant messaging software: this is what is also known as online chat' software. It is, arguably, the most widely used form of online collaboration software. Because of its convenience, and the fact that it is largely free of charge, we are even seeing people within the same offices (and often right on adjacent desks) using it for collaboration. Nowadays, it has become possible to integrate this software with a webcam feed; so that you can even see the person you are chatting with and hence be in a position to decipher the body language behind their various statements. Increasingly too, this software is coming with capacity for voice data so that it is not only text chats that are carried out, but also (virtually free) voice chats.
3. Web publishing software: a very commonly used example of this is the blogging software, through which many businesses are running their projects nowadays. The greatest attraction to this software is from the fact that conversation threads can be kept through it, with these threads also serving as project notes for the edification of all participants in the project in question. In actual fact, legend has it that the guy who invented blogger software did so accidentally, while attempting to develop an online collaborative software platform with blog software that was hence born going on to become the backbone of web 2.0 revolution. Worth noting also is the fact that web publishing software can do more than just for keeping project notes, and has also been used for scientific, legal, medical, political, business and all other imaginable forms of beneficial collaboration.
