Software for Collaboration

Everyone suddenly wants to collaborate! For some reason (I suspect it's related to the economy, though I haven't pinned down exactly how) my phone is ringing off the hook these days with people who want to talk about how software can help teams collaborate. This is a nebulous area - what people might mean by collaboration differs, and the software that might support them varies a lot on their goals - so we've been working a bit on breaking it down into the types of software that might help.

Here's our initial breakdown (with thanks to Hershey | Cause Communications, with whom we're working on a comparison of these software types).

For Informal Conversations and Presentations

• Conference Call: Multiple callers on one phone line (i.e. Freeconferencecall.com)
• Video Conferencing: Conference call with a video display component (i.e. WebEx or hardware solutions)
• Online Conferencing: Conference call with an online component, such as slides, documents, videos and/or demos (i.e GoToMeeting or WebEx)

For Information Sharing

• Email Discussion List: Email group that lets participants easily email everyone in the group (i.e. Electric Embers or Yahoo Groups)
• Existing Social Networking Sites: Online networking sites where users can create profiles and connect with others (i.e. Facebook or MySpace)
• Collaborative Documents: Users share and edit documents online, either in real-time or over time (i.e. Google Docs)
• Remote File Sharing Tools: Mechanisms to allow users to access and edit a pool of shared documents (i.e. Basecamp or Groove)
• Message Board: Online forums focused around questions and answers (i.e. vBulletin or phpBB)

Longer Term, Structured Collaborations

• Online Project Management Tool: Users share documents, calendars, tasks, and structured conversations (i.e. Basecamp, Central Desktop)
• Online Community: Users share profiles, documents, calendars, message boards, and more (i.e. Ning or KickApps)
• Wiki: Collaborative website, where all who can view can also edit (i.e. Confluence or MediaWiki)
• Blog Network: Community of linked blogs where users interact with posts and feedback (i.e.WordPress or TypePad)

What do you think? What have I missed?