TigerText, a new iPhone app, is the kind of thing that might have saved (well, helped) Tiger Woods if it had been out earlier. TigerText lets you put a timed delete on all your text messages and voicemails. If Tiger had it last October, sext messages like send me something very naughty and I will wear you out soon would never have made it to the New York Post.

Messages deleted using TigerText disappear from the sender’s phone, the recipient’s phone, and the TigerText server on which the message is stored. You can also set the message to be deleted right after it is read, or delete your entire message history. The only caveat is that both the sender and the recipient need to have the TigerText installed on their iPhones.

TigerText costs $2.50/month–a screaming deal, I imagine, for a good number of philanderers.

While the apps below are good, expect to see many improvements from developers in the coming year.

25. Phonebook

Manage your contacts through this slick app, which lets you see missed calls, unread emails, text message, and upcoming birthdays by contact. Also lets you upload a photo of your contact. Handy if you have trouble keeping your contacts straight.

24. Sprite Android Backup

Image: Androidzoom

Prevention is the best medicine for system health. Back up and restore your system using this comprehensive $5 app.

23. Google Voice

Use a unique phone number for this VoIP service. It transcribes your voicemails, gives you free text messages, integrates with your phone’s address book, and offers cheap international calls. Like Skype, but Googlified.

22. Cab4Me

If you’re a business traveler, this free app, which finds cab companies near your GPS location, can help keep you out of a jam. Cab company listings include user reviews and contact information.

21. The Weather Channel

This handy app offers the kinds of in-depth forecasts you would expect from the Weather Channel. Features include live video. The app automatically updates your location through your phone’s GPS.

20. Astro File Manager

Image: HTCpedia

An app like Astro’s is essential for keeping your machine healthy. This free program keeps your files and system performance in check. It backs up your apps to a memory card, lets you see what processes are running, how much memory your systems is using, and CPU usage.

19. Stocks

App image not available.

This free app piggybacks on Google Finance data to show you quotes and trends. Covers markets around the world.

18. Talk to Me

An excellent travel survival tool. Say something in one language, and it talks back to you in another. Current languages include English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian. Best of all, it’s free.

17. Greed

Image: Droidapplications

Greed lets you read your RSS feeds without opening a browser. Stay up on news, blogs, and your industry quickly and easily.

16. TripIt

If you’re a frequent traveler, TripIt is your friend. It organizes flight, hotel, restaurant, and other itinerary information in an easy-to-read form. Also helps you find and contact places on the road through directions and contact info.

15. Currency

Currency converts more than 160 currencies using real-time foreign exchange rates. Comes with a tip calculator and, if you’re into forex trading, trends, charts, and news as well.

14. Seesmic

Possibly the best Droid app out there for Twitter users. Timelines organize your tweets; you can also save them as drafts and arrange notifications. There’s more. Seesmic is video and image-capable, shortens URLs, spellchecks, and supports multiple accounts.

13. Key Ring

Scan your gym, grocery store, or other membership card into your Droid. Key Ring stores each card’s barcode in a drop-down menu. Scan the barcode directly from your Droid the next time you go shopping or do any other activities requiring a card.

12. VNC Viewer

Stay leashed to your desktop with this handy app. It lets you safely log in and connect to a remote machine, so that you can make easy little changes without actually storing anything on your smartphone.

11. Google Maps Navigation

Possibly the best map app out there. Search by talking to the app. Or enter a landmark, business name, or other vague criteria, and Google Maps will generate results. Includes live traffic data, satellite view, street view, and turn-by-turn navigation. This app comes with Droid 1.6 models and higher.

10. Cashbook

Image for Droid not available. This Cashbook for iPhone image is from Appolicious.

This expense tracker lets you easily enter and track your business expenses. It also tracks your weekly and monthly balance. Comes with password protection.

9. ActionComplete

If GTD (Getting Things Done) and the Four Quadrants of time management are part of your daily vocabulary, ActionComplete is made for you. It’s a project management-style to-do list app, which lets you group tasks into actions, schedule actions to be taken by others, prioritize projects, tag actions, set reminders, and more. Bonus: It’s free.

8. MightyMeeting

MightyMeeting acts like a remote control for your PowerPoint presentations. Upload your presentations to MightyMeeting, tag them for easy retrieval, and deliver your presentations through your Droid. You can invite others to see your presentation and edit it, too.

7. Astrid

This clean, easy-to-use to do list is a classic. Astrid, which is free, offers you reminders, checklists, tagging, and priority setting functions. You can backup your lists to RemembertheMilk.com, a free online to-do list application.

6. Spreadsheet

This versatile, XLS-compatible spreadsheet gives you 100 spreadsheet functions. They include searching, sorting, and formatting. You can also view, edit, and send attachments through other applications like Gmail.

5. AK Notepad

Take notes on your smartphone, make to-do lists, and put up reminder alarms with this easy-to-use notepad. You can email or SMS your note, as well as search notes by title. Simple, fast, and often indispensable.

4. mShare

mShare is where FTP and chat meet mobile. The app lets you transfer or exchange files to and from your computer and other mobile devices. It also works for any size file, as well as contacts and data storage.

3. GDocs

GDocs lets you take your Google docs anywhere. Create or upload your documents on Google Docs, then review them in micro format on your Droid phone.

2. Documents to Go

View and edit your Microsoft Office documents, PowerPoint included, through this $30 app, which also does PDF. The free version will do Word and Excel only.

1. Locale

This smart app uses GPS, WiFi, and cell signal to adjust your phone settings based on where you are, and when. It will automatically turn itself off in meetings and movies, remind you to charge the phone when battery runs low, and more. There’s no better way to have your phone take care of itself.

Dutch developers have created PleaseRobMe, a site that posts the locations of empty homes, based on information from real-time location site FourSquare. The BBC has the story:

The Dutch developers told BBC News the site was designed to prove a point about the dangers of sharing precise location information on the internet. The site scrutinises players of online game Foursquare, which is based on a person’s location in the real world. PleaseRobMe extracts information from players who have chosen to post their whereabouts automatically onto Twitter.

Mr Van Amstel added that in practice it would be “very difficult” to use the information on the website to carry out a burglary.

Sure makes updating your location less fun. Also, if someone actually does get robbed through this site, aren’t the developers kind of responsible? I’m not sure how anyone in the States would sue two guys in Holland, but the potential is there.

In recent years, several promising applications have begun to redefine Web search. One hot niche, if you will, is niche search. Although niche search engines like Technorati have been around for some time, a deluge of new search sites continue to refine the field.

From purses to podcasts, developers have built an engine to cover almost every category of product and service available. When you conduct a search on a niche search engine, you can find exactly what you’re looking for in a matter of seconds. Many such engines verify the quality of their results and pull from a variety of different sources, offering a one-stop shop for the niche you’re interested in. Sure beats sifting through hundreds of irrelevant or bogus results to find what you need.

Consumers clearly stand to gain from specialized results. But how can these smaller, targeted search engines benefit your business? In several ways:

They help people see your product or service.
If you have a website selling a product or service, a high rank on the right niche search engine can generate a lot of traffic. This is especially if the niche search engine in question is indexed by Google. For example, say you’re selling New Orleans Saints T-shirts. If you google the term, result #3 is a T-shirt from a niche search engines (Teenormous). If you have a high ranking on Teenormous, a T-shirt search engine, you have a vicarious high ranking on Google.

If you’ve ever tried fruitlessly to land on the first page of Google, or tried to advertise on a big search engine to make up for those low rankings, focusing on your niche presence could be much easier.

They make your ads more powerful.
Niche search engines target a predefined audience. If you advertise online, think of the benefit this may have for your conversions. Niche search engines target a predefined audience. You know who that audience is, so you can target your ads more effectively. If you’re a purse boutique, for example, running a Google AdWords ad on “purse” might land you a page 5 spot. If you target your ad to a niche search engine like the Trendy Purse, however, you’ll be more visible and more relevant.

They help you define your market’s competitive landscape.
A niche search engine can help you find who you’re competing against, and fast. Say you own a cafe in LA’s San Fernando Valley. A niche search engine like Goby will help you see exactly who else is out there, as well as what events they’re hosting today or this week. Niche search engines help take the guesswork out of your market.

If you haven’t incorporated niche search engines as a part of your overall marketing strategy, it might be time to start. Compilations like this one offer a good launching point.

Bill Gates decided to join Twitter yesterday morning. 8 hours later, he had 100,000 followers. That’s a heck of a personal brand (from Mashable):

Eight hours ago, Microsoft founder Bill Gates joined Twitter. Five hours ago, Twitter’s Caroline Mizumoto tweeted about it. And moments ago, @BillGates broke 100,000 Twitter followers.

Welcome to the Twitterverse, Bill Gates.

Gates’ first tweet: “‘Hello World.’ Hard at work on my foundation letter — publishing on 1/25.”

Find him @BillGates.

Apple and Microsoft are discussing making Bing the default search engine on the iPhone, according to Businessweek:

The talks have been under way for weeks, say the people (close to the matter), who asked not to be named because the details have not been made public. The discussions could still unravel and may not be concluded quickly. Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw and Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton declined to comment.

“Apple and Google know the other is their primary enemy,” says one of the people, who’s familiar with Apple’s thinking. “Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle.”

Apple also has its own mobile search platform in the works, according to the article. By using Bing as the default, the company might just be buying itself time–and slowing down Google–until its own product releases.

Personally, I’d remove Bing as soon as I found it on my iPhone. I wonder whether Apple is considering adding Bing to its menu of search choices, rather than making it a default installation. The latter would just be too Microsoft in nature.

Desktop software may soon be a thing of the past. This is especially true in collaboration applications–the kind project managers and work groups use. Web-based solutions from SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers are quickly replacing networked office servers. The reasons are compelling. To name a few:

* Secure, remote access from anywhere with an Internet connection
* Lower software costs
* Little to no setup costs
* No need for technicians to setup
* No long-term commitments
* Centralization
* Compatible with any operating system
* No updating
* No patching
* No backing up
* Add new users instantly
* No computer dependence

What are My Options?

Ready to try a web-based approach? You have a boatload of options. To give you an idea of what’s out there, we’ve reviewed ten of the best applications available. Some of these applications are best suited for project managers. Others are for more generalized corporations. Still others are best for big business. Pick the one that best suits your needs–and try before you buy.

10. Socialcast

Features:

* Microblogging
* Group creation
* Company social network
* File attaching
* Email integration
* RSS feeds

Pros:

* Creative setup process
* Clean, simple interface
* Very easy to use
* Well-executed microblogging
* Desktop, mobile clients
* API

Cons:

* Extremely limited functionality
* Not much business use
* Could be less productive to use
* No outsider integration

Overview:

Socialcast is dubbed a “microblogging” application. The homepage has a non-traditional, in-your-face design. Socialcast makes it easy to navigate through their homepage to discover everything their software can offer. Instead of wasting time reading, I simply enter my work email address, press one button, and my private network is created. (If someone already created a network for your business, you’ll join it after confirming your email address.)

I follow a link to my network via email. Next, I have to enter my personal and work information, as well as optionally invite other users I work with, below, for, etc. This helps to easily create an organized network within your company. After finishing these quick steps, I have the option to download their desktop client (Adobe AIR; pretty neat).

Upon entering the application for the first time, I’m greeted with a very airy, open interface that reminds me strongly of the iTunes layout (wonder if that was on purpose). I’m hit with two assumptions right away. One, as they obviously stated, this application is completely microblogging/Twitter-centric. Secondly, it doesn’t seem like this does much more than that.

While there is detailed profile information, social aspects, groups, etc, I don’t see any features that are really business-focused. That makes me think. Why would I want this in my business? Yes, it does act as a much better communication tool as opposed to email. But it doesn’t seem like its aim is to do that because it floods your inbox with updates for every possible action (option to disable). And if you’re going to introduce a communication tool for your business, why not have the functionality to handle tasks, events, wikis, organized files, project collaboration, CRM, etc.?

I continued to spend some more time using this application but simply couldn’t find anything else to do with it. If you’re looking for a real bare-bones way to communicate in your office, then maybe this could work for you. This “basic” service (vs. the enterprise package) is free and available to an unlimited amount of users. I would recommend testing out a few others before really committing your time and resources to an application as bland as this.

Price:

Free for basic use (unlimited users). Must call for the enterprise pricing.

Reviews:

* AppAppeal: Socialcast Review
* Socialcast is FriendFeed for your business

9. Zoho Projects

Features:

* Task lists
* Overviews of task dependency
* Project milestones
* Streaming project activities and status messages
* Calendar
* Folders
* Integrated with Zoho Office
* Forum discussions
* Wikis
* Chat rooms
* Project reports (Gantt charts)
* Timesheets
* Integrated with Zoho Invoice
* RSS
* SSL support

Pros
* Great features for project managers
* Good, detailed task lists
* Strong calendar feature
* Milestones
* Gantt charts
* Good for small businesses or contractors
* Invoicing
* Pretty useful for a free software

Cons
* Not very organized or intuitive UI
* Interface isn’t that pretty
* Not very customizable

Overview:

Zoho Projects’ homepage is busy and kind of cluttered. This is a theme that continues into the application itself. After choosing a username and password, you enter the URL you want to use for your project. Before getting to the main dashboard, you create your project name and description. Add client names and users on that first page.

Now your dashboard appears. There’s a big profile picture of you (anonymous until you enter a real image) on the left hand side. On this page, you can update your own status and read the status updates of others. The updates are intuitive, saying what you did in a short sentence. I did notice that the system was a little slow when I made changes.

Besides your dashboard, there are 10 tabs. They are: Tasks & Milestones, Calendar, Meetings, Documents, Timesheet, Reports, Forums, Wiki, Chat, and Users. Initially, it looks like a lot of features are haphazardly put together. In the free version we tried, you can’t pick and choose which features to display on your dashboard. It would be nice to customize the clutter out of this setup, but you can’t. Here are some of the highlights:

Tasks & Milestones: When you enter a new milestone, you can flag it to choose whether to make the milestone internal (private) or external (visible to other users). Task lists are similar, with advanced options like start/end date, priority (none to high), and % completed (from a dropdown menu). You can reorder, delete, or copy the tasks once they’re on your list.

The calendar is customizable–it will show tasks, milestones, and/or meetings based on your selections. The meetings section is pretty basic, but does include repeats and participants. The Documents page lets you share documents. I didn’t test it, because I was using the free version. According to the Zoho Project demo, you can store and organize your files in a central area. The system is compatible with ZohoDocs and Google docs. It includes version management, tags, and folders. The program also lets you preview images, add links, and notify users of updates.

Timesheets also aren’t included in the free version. Here’s what the demo says. You can go to a date on your calendar, click on a timesheet icon, and enter tasks, duration, and billable/non-billable on the right sidebar that appears. If you want, set a timer to automatically log your time. You click on the timer to start and stop it, then your time automatically records on your calendar. Finally, you can create an invoice from timesheet from “Create Invoice” link. That’s a perfect feature for contractors or small business owners working with remote vendors or clients.

The Reports section automatically generates a Gantt chart based on your open tasks. You can customize your chart and upload statistics by user or folder. The Forums page lets you build your own forum, by project. The wiki sums up your changes to the pages in your project. It would be nice if the wiki were more customizable. Next comes the Chat page, featuring a pretty basic chat window that allows you to send files, too.

Onto the Users section. List users here, either as project or client users. At the right, there are settings, support, and help tabs. In settings, there are two tabs: General Settings and Company Profile. In general settings, you enter your own name, nickname, job title, and phone numbers. In company profile, you enter your company’s website, address, timezone, and name. Finally, in Setting, you adjust your task lists and templates.

Overall, there’s a tendency for the same function to appear in more than one place, making the UI a bit unintuitive. It’s hard to get used to. Also, if you navigate into your profile, you get a whole different profile menu. It’s not your dashboard. When I did this, it took me a few tries to even figure out where my dashboard went and how to get back to it. Also, things aren’t very customizable—take it as it comes.

The chat, invoicing, and forum features make this application great for small businesses and independent contractors, especially those working remotely. The Gantt charts, milestones, and a few other features make it good for project managers, too. If they fixed the bulky interface, it would make a big difference.

Pricing:
* Free version for one project only.
* Standard $12/month
* Express $20/month
* Premium: $35/month
* Enterprise: $80/month

Reviews:
* TechCrunch: ZohoProjects challenges Basecamp on project management
* SmallBizTrends: Review of Zoho Projects: Project Management Tool
* CIO: Kiss Microsoft Office Goodbye: Three Alternatives to Office 2010

8. PBWorks

Features:

* Collaborative page editing
* Audit trail / activity feeds
* Document management
* Projects
* In-depth security and permission options
* Versions for different businesses
* Tagging / folders
* Search
* Real-time collaboration

Pros:

* Massive customer base
* Sleek, rich interface
* API
* High-end customization

Cons:

* Confusing to learn
* Expensive
* Seems geared to big businesses / enterprises

Overview:

PBWorks originally started out as PBWiki, strictly a hosted wiki service for businesses. Now, they’ve made the leap into full business and enterprise collaboration services.

Their company website features a minimalistic, sleek design. Things got more confusing once I found that there are editions for personal use, business use, academic use, legal use, and so on. It’s assuring to know that they offer these custom solutions to make their applications a better fit, but it might be a little intimidating if you’re just a typical small business looking for an app. The features page seems to be missing some detail as it doesn’t really explain what you’re getting in a straight-forward manner.

The only thing I found about pricing or packages was that it’s $20/user per month. But there’s a big ‘Free Trial’ button…let’s check that out. After completing the first page about myself and my business, I’m given the option to have a rep call me and walk through their business edition with a custom demo (30-40 minute long call), or simply go to the free trial. Free trial it is. After finishing the registration, they remind me that my “PBWorks network is made up of workspaces, a collection of documents about a specific topic, like a project (I’m) working on. Each workspace contains pages. Create and edit workspace pages to store content about the topic (I’m) working on.”

The application interface has a very sleek, simple design to it, which I like. A quick browse of the settings shows some in-depth customization abilities, as well as information about some real-time collaboration tools they offer. I also notice the widget at the bottom where you can open a live chat at any time. Very nice.

I enter the free trial workspace they created for me to get an idea of what this application really does. Again, the interface is beautiful but there’s a problem. I’m confused and intimidated. I don’t know where to start. There are 27 sections and even more buttons. At this point, I’m not sure what creating a “Page” even does. I finally find a button to start a project, but I’m not sure if that’s part of this workspace, or part of this page, or where it really belongs.

Clearly, this application is powerful. It’s loaded with features and widgets. But it’s confusing at first. Perhaps a video or documentation would have given me the clarity I needed to use this in the first place.

Maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t like the segregated workspace/page system. I know this review didn’t explain much but I couldn’t come up with much myself without doing serious homework. I would suggest running through the free trial yourself or watching some of their videos.

Price:

$20 a user per month? Not much pricing information included on the site.

Reviews:

* Looking for an alternative to Basecamp: review of PBworks Project Edition
* AppAppeal: PBWorks Review

7. Onehub

Features:

* Folders / Tagging
* Comments and tags
* Previews
* Shared calendar
* Task list
* Wikis with rich text editing
* Multimedia file storage and hosting
* Customization and branding for emails and workspaces
* FTP / email integration
* Search
* RSS

Pros
* Fast
* Intuitive, simple interface
* Very customizable, using widgets
* Lots of private/public settings
* Lots of personal attention from staff after you sign up
* FTP access is flexible, useful, and fast
* Good customer service

Cons
* Annoying activities updates
* Search could be better
* Limited functions—not great for project managers

Overview:

Onehub’s homepage is clean and relatively intuitive. But the standout design of Onehub’s “Hub” system doesn’t become apparent until you log in.

Signing up is really easy. Fill in your time zone, confirm your Web address, and customize your Hubs (workspaces). You customize by choosing a color scheme, giving it a name, and branding your Hub with your company’s logo. This is the first of several touches that makes Onehub ultra-customizable.

The dashboard interface is clean and simple. There are four tabs: Files, Tasks, Calendar, and Comments. Farther away from those tabs, there are four more tabs: Share, Notify, Manage, and Design & Add Widgets.

The first page on your dashboard is called Files. It gives you the option to upload, download, copy, or move files. You can also create folders. The file I tested uploaded almost instantly. The fact that you have to press the Upload button twice to get your file uploaded is one of the system’s more unintuitive design features. Also, moving files is a little cumbersome. You have to select from various menus. Drag/drop would be easier.

Adding a new task to the Tasks page is easy and intuitive, and lets you add tags to each task. Once you submit your task, it appears on your calendar, which offers a month, week, or day view. It’s also very easy to add tasks to your calendar. After testing the files, tasks, and calendar feature, I became annoyed by the activity updates that appeared every time I made a change. They show up on the right hand side of every page. They’re too detailed, in my opinion. Here’s an example of one:

Betty Smith added the comment “commenting back” to the Comments Comments Widget within the Betty Smith Project Hub.

Now imagine ten of those. It would be nice to be able to customize your recent activity so that you can sort by or show things that are relevant, rather than every single detail. The comments area is also unintuitive. I can only see it working if you custom-design it onto another page–which, as you’ll see later, you can do. Finally, I wasn’t impressed with the search feature. When I tested it, it didn’t find any of my tags. It also didn’t find the text of my comments.

Next, let’s navigate to the tabs on the top left of the page: Share, Notify, Manage, and Design & Add Widgets. The “share” function lets you invite more users. This function isn’t synced up with any email providers, so you have to enter each user manually. It takes some time. The invitations, however, get sent instantly, reaffirming that Onehub is fast. The Notify function, on another page, notifies users of updates by email.

Next is the Manage page. It contains a count of how many items you’ve shared, how many you’ve recycled, and how much storage you’re using. It also contains your settings area. In settings, you can select whether to have enhanced security (https) on your page or not. You can set public access for your hub—whether the public can see it or not—and add an expiration date for that access. There’s also a right-hand sidebar where you can perform a series of actions. These include email notifications, a history of activities in each of your Hubs, tweaking your color scheme/branding, FTP settings, privacy settings, and deleting Hubs and items from your recycling bin.

Finally, let’s navigate to the Design & Add Widgets page. It lets you customize each page or Hub using widgets. These widgets are amazing, and a real strength of the UI. All the features mentioned above—calendar, tasks, etc.—you can mix and match into a Hub, depending on what you want. You can also customize the pages themselves, so that your calendar only appears as a right sidebar on your Tasks page, you don’t have a comments page at all, etc. You can pretty much create a custom experience based on simple functions. It’s really easy to design and add widgets. This was my favorite part of the Onehub experience.

After I signed up, I received three personal emails from Onehub staff. This could be a nice personal touch, or annoying, depending on how you see it. I appreciate good customer service; these guys made it pretty clear that they wanted you to have a good experience with Onehub.

Overall, Onehub’s interface is easy to navigate and highly functional. This makes it good for general collaboration projects. But simple is the catchphrase here. If you need more advanced or project manager-specific software, look elsewhere.

Pricing:

* Personal: $24/month
* Basic: $49/month
* Team: $99/month
* Professional: $249/month
* Enterprise: $499/month

Reviews:
* Practical ECommerce: OneHub Enables Virtual Collaboration
* ReadWriteWeb: Onehub Makes FTP Simple, Straightforward, and Sexy
* Marketing Tech Blog: A Masterpiece in Usability and Design: Onehub

6. CentralDesktop

Features:

* Collaborative workspaces
* Conferencing
* Wikis
* Blogs
* Project management
* Database creation
* Audit trails
* File storage
* Document management
* Search
* Online document collaboration/editing
* Reporting
* Forums
* Calendars
* Task management

Pros:

* Epic customization
* Massive customer base
* Very full-featured
* Tons of helpful information & videos

Cons:

* Intimidating interface
* Seems geared to large corporations
* Confusing/expensive pricing
* No custom URL

Overview:

CentralDesktop is a big player in the collaboration space, creating collaboration apps since 2005. Like Socialcast, CentralDesktop’s homepage is loaded with information. They have an impressive customer list that highlights companies like Oracle and Amtrak. You get a sense that this is geared for big players. After some more investigating, I find three editions: Workgroup (SMB), Enterprise (50+ employees), and Community (non-profits, etc). Each come with different prices and features. It looks like they follow the “workspace” model as well.

Signing up for the Workgroup edition was relatively painless. Your software is ready to go instantly, just like the others. You’re met with a not-so-attractive starter interface asking whether you want start with a workspace or a conference. And we’re told that:

“Workspaces are ideal for: Project Management, Creating Team or Department Intranets, Sharing Documents, Files and Calendars. Web Meeting Benefits: Collaborate with Customers, Partners and Vendors, Reduce Travel Expenses, Provide Personalized Technical Support.”

So we’ll make a workspace. Let me digress for a minute. I have a problem with “workspace”-dependent applications. Providers base their pricing models on how many workspaces you have. Say you’re paying for 10 workspaces. You complete 10 projects and now have to create 10 more. You’re faced with the choice of either deleting your completed projects or paying more money. That seems like a petty attempt to squeeze more money from customers. Isn’t the whole point of web-based collaborative software to store everything on one central location?

Enough ranting. Back to my workspace. I’m given a bunch of options, the important ones being workspace type: Project Management, Wiki, Database, Blog, Forum, or Custom.

I’ll try a project management interface first. It is ugly and looks pretty pre-Web 2.0. The interface includes the typical files, tasks, calendars, announcements, time tracking, milestones, etc. Without diving too deeply into things, it looks like it would be very suitable to handle a collaborative project.

Before deleting this project so I can test out other features, I take a look at the project settings. Jeez. While there are close to a thousand settings and options, which is extremely useful, it’s just plain daunting to look at. Customization is great, and these guys left nothing out. A friendlier way of presenting you with options and settings would be nice. Now…how do I delete this project so I can move on?

For the last test, I create a workspace type “Database.” It’s taken a little while to make it through the process, but I see some useful features here. I can import spreadsheets, use a pre-defined template (contact directory, product catalog, asset tracker, etc), or even create my own database from scratch. I tried out a basic contact directory. It’s up and running in a second, and serves its function perfectly.

I haven’t even begun to test the depth of this application. It seems equipped to handle just about anything you throw at it. It will, however, take a while to get things configured and working how you want them. I think they might offer pre-configured setups, but you’ll have to toy around before you can really fulfill your needs.

This application seems geared towards very large companies and enterprises. It’s great software. They claim it works for everyone, though. If you’re just looking for a centralized solution for ordinary business-related features, this might be too much.

Price:

* Workgroup: Free to $99/month
* Enterprise: $10/user per month
* Community: $3/user per month

Reviews:

* App Gap: Central Desktop Provides Wiki-based Collaborative Platform
* Central Desktop: Quick, Convenient Collaboration
* Rolling Review: Central Desktop’s Service Eases Collaboration

5. SocialText

Features:

* Social networking
* Wiki workspaces
* Dashboard
* Collaborative blogging
* Microblogging
* Desktop/Mobile application
* “Connectors”

Pros:

* Large, well-established company
* Powerful, quick interface
* Strong communication features
* Desktop & mobile applications
* Developer-friendly
* Strong project management (workspaces)

Cons:

* Very difficult to understand
* Training required
* Doesn’t fulfill overall “business” software requirements
* Expensive

Overview:

SocialText is a well-established and well-known player in the business collaboration space who takes credit for coining “Enterprise 2.0″. They offer a few different software solutions for businesses and enterprises, all priced differently (see pricing below). I used their “Free 50 Hosted Service” in this review.

SocialText’s homepage, at first impression, is confusing. The pages are loaded with explanations, features, case studies, options, and other clutter. This is intimidating at first, especially for a small business looking for a simple solution. Your first assumption could be that they are only targeting large enterprises (which might be the case).

If you navigate through the clutter, you can see that it is simple and quick to sign up for their “free 50″ service. With an account created, after confirming your email address, you come to a user dashboard (seen above). Other employees or team members can join the private network by registering with an email address from the same domain.

The interface is well-designed and responsive. The fonts and organization, however, make things hard to decipher. SocialText uses a similar organizational system to some of the other applications covered in this review. From what I can understand, you create ‘workspaces’ which serve as sections, or projects.

Thirty minutes later, I still can’t capture what I’m supposed to be using this service for. The application seems to have a social base to it. I was, after all, greeted with an activity feed and the ability to microblog. But I don’t see any ability to enter the basic business stuff, like CRM-related information. I can’t even see where to create tasks, events, or upload files.

This application appears powerful, but must require thorough training. I’m left with thinking this service is most likely strong if you need to collaborate on projects or large tasks. I could be wrong about my analysis. Then again, if after 30 minutes you’re still confused, there’s a problem.

Price: “Free 50 Hosted Service” – basic functionality, hosted, free for up to 50 users. “Social Software Hosted Service” – $6/user per month with a minimum of 50 users, features more advanced functionality. On-site application ‘Microblogging’ software is $1/user per month plus $1,000 per month server charge. On-site application ‘Social’ software is $6/user per month plus $1,000 per month server charge.

Reviews:

* CMSWire: Socialtext Offers Free Hosted Social Networking, Social Spreadsheet
* InformationWeek: Web 2.0 Collaboration Rolling Review: Socialtext
* AppAppeal: SocialText Review

4. WizeHive

Features:

* Workspace-style organization
* Interface customization
* Activity tracking
* File sharing
* Tasks & Projects
* Email integration
* Calendars
* Desktop client
* Developer API

Pros:

* Automated organizational structure
* Rapid, easy-to-use interface
* API
* Email integration
* Clear activity tracking
* Inexpensive

Cons:

* Slightly confusing workflow
* Aesthetically unpleasant
* Lack of general socialization
* No custom URL

Overview:

WizeHive has a great homepage, refreshing to visit after having to scroll through hundreds of pages of content on SocialText’s site. Their site outlines exactly what WizeHive does and why you should start using it. Signing up is also a breeze. They offer a free service, but it’s quite limited for business use.

I quickly set up an account/network. Now I land into my first “workspace”. From what I can comprehend, you create a workspace for a team or department or major project, and then you create pages within the workspace to act as sub-sections. The interface is far from aesthetically pleasing, but it’s well organized, easy to read, and very fast. I would easily trade organization and functionality for flashy graphics any time (right, Google?).

The workspace and paging system keep work organized and allow for effective collaboration. Each workspace opens with an activity feed to keep users apprised of all the recent activity. They also have sections where you can manage tasks, upload files, manage your calendar, and add links and users.

While the workspace system keeps things organized, I feel a sense of segregation. Yes, you can be part of multiple workspaces, but things feel very departmentalized. What if I just want to create a general task or track events on a calendar? What if I want to see what work Joe, my sales guy, is working on? Sometimes the needs of a business aren’t always so cut-and-dry. You might want to simply upload a batch of commonly-needed documents. I’m also missing the sort of freestyle communication and socialization that other applications offer.

Overall, the organization is handled well. The application features an intuitiveness that SocialText misses. I would recommend testing this service out for a while before really committing to it, to ensure its functionality suits your needs.

Price: Free to $39 per month (Enterprise plan pricing not listed on the site). Packages are based on ‘workspaces’ and memory, not users, as well as a handful of advanced features.

Reviews:

* AppVita: WizeHive – Collaborate Online
* WWD: WizeHive Upgrades to Compete in the Crowded Project Management Arena
* CMSWire: Wizehive Socially Tackles SMB Doc Collaboration

3. CubeTree

Features:

* Micro-blogging, status updates
* Profiles and social information
* Wikis
* Task management
* File uploads
* Blogging
* Groups
* Polls
* Photo sharing
* Tagging, searching, filtering
* Multiple clients
* RSS feeds

Pros:

* Very easy to use and get started with
* Clean, simple, responsive interface
* Inexpensive
* Developer API
* RSS feeds
* Web, desktop, mobile clients
* Effective intra-office communications

Cons:

* A little too much “social network”
* Lacking business features like CRM
* No custom URL

Overview:

CubeTree open its doors in 2008 to embrace the integration of Facebook and Twitter-like tools into the enterprise. They did a good job. Starting with the CubeTree home page, things look clean and simple.

The application itself offers a Twitter-like interface. You’re greeted with a clean, responsive, unintimidating interface. Aside from a small menu filled with ‘Getting Started’ links, which point to some basic functionality such as uploading a document and editing your profile, the home page hides many of CubeTree’s main features. The software is modeled on the microblogging and activity feed concept. You have to ‘follow’ your coworkers to connect with them.

Your ‘Profile’ page looks like the most useful hub. The sidebar contains links to add blog posts, wiki pages, tasks, uploads, polls, and several other features. Each content section is linked at the bottom, keeping things organized. You add and edit easily, by filling out a few simple fields. The simplistic interface gets a little confusing when you’re browsing sections such as “Tasks,” however. The lack of design makes it hard to separate the content and controls.

CubeTree also brings the ability to create groups for any purpose. You can input lots of details about your company, its organization, information, and your personal profile and information. This all comes together to create a complete social, interactive community for your company.

Is it useful enough to adopt into your business? You be the judge. Collaborative tools most often try to eliminate email as the main form of communication. Cubetree does a good job or providing a much more effective communication tool.

Price: Free to $5 per user per month. Three packages available, each with different features, tracking ability, and storage space allotments.

Reviews:

* TechCrunch: CubeTree Launches As A Facebook + FriendFeed + Twitter For Enterprise
* AppAppeal: CubeTree Review
* CMSWire: CubeTree – Social Networking for the Enterprise

2. Basecamp

Features:

* Powerful project management
* Client integration
* Comprehensive dashboard
* In-depth user permissions and visibility controls
* To-do lists
* File sharing
* Chat
* Data export
* Message boards
* Milestones
* Time tracking

Pros:

* Customizable interface design
* Data exporting
* Developer API
* Third-party integration
* Mobile support & applications
* Massive customer base

Cons:

* Lack of functionality outside of project management
* Bland design

Overview:

Brought to your by 37signals, Basecamp is probably the most widely-used project management application on the Internet. They claim to have over 3 million users, 1 thousand companies registering weekly, and a number of major corporations as clients. The company also offers 3 other collaborative web applications: Backpack (office intranet), Highrise (CRM), and Campfire (real-time chat).

I understand that 90% of clients probably would only want one, or maybe two, of these applications, but why not also offer a combination of them all to businesses that want a complete collaborative platform? It seems that the applications can integrate, but who wants to register for 4 services, then go through the trouble of setting them all up?

Back to Basecamp. Sign up is a breeze, especially for the free package. You’re brought to your dashboard, which features a helpful ‘Getting Started’ video, options to customize the interface, and links to all of your sections.

The interface is plain, but also easy to navigate. As I mentioned earlier about WizeHive, functionality means more than aesthetics. The settings section gives you lots of options to customize the look and feel of the application.

Next, I enter the “People” section. Here, I can add companies and the contacts that are associated with them. This could serve as a basic CRM system, but isn’t intended to. It enables you to connect other people/users with projects. This keep things organized and allows outsiders to collaborate on the projects that belong to them.

After adding companies/clients into the system, I create a project. I have the option of keeping the project internal or attaching a company/client to it. Upon entering my new project, I come across the project’s dashboard. It contains an overview of all of the project information, including new messages, to-do lists, milestones, and other tools. Projects also have dedicated whiteboards and chat rooms.

Adding new messages, to-do lists, and other new items is fast and simple. Every item has intuitive options such as user visibility, notifications, email alerts, and assignments. Aside from individual items, projects also have great permission controls. And to wrap up the main feature highlights, Basecamp offers effective project-level or global searching.

This application is nearly perfect for project management. It is intended for project management, but this roundup is for general business collaboration. While the other applications can’t handle projects nearly as well, they can handle basic project-related needs (tasks, events, wikis, blogs, chat, etc). If you’re a project manager, go for Basecamp. If you’re looking for more general collaboration, test it out, among others, to see if it suits your needs.

Price:

* Free: 1 project; unlimited users
* $24/month: 15 projects; 5GB, unlimited users
* $49/month: 35 projects; 15GB, unlimited users
* $99/month: 100 projects; 30GB, unlimited users
* $149/month: Unlimited projects; 75GB, unlimited users

Reviews:

* SocialSignal: Project management and workflow with Basecamp
* Small Business Trends: Basecamp – A Good Choice to Manage Projects for the Web Savvy

1. OfficeMedium

Features:

* Client integration
* Contact information management
* Task management
* Event coordination
* Personal and group calendars
* File sharing and storage
* Resource and document management
* Shared blogging
* Real-time chat
* Private messaging
* Status updates
* User profiles
* Polling
* Searching and tagging
* Email updates and notifications

Pros:

* Extremely simple to use
* Comprehensive suite of features
* Well designed
* Fast, rich interface
* Simple pricing model
* Based on Drupal

Cons:

* Relatively new company
* Lack of mobile support
* Lack of developer API
* Lack of group creation

Overview:

OfficeMedium is the newest service on this list to hit the software collaboration market. Unlike others, it is built entirely on Drupal, the popular open-source content management platform.

The homepage gives a quick overview of what the software can do and the problems it solves. Conveniently, OfficeMedium offers a full-featured, live demo of their software for your to try out instantly. We gave both the demo and trial a shot.

After completing the registration form, which is slightly confusing because you have to enter some information twice, you’re given a link to the custom URL you requested. Upon logging in, you’re presented with a well-designed interface. The dashboard offers a central place to see everything going on in your project and user base. Its one-stop-shop design is refreshing and useful.

The dashboard features eight blocks. The blocks include Recent Content, Recent Comments, Mini Calendar, Upcoming Tasks & Events, Latest Poll, Real-time Chat Box, Recent User Activity, and Recent Status Updates. The upper horizontal navigation menu gives you links to the main sections of the intranet. These include Tasks, Events, Calendar, Contacts, Resources, Files, Shoutbox (real-time chatting), Polls, and Blog. Each menu item drops down so you can choose between all items or just your items. Each section has comprehensive filtering, tagging, and sorting abilities, making search a breeze.

OfficeMedium integrates popular social aspects into the software without making social networking the core building block of the software (like CubeTree). Users have their own profiles, activity feeds, statuses, as well as the ability to send private messages, create blog entries, comment on items, vote on polls, and chat.

OfficeMedium segments users into three categories. Superusers have full access and control of the site. Employees have general intra-office accounts. Clients have accounts that allow outsiders to securely log in and help collaborate on items. Client accounts can only see material that they either create or that is brought to their “attention.” The “attention” system is also a useful, creative mechanism you can use when creating content items to delegate or attach users to.

There are a few notable limitations to the software. There’s no group creation, third-party integrations, mobile support, or API. It’s not specific to project management. But the tasks, events, resource content types, and tagging system do a thorough job tackling most project collaboration.

Social media integration, comprehensive design, features, and ease of use make OfficeMedium a winner. Give the demo or free trial a shot.

Price: $6 per user, $1 per gigabyte per month. No packages to choose from. All features and support included. First month and 512MB of storage free.

Reviews:

* Erictric: OfficeMedium – The Online Corporate Workspace for Corporate Users Old and New
* RWW: OfficeMedium – Intranet for the Small Business User
* Dennis Howlett: Could OfficeMedium be the SME portal of the future?
* CMSWire: OfficeMedium – Web Based Intranet and Collaboration Based on Drupal

NOTE: OfficeMedium is offering an extended free trial for Business Pundit readers with teams of four or more people. Have all of your users sign up here. After all of your users have signed up, email support-at-officemedium.com within 72 hours. In your email, make the subject line “PROMO” and body “BIZPUNDIT90.” Their support staff will update your accounts after receiving the email.

It has probably happened to you before, but now it is getting worse. If you have ever made an impulse buy of a no-name “productivity tool” from the end-rack at the checkout lane at your local office superstore or some random website on the Internet, you know what I am talking about.

After investing your time installing and then trying to use the program, you realize the product doesn’t work as advertised–or worse, you encounter unexpected error messages or other technical problems. You find no support number to call and the Support FAQs are of no help if they even exist at all. But then, what did you expect? How many support call minutes does $10 bucks buy you? You could take the package back, but chances are you agree it’s too much trouble and there is no guarantee that you will get your money back, let alone your pride. So you write it off.

Now, with the advent of the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, the cheap software ditch has gotten steeper with tons of free software now available. Many free software products work really well, and as advertised. For example, Google yields search results, often finding just exactly what you were looking for in zero seconds.

But just try to get some customer support when things go wrong or if you can’t figure out how to get something to work the way you’d think it would. Facebook doesn’t offer a way to talk directly to a customer service person. And features and functionality change over time with no warning or guarantees that any investment you made in understanding or using the software will pay off in the future.

Many free SaaS offerings (such as RememberTheMilk.com, but there are hundreds of other examples) have a fee-based upgraded service level which offers priority support. The free service level is offered as an effort to get you hooked, but always with the view toward selling the service, not just giving it away.

Since satisfying customer support needs beyond an FAQ generally costs money, you can pretty much count on getting what you pay for. Downloading a free game is low risk–what have you really lost if the game doesn’t work? But for office productivity software/services, online data storage or mobile connectivity services, “free” services may not be the most cost effective in the long run, as errors, learning curve breakdowns, service interruptions or data loss can be costly. As a result, assessing the cost of a software package must include, not only the purchase or license fee, but also the learning cost in time and frustration in order to obtain maximum benefit from the product.

Which products and services require great customer support? How do you feel about community based support? Have you been a victim of extremely poor customer service personally? Share your story and ideas with us. We appreciate your contributions.

Elmer blogs primarily at ThinkingSerious.com which focuses on programming, design, business and productivity content for tech entrepreneurs living in a 2.0 world. That is, when he is not tickling his entrepreneur itch or consulting.

Where’s Santa now? The NORAD Santa Tracker lets you see where Santa is delivering gifts in real time on Google Maps.

Watch Santa’s flight path on www.noradsanta.org.

How did the National Air and Space Operations Center get in charge of tracking Santa? It turns out that an error by Sears & Roebuck was to blame:

The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

Finally, media from all over the world rely on NORAD as a trusted source to provide Christmas Eve updates on Santa’s journey.

Kids can also call NORAD to track Santa. The number is 877-Hi-NORAD. Or send an email to noradtrackssanta@gmail.com

Chris Garrett knows blogging. He’s a professional blogger–you can find his work at ASPToday, ProBlogger, CopyBlogger, and a host of other sites. He’s an Internet marketing expert who helped found social media hub Performancing.com. He helps people and companies make the most of the Web by providing coaching, speaking, consulting, and training services.

So what can this expert provide Business Pundit readers? Simple. If you’re interested in creating a successful, popular blog for your own business, Garrett’s your man. He has created Blogging for Business: 50 Steps to Building Traffic and Sales, a step-by-step ebook that tells you how to set up and run a blog for your business.

The ebook holds your hand through the entire process, from brainstorming what you need to creating an editorial calendar for your content. Garrett also gives you useful marketing tips, including how to market your blog through social networking campaigns, set yourself up as an expert, grow traffic, and turn visitors into customers.

If you want to build a good, popular blog for your business. Garrett has the scoop. BP caught up with him to learn more details about how to do a business blog right.

BP: You mention in Chapter 2 of your ebook that as a blogger, your competitors can actually help you out. Can you go into a little more detail about how you would want to interact and network with you competitors? How you could use their data to help you build a niche?

CG: In blogs there are no competitors. The same reader can visit hundreds of sites, we don’t have a monopoly on our readers’ attention. Therefore you can go to these “competitors” and write guest articles for them, comment on their articles, swap links, and so on.

BP: Say I own a business, I want to start a blog, but I’m lazy. What are up to 5 key things I have to do in order to have a fighting chance at being a visible blog in my niche?

CG:

1. Focus on your reader
2. Network like crazy
3. Write valuable, useful content
4. Promote that content
5. Interact with the visitors you get

BP: What, in your opinion, is the best way for a business to turn a blog into something that makes them money? (eg. ads, a store, ebooks, etc.?)

CG: Use your blog as a vehicle to grow an audience, then sell products that match that audience’s needs

BP: Can you name 3-4 blogs that have “gotten it right” according to your ebook’s parameters?

CG:

chrisg.com
englishcut.com
copyblogger.com
woot.com

BP: Is there anything else you’d like to share with people interested in blogging for their businesses?

CG: I can’t pass up a chance to plug my online course! It’s located here. If you need more hands-on help, or you are a solo entrepreneur/professional, this course is for you. It takes you all the way through from growing an audience of people who know, like and trust you, through to developing products and services and launching them.

Read more of Chris’s work on his website and blog.