Glip: IM-centric cloud collaboration

October 15, 2013

Most online collaboration services are task-centric: They’re built to facilitate meetings or document creation and sharing, and chat is an accessory. Glip takes a different view, enabling collaboration tasks from within a real-time chat interface. The Web-based service, which formally launches today, seeks to eliminate the need for groups of co-workers to juggle multiple applications to create, share, and edit content; schedule tasks and events; and generally brainstorm. Glip stores chat and content indefinitely and provides links and search tools to help you find and review conversations surrounding group actions and decisions—one of its more potentially useful features. An iOS app is awaiting approval and an Android app is due by the end of the year. However Glip suffers from limited support for existing third-party tools. For example, you can’t work on Microsoft Office files within Glip—you can only upload and download them. Glip’s chat-centric interface is flanked by two columns. On the left are the individual’s account settings as well as lists of co-workers with Glip accounts; groups (consisting of people within the organization—for example, departments) and project-oriented teams (which can include invited outsiders); and links to your Glip calendar, task list, links, notes, and files. In the right-hand column are thumbnails of fellow Glip users and detailed lists of links, files, events, and tasks that have been created and/or shared within the current Glip group or private chat window. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2054664/glip-im-centric-cloud-collaboration.html#tk.rss_all