You need wonder no longer.

On Monday, PBworks announced its real-time collaboration update.  Starting on November 17, Project and Legal Edition customers will have a whole new way to use PBworks to work together.

• IM Collaboration
• Live Notifications
• Live Editing
• Voice Collaboration (early 2010)
  

IM Collaboration will allow users to see who else in their organization is actively using PBworks at that moment, and send them instant messages from within the product.  In addition, users will also be able to summon others to the workspace page they’re working on using the “send a link” function built into the IM system.

Live Notifications will alert users to activity within their organization in real-time, rather than requiring them to await an asynchronous email notification.  Users can select which notifications they want to receive, based on “starring” or “following” particular pages and other users, and the system will stream the relevant notifications to whatever page a user is viewing.

Live Editing will eliminate the need to use web conferencing services such as WebEx, PlaceWare, and GoToMeeting to share a PBworks editing session.  Whenever a user is editing a workspace page, the other users viewing that page see the edits appear in real-time.  When combined with IM Collaboration, Live Editing makes it easy to convene an ad hoc meeting for working synchronously.

Voice Collaboration is the fastest and easiest way to set up a conference call with other members of your organization.  Rather than setting up a conference line in advance and asking attendees to dial in, PBworks Voice Collaboration allows you to initiate an instant conference call by dialing the desired participants.  You can add new participants at any time, and each conference call is recorded and stored for later review.  Voice Collaboration can even be triggered using your iPhone, making it the first conference calling application that works on that platform.

If a user is editing a page and realizes that he or she needs the input of other team members, he or she can summon them to the appropriate page using IM Collaboration, start a Live Editing session, and use Voice Collaboration to initiate an instant conference call, all in fraction of the time it would take to set up a web conference, set up a conference call line, and communicate the details to the intended participants.

We’re pretty excited, but don’t just take our word for it; you can read about what other people have to say:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/02/collaboration-platform-pbworks-gets-a-real-time-makeover/

http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/11/02/pbworks-speeds-up-collaboration-with-real-time-communication/

http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/11/pbworks-goes-for-a-real-time-f.php

http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/11/02/pbworks-to-add-real-time-collaboration-tools/

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/PBworks-Watchitoo-Crave-Google-Waves-Realtime-Collaboration-Hype-412241/

http://www.cloudave.com/link/pbworks-ups-the-ante-with-real-time-collaboration-features

http://www.informationarchitected.com/blog/iam-alert-pbworks-takes-it-realtime/

http://collaborate.com/?q=blog/2009/11/02/pbworks-offers-new-real-time-functions

Courtesy of thelastminute

Now that I’ve started to talk with analysts and other early adopters about PBworks’ upcoming Real-time Collaboration update (more on that later), one of the very first questions I always get is, “Is that like Google Wave?”

Many people, even industry experts, are under the impression that Google Wave is the first product to offer real-time collaborative editing.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, real-time editing has been around for decades.  So in the interests of the common good, I’m offering this brief history of real-time editing.

While true industry pros will tell you that real-time editing has existed since the PDP-10 era, the first citation that appears on Wikipedia is Instant Update for the Mac, circa 1991.  More recently, the primary real-time editor that people cite is SubEthaEdit, though this product remains relatively unknown outside of developer circles.

In the wiki/collaboration world, real-time editing has been around since JotSpotLive…which, ironically enough, was acquired by Google (and then dumped in the dustbin).

More recently, Etherpad (disclosure, I am a personal investor in its parent company, AppJet) launched its web-based real-time collaboration tool in November of 2008, and has built up a tidy little following.

So by the time that Google Wave emerged in May 2009, real-time collaboration had been around for nearly 20 years, and had even existed as part of the Google family (prior to JotSpot’s burial at sea).

That’s not to say that real-time collaboration, being old rather than new, isn’t groundbreaking.  In fact, we here at PBworks believe it has a ton of potential…the key is figuring out how to apply it to the all-important task of getting work done.

We think we’ve done so, and will be unveiling the PBworks take on real-time collaboration at the Enterprise 2.0 conference (which you can attend for free!).

Those of you who are PBworks customers and users, stay tuned next week for a special sneak preview….

Starting today, PBworks Project Edition (and PBworks Legal Edition) now includes social networking-style user profiles, Twitter-style microblogging, and the ability to create wiki pages (with file attachments) just by emailing a single email address.

We encourage you to try out these new features (which are included in every 30-day free trial of Project Edition) and let us know what you think in the comments for this post.  We’d love to hear your take!

If you want to learn more first, check out the Social Collaboration Update page, and the frequently-asked-questions below.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is this different from all the other social software products out there?

• PBworks isn’t a social software product.  Our focus is on helping people get work done.  We look at individual business problems, and then try to find technology that solves that problem.  We’ve tweaked each of the features to reflect this emphasis:
  • Our user profiles allow the corporate administrator to specify the fields and choices, so that you can create a searchable database of locations, skills, certifications, or anything else the company deems relevant (PBworks’ own employee profiles include Myers-Briggs personality type)
  • Our user profiles also include activity history (edits, uploads, comments, task updates, etc.) and tasks so that you can tell what a person has been doing, and what they’re planning to do.  This combination of static and dynamic information presents a clearer picture of each user for the purposes of getting work done
  • Our microblogging solution is integrated into our overall activity streams.  This means that you have real work context (what they’ve been doing) for each person’s posts.

What good are social networking-style profiles in the enterprise?

• We found that our customers with geographically dispersed workforces needed a better way to identify the relevant people within the organization to turn to for everything from social media experience to the most granular of technical certifications.

What good is microblogging in the enterprise?

• Our users told us that microblogging was really good for unstructured, real-time collaboration like brainstorming.  The ideas the generated that way could then be put into more structured collaboration tools like workspace pages or project workspaces and tasks.

How much will this update cost?

• Nothing!  It’s a free update to our Project and Legal Editions.

Do your user profiles integrate with Active Directory?

• No, but that’s a great suggestion.  You can use AD and other LDAP solutions to log into PBworks, but we don’t currently carry over user profile data.  Definitely on our roadmap.

Where can I see a demo?

• If you want, you can sign up for a free trial here, and play with it yourself.
• You can also access a pre-built demo by following the instructions on this page.

PBworks is adding task management tools to its wiki (originally PBwiki) because when people collaborate, they usually have shared tasks to accomplish.

• Network World (Project Manager Gets Social, Social App Gets Organized)

The combination of just enough functionality to reduce or eliminate the management aspects coupled with highly attractive access costs will make PBWorks an attractive alternative to more mature offerings.

• ZDNet (PBworks continues vertical path with Project Edition)

More than anything else, that last feature helps justify the big price increase — the Project Edition costs $20 per user per month, compared to the Standard Edition of $6 per user per month. After all, you’re getting an unlimited number of free users as part of the package. It also makes PBworks a good fit for advertising and professional services companies, since they often need to consult and collaborate with clients outside the company. Professional services company Deloitte Digital and advertising agency Ogilvy both say they plan to use PBworks Project Edition.

• VentureBeat (Collaboration company PBworks adds project management tools)

A busy manager could check the new project coordination workspace to get a quick status update, use the discussion feature associated with each task to communicate with a team member, or add a new task and assign it to someone – all without ever sending an email. This feature alone makes the new PBworks Project Edition very attractive.

• Future Changes (PBworks Project Edition Designed For Client-Facing Firms)

For several years, PBworks was a (if not the) leading wiki host on the web. But only a tiny minority of those signed up for a free SaaS wiki are ever converted to paying customers, even with the promise of substantial perks. Thus, by dropping the wiki portion of their brand and rolling out custom tailored editions with enhanced feature sets, PBworks is making a decisive shift towards cutting a bigger slice of the enterprise pie.

• ReadWriteWeb (PBworks Launches Project Edition, With Free Access for Clients & Guests)

Simple project management functionality, like workflow management, task assignment and milestones, is built right into the tool, so there’s no need to use a separate app like Basecamp to handle simple project management. This makes PBworks an attractive option for teams looking for a tool for collaborative project tasks, like document authoring, requirements gathering or design review. Task management is kept together with the actual task itself, which makes a lot of sense.

• WebWorkerDaily (PBworks Introduces Project Edition)

For most of us, work is a series of projects.

We’re always drawing up plans (some more formal than others) and trying to carry them out, usually as part of a team.

That’s why it’s not surprising that so many people use PBworks for project management.  After all, if PBworks is a great solution for improving team productivity and work performance, shouldn’t it be great for project management?  And when we asked you what you were using PBworks for, “managing projects” was the #1 answer.

But in reality, while PBworks was helping a lot of people manage their projects, it was far from ideal.

Even within the company, where we use PBworks for pretty much everything (including project management), we felt the limitations of the product.  When I create a task, I want to be able to assign it to someone with a due date.  I don’t want to be forced to try to remember where I wrote down the task.  I want notifications to go out when the status of the task changes.  I don’t want to forget when things are due.  Yet manually managing projects with the old PBworks product had all of these drawbacks.

It’s a testament to the power of the product that despite these issues, so many were getting so much productivity out of it!

So over the past few months, we went back to the drawing board and started talking to our users.  We conducted dozens of interviews with consultants, PR firms, designers, marketers, and other project leads, including in-depth follow-ups.

As a result, we were able to design PBworks Project Edition, which represents a major leap in project functionality.  In our opinion, it’s the best tool anywhere for managing the vast majority of projects.

What makes Project Edition special?  Certainly we’re very proud of how we’ve created task and milestone functionality that is simple, elegant, and flexible.  But the real key is in combining project management with collaboration in a neatly integrated package.

Historically, project management separated the “management” from the real work.  Picture a Project Manager walking around with a clipboard, collecting status reports, and fiddling with Ganntt charts.  Great for putting a man on the moon, but not appropriate for all the informal, fast-moving projects that make up the bulk of our working days.

The first Web 2.0 project management tools broke the monopoly of the project manager, and put the ability to view and manage the project in the hands of the entire team, but they still didn’t help you do the real work.  You would log in, pick up your next task, then switch to another application or window to do the actual work.

Project Edition combines “management” with a collaborative platform that lets your team do their work faster and better.  Sometimes as much as 10 times better.

That’s the breakthrough we’re calling “organic project management,” since the management is a natural and organic result of doing the real work.

Our goal isn’t to displace the project management tools that people use for the 0.1% of projects that are formally managed (though you can certainly do that with Project Edition).  It’s to radically improve performance for the 99.9% of projects where the most sophisticated management tool is the Post-It pad.

You can try out Project Edition for free for 30 days and see what consulting firms and agencies like Deloitte and Ogilvy are raving about.  We’re confident that you’ll like it, even if you’ve never used any other project management tools in your work.  And if you have used other tools, we’re even more confident that you’ll find our product easier, faster, more flexible, and most importantly, more productive than anything you’ve used before.

Don’t just believe us…here’s what other folks are saying:

“Simple project management functionality, like workflow management, task assignment and milestones, is built right into the tool, so there’s no need to use a separate app like Basecamp to handle simple project management. This makes PBworks an attractive option for teams looking for a tool for collaborative project tasks, like document authoring, requirements gathering or design review. Task management is kept together with the actual task itself, which makes a lot of sense.”
–WebWorkerDaily

“A busy manager could check the new project coordination workspace to get a quick status update, use the discussion feature associated with each task to communicate with a team member, or add a new task and assign it to someone – all without ever sending an email. This feature alone makes the new PBworks Project Edition very attractive.”
–Future Changes

Get the scoop on Project Edition by visiting our Project Edition minisite.

But the passion doesn’t stop there, as Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal runs a piece on the launch of Legal Edition, complete with quotes and picture from our CEO, Jim Groff.

Hey Oprah, when are you going to start showing us some love?

Here within PBHQ, it’s easy for us to forget what the changes to PBwiki look like to the outside world.  New features like the Mobile Edition seem like old hat to us, since we’ve been talking about them for so long.

That’s when an outside perspective like Gil’s is valuable for us.  While we love the feedback we get from you, our valued users, the fact is, you’re biased.  You use PBwiki, so you probably like the product and us.

Someone like Gil, who covers the whole industry and speaks with alternate companies and their customers is much better positioned to judge PBwiki objectively.

Here’s what Gil had to say:

I have been watching as PBwiki adds more business-focused features and services.  One important feature was the inclusion of lightweight document management features. You can upload, share, and download files (document, images, etc.) with others.  The document management features are not too fancy, but they are good enough for most.  When I first saw these features, I thought of the way most people use SharePoint as a simple document management server with some lightweight page markup capabilities.  In reality, SharePoint provides a powerful platform that includes much more than document management.  But most companies I have spoken with don’t use a small fraction of SharePoint’s features.  For many, SharePoint gives them more than they will use, but less than they need.  And this begs the question – would you be better served with a hosted wiki that provides simple document management?  If you are like many who just use SharePoint for doc management and page markup, but you need to collaborate with partners outside your firewall, then PBwiki becomes quite interesting.

Then PBwiki added a 24/7 end user support service.  For just a few bucks more per user, you can get the assurance of online support, anytime.  I don’t know how many of their business customers use the support feature, but I’m sure they all like the message that PBwiki is sending by offering this service.  Business Wikis are about business – and PBwiki gets it.

And now to this week’s announcement: You can take the wiki with you on your mobile device.   Although you don’t get full editing  capabilities on the mobile device, you can read wiki pages, search for content, create new pages,  and add comments to existing pages.  And there’s no fancy URL to remember since PBwiki’s servers detect if you are using an iPhone or BlackBerry and provide you an experienced optimized for your device automatically.  This is critical for those business needs that arise when you are not at your computer.  Like when you are in a meeting, with a client, a patient, or vendor.  On the road, working from home, or on the shop floor.  Information availability is critical to agile businesses.

I had a chance to speak with a very satisfied PBwiki customer, an investment holding company that is involved in a bunch of businesses — ranging from aerospace engineering, personnel services, telecommunications, casinos, real estate, you name it.  Each business manages their own affairs and technology infrastructure, but the central businesses group collaborates with each of the satellite businesses.  The central group is relatively small, and they have no need to spend lots of money on technology infrastructure.  but they do need the flexibility to work with their contacts in each of their affiliates.

There are many business with similar profiles — like PR agencies who interface with multiple customers.  I spoke with one who expressed the same pattern of need.  They need an easy to use, SaaS based, secure platform to co-create and share documents with many partners.  They know that email is the wrong tool for fluid collaboration. And they want to keep things simple and cheap.  They can handle monthly per-user charges, since they operate that way with other vendors too.

PBwiki provides a compelling option for these Enterprise Wiki buyers.  I don’t believe they are the best option for everyone – sorry, but no one offers that silver bullet yet.  But I do believe they should be on your short-list if you are looking for hosted wiki solutions.

(click here to read Gil’s entire post)

In the end, it’s easy to get caught up in the individual releases and updates.  We live in an attention-deficit world, and it’s just as tempting for companies to try to “win” the news cycle as it is for politicians.  But it’s the big picture that matters in the end.

Ever needed to access your PBwiki using an iPhone or Blackberry? Now you can, with PBwiki Mobile Edition.

PBwiki Mobile Edition automatically recognizes when you’re using a smartphone to access your PBwiki, and serves up a blazingly fast mobile-optimized interface. We’ve stripped out everything that’s extraneous to minimize load times and maximize the content you see.

And PBwiki Mobile Edition is available free of charge to our Professional and Professional Plus customers.

With Mobile Edition, you can:

• Search your PBwiki (including uploaded files) to answer a question
• Access policies/procedures/manuals
• Download files to send via mobile email
• Keep up with your team’s activities via notifications and recent changes
• Provide instant feedback via comment
• Record thoughts via comment or new page

Here’s what InformationWeek had to say about PBwiki Mobile Edition:

“The mobile device is a logical extension for collaboration tools, particularly given today’s fractured work environment, where contributors may be on the road more than in an office. With the digital tether of the iPhone or Blackberry, road warriors can satisfy the urge to check in on a project, make comments and keep the ball rolling.”

To try out PBwiki Mobile Edition, just visit your PBwiki using your iPhone or Blackberry (if you’re on a Professional plan) or check out our sample wiki at http://mobileedition.pbwiki.com.

While we only officially support the iPhone and Blackberry, other smartphones will probably work.  Begin your Android lobbying now!

(Image courtesy of Leslie Duss)

Another busy week of PBwiki in the news, including the New York Times, local TV news, and of all things, how PBwiki helped reduce crime in one city by 25%!

The Static Document Model Is Dying–RIP .doc, .xls, and .ppt (TechCrunchIT, 3/9/2009)

• In which I opine on the role of PBwiki in tying together the disparate components of the enterprise.

In Hard Times, Freelancers Turn to the Web (New York Times, 3/12/2009)

• Ever wonder about the great support you get from PBwiki?  In this article, Support and Services supremo Rachel Pennig talks about using oDesk to manage her team.

It’s All About Wikis (News9 Oklahoma, 3/12/2009)

• In case you ever wondered what a local television news story on PBwiki would look like.  Stay classy, Oklahoma.

Crime reduced in major cities through prayer-walking (Examiner.com, 3/13/2009)

• I’m not sure PBwiki can take sole credit for the 25% reduction in violent crime in Chico, CA, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt!

(photo courtesy of Endlisnis)

As you know, we like our new document management functionality. Based on the usage statistics we’re seeing, we know you like it too (file uploads are waaaaay up from before the launch). And now it looks like the press likes it.

James Gaskin wrote in ITworld:

“I’ve mentioned PBwiki before and likely will again, since they seem to keep raising the wiki bar (doesn’t that sound like a party activity? Raising the wiki bar?). They just announced two improvements worth mentioning.

First, they’ve added unlimited storage for paying customers. Pay the $8 per user per month, and PBwiki gives you unlimited storage space. I don’t know anyone else who has done that. If you do, send me a note. Either way, “unlimited” certainly seems like plenty of room for everyone. Free users get bumped up to 2GBs for storage.

Second, PBwiki added document management tools. Enterprise VP Chris Yeh said they aren’t trying to fight with entrenched enterprise document management vendors like Documentum, but they want to help companies avoid the giant hassles of tracking an important document through multiple revisions when bounding from e-mail attachment to e-mail attachment. No wonder most corporate attempts at collaboration using e-mail alone fail. Who wants to track and manage one horribly mangled document flying around the Internet? Not I.”

Thanks, James! We’ll try to keep raising that wiki bar.