Perfect example of online collaboration

ConceptShare. There’s a difference between collaboration and social networking. To me, collaboration serves an explicit purpose, where social networking is an implicit bonus. To some degree, though, often “social networking” is not a bonus. It carries a negative connotation because so many new applications thrive on the network itself, rather than treat it as the implicit bonus that it is (or should be). I mean, social networks aren’t products, after all. Then there’s collaboration, which is something to build an application around, in my opinion.

Just recently I redesigned the front-end of a site according to the demands of a client. In order to show the changes, I had to upload it to a test space on the server and email a few people the link with a description of the changes I had made. Then I got several emails back with likes/dislikes and more changes to be made. It’s tedious to collect emails that have gone through several people regarding thoughts on the same concept. That’s not really collaboration, but more of a pain in the ass. It was slightly more convenient than meetings, but by the same token, ended up being much less effective.

I don’t know how long ConceptShare has been around, but it appears to solve a big problem (remote collaboration) in a polished way. I won’t list out the features, here, but rather suggest you watch their demo video.

Everything around one concept should remain in one place. As much time as I spend reading online, I’m surprised I haven’t stumbled upon more applications that attempt to put a halt to the endless hunting for emails/attachments when collaborating. Personally, I’d much rather see applications that serve a purpose over those that do nothing but waste domain space, but maybe that’s just me.