In "The Portable Office: Work Anywhere" [Macworld], Gina Trapani discussses web applications that let her remote team "chat, collaborate, and do all the other things that regular, in-the-same-place work teams do, and that let us do it from our home offices, hotel rooms, and Internet cafes."
The recommended chat tool: Campfire.
Campfire is a dead-simple group-chat Web application, like a cross between an instant messenger and a bulletin board. It doesn’t require invitations, and there’s no need to figure out who uses Apple’s iChat and who uses Adium.Campfire creates a private “room” where you and your coworkers can breeze in and out anytime to ask questions, post updates, or just keep up with water-cooler topics. We used to schedule weekly meetings in Campfire, but lately we’ve found it works better as an always-open virtual space.
My coworkers and I hang around there most of the day while we work. Keeping things unstructured and unscheduled leaves room for us to chat about anything—from what we did over the weekend, to specific issues that crop up while we work. Since our East Coast writer starts earlier than everyone else, we West Coasters catch his posts in Campfire after we wake up and log on. More than any other Web application on this list, Campfire offers a strong sense of working in the same space with your team, even if you’re physically spread out across the country.
Also on the list: Backpack. "We track all our in-house projects with Backpack...We develop small-scale software utilities such as Firefox extensions and scripts. Backpack helps us keep track of what’s in progress and how far along it is," Trapani writes.
