Have you ever explored the applications under the “even more” tab in Google?  There are a whole suite of tools that are great for use in collaborative projects.  They’re not completely perfect, but they’re free, easy to use and provide a quick way to start online communication within a team:

Docs

Online text documents, spreadsheets and presentations – allows multiple team members to edit a file, and includes a chat function for real-time communication if they are online together.  Files are displayed in the order that they were last edited, not alphabetically, which can get confusing.  So if there are a lot of files within a project, it’s a good idea to sort them into folders, which can also be shared across project teams.

Calendar

An online calendar to manage events and tasks – can create multiple, colour-coded calendars which can be individually shared with others to add events to and edit.  Tasks can be added to a calendar, but not assigned to people and although there is a reminder function for events, there isn’t for tasks – which would be useful.  Google Docs is good when integrated with Google Sites (see below)

Groups

An online space for sharing information and creating discussions – groups can be made private and members can opt to have daily reminders of any activity on the space.  Team members can create new pages (which work like a wiki) and upload files. Discussions can either be started from the Google Groups space, or via e-mail through the address that is assigned to the group.

Sites
Create a dedicated website for a project and add features – can be public or private.   New pages can be normal text (like a wiki), lists (e.g. for tasks, although there is no reminder function), file cabinet (to upload documents), or announcements (which works like a blog).  ‘Gadgets’ can be integrated within pages, which include a Google calendar, Google documents, Picasa (Google’s image sharing tool), Google maps or video.  They can’t be edited directly from the site, but update automatically when edited elsewhere.  A dashboard page can be created to insert multiple gadgets – useful for showing all recent activity on the site.  Members can opt to receive an e-mail when either the whole site or a page changes (which could get annoying!).

Wave (coming soon)
Not content with all of the above, Google will soon be publicly launching their new communication and collaboration tool ‘Wave’, which is certainly causing a few waves on the web!  Although Bracket can’t claim to know exactly how it works (the preview is currently available only to web developers) we know it will combine various types of communication and allow for real-time interaction (collaborators will be able to see changes character-by-character).  We’re looking forward to experimenting when it comes!