Near-Time Delivers Collaboration 2.0 with Commercial Launch of Hosted Service

WebKnowHow
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; 04:57 AM

Near-Time, Inc. announced that the company is commercially launching its hosted collaboration service of the same name following a successful beta period which included thousands of users in segments spanning enterprise, small business, government, NGO, and education. Near-Time integrates Weblogs, Wikis, calendars and shared files in a low cost, private and secure collaborative environment. It is ideal for cross organizational collaboration with colleagues, clients, partners, and suppliers. Near-Time taps into the capabilities afforded by Web 2.0 to enable people and groups to transform how they interact in powerful new ways.

Near-Time enables organizations to quickly and easily create private collaborative communities. Near-Time spaces can include internal and external members, enabling users to create next generation intranets and extranets on demand. Users may create as many collaborative communities as they would like with no limit on numbers of members, ensuring maximum interaction and participation. Users can also publish part or all of their Near-Time content publicly on the Internet. As a secure and hosted service, Near-Time gives dispersed groups an easy way to literally be "on the same page."

Near-Time's use of Web standards ensures interoperability with existing collaborative tools and Internet resources. Standards also mean that Near-Time users can share and integrate diverse content, including application files, rich media and email, along with links to Web resources. Email notifications and RSS feeds give teams a way to stay in synch on the latest developments. Supported standards include XML, HTML, RSS, Atom, Weblog API's and email protocols.

Near-Time combines the non-linear, ad hoc collaboration of Wikis with the time sensitive, broadcast nature of blogs, bringing these two essential platforms for the read-write Web together. By integrating Weblogs and Wikis, Near-Time enables groups to create a knowledge repository as they collaborate. Near-Time Wiki pages include version history, making it easy to keep up with group iterations. Institutional memory helps groups build upon experience and quickly brings new members up-to-speed. Near-Time's intuitive WYSIWYG authoring environment gives groups a familiar word-processing like authoring experience.

While Near-Time enables internal and external groups to quickly come together on the Web, traditional intranets and extranets tend to isolate groups. Legacy enterprise collaboration platforms can be costly, require extensive IT support and lengthy implementation cycles, and might not play well with Web standards. Proprietary collaboration systems can reduce community interaction and create platform lock-in.

"Near-Time delivers collaboration 2.0," said Reid Conrad. "As organizations become increasingly distributed, Near-Time brings internal and external communities together seamlessly. Email just does not cut it and most traditional platforms are expensive and proprietary. With our new hosted service we are giving organizations and dispersed groups an easy way to take advantage of the Web 2.0 technologies that have drastically changed and improved ways in which people communicate, work together and discover knowledge."