Sidebar: A Collaborative Difference

By Linda Rosencrance

January 26, 2004 12:00 PM ET

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Computerworld - With collaboration software snagging a portion of IT budgets these days, how is blogging related to all those virtual meeting places being built out there?
A blog is a simple content management tool, rather than a collaboration tool like those offered by WebEx Communications Inc. and Centra Software Inc., according to Michael Masnick, president of Techdirt.
"The blog is used for presenting information in an easy-to-use format," he says. "The two things can, and often are, used in complementary ways. Think of WebEx-type applications as a meeting room and blogs as a bulletin board. Both can be used for collaboration, but in different ways."
Ross Mayfield, CEO of Socialtext, agrees that blogs are good for ongoing communications about a particular project within a company as well as with clients. Blogs are less complicated to use and less formal than collaboration suites and electronic meeting rooms.
"Companies use blogs for the conversation that occurs between team members," Mayfield says. "What's been missing is a tool to support that same lightweight communication or that simple communication that occurs, i.e., 'We're a little bit ahead of schedule,' or 'I'm running into a barrier in completing this certain task, and does anyone know where I can find that information?' It's easy for companies to create status update messages -- one for internal use and one for external use."

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