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January 28, 2008

Huddle uses new apps and Facebook to take on Basecamp

Mike Butcher

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UK-based Huddle, an Enterprise 2.0 startup which is now clearly positioning itself square-on against Basecamp, launches a well-featured Facebook application at the DEMO 08 conference this week. The Facebook integration will make your boss think you are working even when you’re on Facebook - as it allows full access to all Huddle’s tools [update: the app launches Wednesday] . And the new Huddle Desktop application will let you drag and drop new documents between the desktop and Huddle’s service. Also included is OpenSAM Integration where you create, view and edit documents in Word, PowerPoint and Excel within Huddle through embedded Web Office tools from iNetWord, EditGrid and Preezo.

The free version of Huddle includes three team workspaces, one Gigabyte of document space and unlimited team members (Basecamp doesn’t go this far on either count storage). After that there are more paid-for options. In November last year Huddle announced $4m in series A funding from Eden Ventures in London. Companies using Huddle include Reuters and PR group Edelman and UNICEF. Competitors include Centraldesktop, Weboffice, Projectspaces, Wrike and Goplan.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 7:11 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Complex Rhetoric

    January 28th, 2008 at 8:00 am

  2. The QuickBase Team Collaboration Blog

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  1. Nick O'Neill

    January 28th, 2008 at 7:20 am

    When you write a review of something that launched you should seriously include a link to the application

  2. Jason Fried

    January 28th, 2008 at 7:36 am

    For the record, Basecamp does include unlimited users (or “team members” as referred to in this post) on all plans.

  3. Mike Butcher

    January 28th, 2008 at 7:38 am

    Apologies - Facebook app launches later this week (post updated).

  4. Mark Taylor

    January 28th, 2008 at 7:38 am

    We have tried to use Huddle, seemed a bit confusing.

    There are a lot more people out there than Basecamp. Go check out:
    http://www.centraldesktop.com or http://www.weboffice.com or http://www.projectspaces.com

  5. John S

    January 28th, 2008 at 7:55 am

    While we’re on links — I’d say it would be much more convenient to the readers to link to the OpenSAM partners as well.

  6. Startups.in/India

    January 28th, 2008 at 7:57 am

    BTW..URL of Goplan is http://goplan.org and not .com

  7. Brandon A

    January 28th, 2008 at 8:03 am

    I launched a Facebook app in October with many of the same features Huddle seems to be planning. See “MyOffice” (http://columbia.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=20196811016) on Facebook.

    MyOffice provides project groups with discussion forums, wiki writeboarding (with versioning), file sharing, Facebook network privacy settings, task management, and scheduling features. We’ve recieved a lot of positive feedback, so check it out! Thx,

    Brandon A

  8. Jmack

    January 28th, 2008 at 8:03 am

    My company currently uses Central Desktop and I have yet to use a product that is as good and with the features that CD has. I tried Huddle, but it seemed less than intuitive. At first I tried to brush it off, but the more I actually tried using it, the more that lack of intuitiveness got in the way of being useful. Prime examples–Tasks are under the “Calendar” tab, and there is no “Tasks” tab that I could find. Also, how do you mark a task complete? Like CD there should be checkbox or button right next to the task at all times that should accomplish that. Bottom line is that it just doesn’t have the features and ease of use to compete against something like CD.

  9. Ericson Smith

    January 28th, 2008 at 8:07 am

    Why would I use Basecamp instead?

    Bootstrapped and profitable from day one. That tells me that those guys are going to be in there for the long haul. And they did not fall prey to the VC’s (except Jeff Bezos)

  10. FaceySpacey Web Development

    January 28th, 2008 at 8:19 am

    Huddle looks good.

    James
    from FaceySpacey.com, Your One Stop Social Media Shop

  11. Brandon A

    January 28th, 2008 at 8:55 am

    Here’s a clickable link to the MyOffice collaborative project management app on Facebook.

    Brandon A

  12. Andy McLoughlin

    January 28th, 2008 at 8:58 am

    We’re just putting the finishing touches to the Facebook app and it will be launching shortly. I’ll add another comment with a link then.

    Oh, and the OpenSAM website is http://www.opensam.org :)

    And, finally (promise) we give Huddle away for free to charities via the Huddle Foundation - http://www.huddle.net/why-hudd.....charities/

  13. william

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:06 am

    Dont be fooled into using either Facebook or Huddle.
    Both are CLOSED silo solutions that strive to lock users and there content into their systems. (By closed I mean that Facebook pushes developers to use proprietary in the guise that they are opening up) Face Book is not open and by building application for their platform companies are only feeding the beast that will certainly one day devour its young.

    Do we want to “Face” another future where developers port most apps are to one companies fantasy version of open. Haven’t we been down this path before

    As for Huddle; whatever happened to competing based on your technology and your customer service. Seems to me that pulling the “We work with Facbook card” is a sure sign that you have give up on begin looked at as a serious application. Now your collaboration suit can be seen in the same guise as any eight grade coders face book app.

    Break the facbook chains. You are not a share crooper
    Take control of your content back

  14. JeremyB

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:07 am

    Facebook as a productivity tool. A big trend’s coming.

  15. david

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:28 am

    blackberry app not facebook app. lol. oh well.

  16. Kin Lane

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:39 am

    Companies need to embrace their employees social network usage.

    Set policies on acceptable usage.
    Integrate workplace tools into their chosen social networking platform.
    Integrate their activity into your online marketing and social media marketing strategy.

    Companies who openly embrace social network usage will be ahead of their competitors.

  17. Andreas Richter

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:39 am

    @Huddle / all the others: Please add Drag-Drop File upload to every element (task, milestone, person, etc.) … just an area on the right side of the screen drag-drop upload in new window/background and showing it right there for downloading afterwards. Thanks.

    Wouldn’t ever use search, select, wait upload processes - noooot efficient.

  18. Jason

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:40 am

    Startups in India, thank you for reaffirming that top level domains outside of .com are worthless.

  19. Les

    January 28th, 2008 at 9:59 am

    Too bad the site has broken links: http://www.huddle.net/about/careers/

  20. Weixi Yen

    January 28th, 2008 at 10:08 am

    lightyears behind basecamp in the UI department

  21. David Guzman

    January 28th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

    I tried to sign up for Huddle several times a few months ago but wasn´t able to because they had a bug in the sign up process. It doesn´t give me a lot of faith in the product when no one bothered to check to see if the sign-up process was working for over a week.

    I currently use TeamWork Live (http://www.teamworklive.com) for my project collaboration and I find it the best of the others I have tried: Basecamp, Central Desktop, and GoPlan. I liken it to Basecamp but with more features. They have an intuitive user interface and great email integration. It’s probably not for everyone but it hit the sweetspot for my needs.

    David

  22. Sahil

    January 29th, 2008 at 2:30 am

    You can check out http://www.deskaway.com too! Its simple and yet powerful with Reporting built in. It amazes me that most pm tool are created without Reports! You can check out the free account - it lets you even try out all the features.

  23. chrisco

    January 29th, 2008 at 3:15 am

    Anybody used ZoHo Project? Comments?? Thanks!
    https://projects.zoho.com/jsp/home.jsp

  24. Robin Wauters

    January 29th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    Mike,

    Also check out ContactOffice, a web office suite which isn’t limited to sharing documents and creating virtual workspaces, but acts as a full-fledged collaboration tool with messaging, calendaring, task list and contact management, wiki, message boards, cross-application chat, and so on.

    They’ve been around since 1999 and they’ve managed to become profitable with over 350 000 users without raising capital! The beta’s pretty cool:

    http://beta.contactoffice.com

  25. Mary Dorfman

    February 1st, 2008 at 6:26 am

    Facebook integraton is not the feature my company needs. I’ve lloked into the competitors, which you mention here and I guess Wrike is the best variant for a small business with 100 employees, who heavily depend on email. Thanks for the link!

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