There are plenty of Web-based task management tools that let you track the progress of your work projects and collaborate with co-workers. Producteev founder Ilan Abehassera wants to go one better and help you “complete your task” by making it easy to ask your contacts and followers on Twitter for assistance.
Producteev shows you a dashboard of different tasks you’ve set up, each in its own widget box which you can drag around and rearrange. For its commercial launch today, Producteev is introducing some new features. One is the ability to syndicate any task to Twitter or Facebook.
So if you need a Web designer or sales person for a project, for example, you can create a task on Producteev and share that not only with your co-workers, but also publish it on Twitter. A link brings your Twitter followers back to a public page on Producteev for that specific task/message, where they can reply. All outside replies are brought into the Producteev activity stream for everyone in your work group to see. This is good, but it doesn’t go far enough, as you can’t reply via Producteev and have that reply appear on Twitter.
Another new feature makes Producteev like a Friendfeed of productivity apps. It lets you bring in other streams of data from outside Producteev, including Slideshare, Scribd, Zoho, Twitter, and soon Google Docs, Google Reader, and Yammer (yes, it competes with Yammer on the communication stream, but Producteev is more about task management). So you can automatically see when someone on your team adds a new presentation to Slideshare, edits a doc, or shares an article.
There is also now a timeline/calendar view, which comes in handy since every task can be assigned a due date. (The other views are a dashboard grid that is similar to Netvibes or iGoogle, and a straight, chronological activity stream). Workers can now generate reports based on their tasks in progress and completed, which they can show to employers to prove they’ve been working (oDesk anyone?). Soon Producteev will add graphs as well for productivity tracking at a glance.
Other upcoming features on the product roadmap include integration with Meebo Community IM for chat functionality, the ability to export deadlines and reminders to iCal, Google Calendar, and Outllook, an OpenSocial application on Xing, and a JoliCloud app.
Producteev is gradually becoming a fully-featured online productivity and collaboration tool. I would compare it to WizeHive, another great online task management tool with a slightly different set of features. Producteev is seed funded, and recently raised $180,000 in angel money from a group including Fotolia president Oleg Tscheltzoff.
The service is free for up to 3 users, and then starts at $19/ month up to 10 users. The top Gold membership is $99/month for 100 users. Different pricing applies to university students, another target market. We’re giving away 10 Gold subscriptions for one year to whoever adds the best comments below about their greatest productivity challenge or suggestions for new features. Abehassera will pick the best 10 and respond in comments.
I love that they already have full iPhone, Blackberry, and Android apps. This really makes me want to try it out on my new Blackberry
The service looks great so far.
Wait… there isn’t a Blackberry App after all?
According to the homepage there is, but according to their downloads page, there isn’t.
Producteev is much better than BaseCamp. We are currently using Basecamp and Producteev in parallel but are switching to Producteev. Have a much better overview over your tasks then in Basecamp in my view. Organizing those tasks and delegating/commenting on them is very convenient. They already have full iPhone, Blackberry, and Android apps.
Yet Producteev has so many options!
I’d be interesting as to what this has that BaseCamp doesn’t and vice versa. That’s a cool feature for sure, but I’d hate to encourage people to switch only to see that it introduces a whole other set of problems.
Producteev is much better than BaseCamp. We are currently using Basecamp and Producteev in parallel but are switching to Producteev. Although Producteev does not have all Basecamp features yet (like Writeboards) it is so much faster and way more integrated into the tools we are using every day (Gtalk, iPhone, email) etc. The best feature is that I can add tasks into my Dashboard by emailing Producteev while travelling.
Also, you have a much better overview over your tasks then in Basecamp in my view. Organizing those tasks and delegating/commenting on them is very convenient.
I will check out the new version now. Am sure will find more advantages…
Basecamp
well now i suppose we req a place to manage all our social networking platforms
FEATURE SUGGESTION: Integration with Vark.com so that questions can be posted within Producteev and divied out to the network of people supplied by Vark through Vark’s communication channels.
I am currently using a combination of Reqall, Action Method, Twitter, IM and Email Threads to manage my tasks and stay on top of the various projects and groups I am part of.
Managing all of this as a student and an entrepreneur has been the biggest challenge.
Oh and did I mention I use my laptop and my iPhone and its not fun when things are not synced across the various platforms.
NEED TO FIX THIS ASAP
Well done Ilan and Aric! Great team you have there – the new design rocks and the tutorial makes it dead simple to use!
Great post thanks!
Check out TweetBrain http://tweetbrain.com to see if this is something you want to integrate into Producteev. It is a crowdsourcing service powered by ones’ social networks (right now only Twitter).
Producteev has so many options, I just love using it.
I will attempt to answer both questions in one go….
My greatest productivity challenge is remembering to create Daily Goals each night. I find that if I remember to create one, I am much more productive then when I don’t (writing them in morning doesn’t have same affect), I like waking up and going right this is what I have to do!
My suggestion is that there should be some mechanism whereby each night I get a text/DM in twitter that reminds me to create tomorrows goals.
In the morning I should receive a similar message reminding me to check my goals for the day
This would solve my problem and also be an awesome feature, that as far as I know isn’t available on other competing apps
rock and roll
I could definitely see benefits to using a product like this. Right now, I am responsible for planning a large-scale implementation of a software package across several countries. Instead of using something like MS Project which is hard to share (even with Project Server), a web-based application like this would allow distributed teams to quickly update their status and give me more real time information to see if we’re ahead/behind schedule.
I’m in an acoustic duo from Seattle that tours the US playing colleges. One of the struggles with non-label musicians is the lack of man power to get projects completed before a show (promotion, radio, flyers, student awareness). This site would be a Godsend for those struggling (such as ouselves) to get tasks completed.
Guess I can scrap my project: DoThisShitforMe.com
darnit
I have found that one of the biggest productivity challenges is getting everyone on different calendaring systems to properly receive, accept and track meeting invites. Calendar sharing is also a big gap. In the company I work for, we have gone through a few tools and none of them seem to please the Outlook users and the iCal users without some serious glitches that cause confusion and missed meetings. I would be interested in seeing how the calendar in Producteev works.
I like the concept. The hardest task for small start-ups with no office space and people in various locations, like my own, is to keep everyone on one page easily. While there are enterprise solutions, they’re more expensive. And more than that, they’re not intuitive. More often than not, they don’t incorporate your social networks and various products you’re already on. It makes tools that you could easily use for updating statuses and content, like Twitter or Yammer–slideshare for sharing decks–less useful, if only because you have to keep track of resources across various networks. And it increases your In Box clutter.
Producteev looks like it could counter that.
It doesn’t hurt that I like the U.I. right now, too.
Producteev is gradually becoming a fully-featured online productivity and collaboration tool.
>>>> The service looks very supportive. Scheduling tasks and completing them on time is a great target for everyone. This app sure serves the purpose and makes task management and decision making convenient.
Also the integration with other main networks makes it more powerful.
The purpose of using Twitter increasing tremendously.
I am really interested in working with an Internet based system to complete our various projects including photoshoots, tradeshows,sales activities, marketing initiatives and online activities (www.Juma.ca). I work with several people from Toronto,new York,Vancouver and London to carry out these tasks. I would also love to try and crowdsource on the web to have some of these tasks completed. Not only is it a way to engage our audience, we can also get our work completed in a cost efficient manner.