The Purpose of This Blog

This blog performs the purpose of a resource tool for helping someone assess collaborative tools for use in a state-wide committee and associated meetings. Its aim is to provide a clarified overview of four online collaboration tools based on five criteria with the objective of helping one choose an appropriate product.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Blog Guide

WELCOME to our collaboration Tool Analysis!

Here you will find a critical, well detailed overview of four online collaboration tools: LucidChart; Wiggio; WriteBoard; and Twiddla. Please feel free to lightly browse each tool on our home page, which includes five sets of rated criteria, podcasts, and recommendations for group work. For more detailed information on each tool, please navigate to the specific tool's dedicated page on the right. Here you will find a more detailed analysis of each online tool, as well as other reviews, video tutorials, and valid criteria.




LucidChart is a visual collaboration platform that aims to help users make diagraming fast and easy. The Provo, Utah based start-up launched its Beta version in 2008 and was added to the Google Apps Marketplace in spring of 2010. This web-based diagraming software was created in response to the challenging user-experiences presented by similar applications such as Visio.




Wiggio is an online toolkit and platform for all types of group work and related functions. The project was started by two Cornell University graduates who sought to streamline the process of group work and its responsibilities. Released to the public in September of 2008, Wiggio’s mission is to continuously develop an application that eliminates the frustration of working in groups by providing the powerful, straightforward functionality that you need to work effectively. Among its direct competitors include GroupLoop (www.grouploop.com) and GroupTable (www.grouptable.com).





Writeboard is a collaboration tool created to allow users a way to edit and compare text and share ideas. Those responsible for its creation call themselves 37 Signals, and also created similar tools such as Basecamp, Campfire, and Backpack. This company began in 1998 and came out with the tools Backpack and Writeboard in 2005 due to ever increasing use of the web to communicate with others, such as YouTube. Writeboard is compatible with Internet Explorer 7, Safari, Google Chrome, or Firefox, thus making it widely accessible but not completely foolproof.





Twiddla is a real-time based collaboration tool that allows many people the opportunity to gather at one time and communicate via text or video in order to make suggestions for changes on websites, documents, or images. The programmers who created this tool actually designed it for themselves with the idea of having a way to share ideas in real-time in a whiteboard like setting. This tool was the first of its kind, as the programmers were forced to create this tool for their job needs.





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