In 1991 British scientist Tim Berners-Lee posted a brief summary of the World Wide Web (or W3) project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup, writing:

“The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the Web to other areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome.”

It’s safe to say that Berners-Lee’s invitation to potential collaborators went fairly well. That initial web page has expanded to more than 19 billion pages (at the last count) and there are millions and millions of workers across the globe who rely on the World Wide Web to go about their daily lives. In those 20 years, the changes to the workplace that have taken place thanks to the Internet are nothing short of remarkable. Email is as good a place as any to start.

You’ve got mail

Try to explain the workplace B.E. (before email) to someone under 30, and you could be describing life in the 19th century for all the relevance it has to their working day. Back then, we lived in a world in which quaint technologies such as the fax machine prevailed. With the fax machine, it was not unusual to wait days for a reply.

Later, when Web-based email began to grow in popularity, it transformed communication in the workplace. You could now receive a response to a question within minutes, especially once broadband connections became more commonplace. You could send information and documents to colleagues around the world at the click of a button.

Email overload

But technology was now developing at a pace that seemed astonishing even to those who worked in the industry, and email, after a honeymoon period, hit problems. “Too intrusive,” said some. “Too much of it,” said others. “Not quick enough,” moaned the rest.

When consumer-based instant-messaging technologies infiltrated the workplace – AIM launched in 1997 and Yahoo! Messenger (then Pager) in 1998 – users were suddenly able to communicate with co-workers in real-time. Years later, these tools would often be integrated into a platform that also included voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), shared whiteboards, video conferencing and file transfer features.

It was around this time that social networks also began to establish a presence. Some of these are undoubtedly more consumer-focused, but there can also be no denying that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have had a massive impact on working life, too. The ability to communicate and share content with your extended network (and beyond) has transformed many of our traditional working practices. As well as enabling businesses to engage in two-way conversations with their customers, these social networks are now a central part of the recruitment process. Last year, I wrote a piece on how Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can enable you to find a team of peers without breaking the bank of recruitment agencies. You can tap into your workforce’s network and find like-minded, talented people to become part of your company.

Getting ready to collaborate

The net result of all the technological developments outlined above has been to change the very fabric of how we work. We now live in a collaboration economy. To share and communicate information, ideas and innovation has never been easier, or come more naturally to the workforce. The emergence of the Web has given rise to a global working village, with location and time zone utterly irrelevant. You can work as closely with someone in another country as you would with someone sitting opposite; work from home or on the move, and even send files from your mobile handset to someone on the other side of the world.

This has all been made possible by the World Wide Web. From Skype to smartphones and social networking to SaaS, it’s all underpinned by the internet and the changes to the workplace of 20 years ago are just extraordinary. With a global mobile worker population set to hit 1.19 billion by 2013, one can only wonder what the Internet will bring us next. Bring on the next 20 years!

Andy McLoughlin, Co-founder and EVP Strategy at Huddle, can be reached on Twitter@Bandrew.

Image courtesy of Flickr user thinknew.

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Adium, the open-source multi-protocol instant messaging client for Mac OS X, which is well-liked by a number of our writers, has been updated to version 1.4. I’ve been using it in beta for what seems like an eternity, but the delay in its release is hardly surprising, given the huge number of new features included in the new version.

In addition to support for pretty much every instant messaging system on the planet, including IRC (which I don’t use) and several protocols I’d never heard of, Adium now supports one or more Twitter accounts. Twitter integration is interesting, as when a new tweet from someone you’re following is added, a popup window appears, just as if you’d gotten a new IM. Frankly, I follow enough people that I find the constant popups annoying. But if you have enough screen room, or are using Spaces, you could leave the window open all of the time.

I find Adium’s implementation of Facebook Chat to be very helpful, especially since it allows me to review past conversations through Adium’s chat transcripts; something that I don’t believe can be done through Facebook’s own system.

Adium’s real strength is its integration with Mac OS X, including the Address Book. It continues to support Growl notifications, and an extensive list of themes and add-ons, so you can customize the program in lots of ways.

Adium has also improved its group chat function, which is very useful since I find it to be an excellent tool for collaborating with my colleagues, including those who use Pidgin or other IM clients on their PCs.

Let us know what you think of the new Adium below.

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After my recent post about the betas I use, I was introduced to Nimbuzz, an IM program that is now offering voice services in competition with Skype and Gizmo5 (which was recently purchased by Google).

The origins of Nimbuzz are in Europe. It claims a 20 percent market share in several European countries, and it’s popular in the Middle East. The company says that it has 12 million users, and is adding 40,000 users per day — not bad for a service that’s less than two years old. Nimbuzz is less well known in North America, but that may soon change.

Nimbuzz Mobile

Nimbuzz focuses much of its effort on developing mobile clients for a wide variety of mobile phones, including the iPhone/iPod touch, Android systems, and BlackBerry (a native BlackBerry app is new today). Nimbuzz clients are available in several languages.

The Nimbuzz Mobile client supports the IM services one would expect (Windows Live/MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ); social networking chat (Facebook, MySpace); plus some services not often seen in North America, but which are popular elsewhere (the VZ Networks, Gadu-Gadu, Hyves, Giovani).

The client also allows you to make VoIP calls using any SIP account (like Gizmo5), Skype, or its own NimbuzzOut service. Nimbuzz claims that its international calling rates are cheaper than Skype’s.

I found the Nimbuzz mobile client for iPhone/iPod touch to be attractive and easy to use. Both the IM and voice functions work well. I have some minor grumbles, which I’m told will be remedied in upcoming versions.

• In order to make voice calls, the phone number to be dialed must be entered into your device’s address book in full international format — like +1 (555) 555-1212. However, one can’t edit this data directly from Nimbuzz.
• The client supports only one account per service, so if you have, say, two Google Talk accounts, you must pick one.
• Nimbuzz does not yet support GTalk for Google Apps accounts.
• I was recently required to change my GTalk password due to “suspicious activity,” but Nimbuzz for iPhone doesn’t seem to have a way to change service passwords. I had to delete the GTalk account in the client, then re-create it.

Nimbuzz for Mac

The developers at Nimbuzz say that they are “big Apple fans,” and it shows. The Nimbuzz Mac client comes close to the elegance of Adium. I hope the program will maintain its Mac-friendly design as it matures. The Windows version looks good, too, although I haven’t tested it.

The desktop client has most of the features and limitations of the mobile version, although it doesn’t yet support voice calling or Skype chat. It also doesn’t share data with the mobile version, which would be nice, so as to avoid having to input account data more than once. And I would have liked to have seen integration with the Mac Address Book app.

Nimbuzz also offers a web version, which isn’t as full-featured as some other web-based IM services, such as Meebo.

Nimbuzz doesn’t work with Twitter, although I think that’s a good thing. Twitter isn’t a messaging service, it’s a microblogging service, and I have found that Twitter functions in IM clients don’t work very well.

I’m very encouraged by the development of Nimbuzz so far. The company tells me that, instead of adding features willy-nilly, they have chosen to “do it right.”I can certainly agree with that in principle, although given the speed with which other apps are being created and updated, let’s hope that Nimbuzz can keep pace.

Have you tried the new Nimbuzz BlackBerry client? Let us know what you think of it below.

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3jam is billing itself as an alternative to Google Voice, and it’s available today, so I’ve given it a quick spin. This is not a complete review, as there are some of 3jam’s features that I haven’t tried, such as SMS messaging, forwarding to Skype, an API that lets you write your own applications to interact with their service, and “group” numbers that allow multiple users to share voice mail and messaging.

Signing Up and Getting a Number

Signing up for the service is easy. Just select an area code where you want a number and 3jam will display a series of available numbers from which you can pick. You can also enter words to see if you can get a “vanity number” that spells something. You can also port an existing number to the 3jam service for a onetime fee of $25, something that Google Voice doesn’t yet offer. Right now, 3jam is only offering incoming numbers in the continental U.S. If you want an incoming number in another country, you’ll need SkypeIn or another VoIP service.

Pricing

In my opinion, a major weakness of 3jam’s service is its complex pricing structure. For those of us who are used to the clearly-defined packages offered by most cell phone and VoIP providers, it’s bewildering to be confronted with a choice of monthly fees and SMS packages, and to realize that the monthly fees include only a ridiculously small number of incoming minutes (just 30!) and no outgoing minutes at all.

3jam charges a monthly fee ranging from $4.99 per month for a 12-month contract, to $8.99 per month on a monthly basis. Additional minutes, SMS and even transcriptions of voice mails (over the first 30) cost extra. Additional minute rates for calls (apparently both incoming and outgoing) are competitive. The SMS prices are puzzling, though: 5 cents per message to the U.S., but only 4 cents to Uganda or Uzbekistan?

Annoyingly, information about pricing is very difficult to find on 3jam’s web site. The monthly fees are displayed during the sign-up process, but only after you’ve already selected a phone number. A more comprehensive list of pricing seems to be available only in the help section, which I found by doing a search.

By comparison, the Google Voice service does not currently charge a monthly fee, or fees for calls and SMS messages in the U.S. Google Voice charges for international calls at rates that are competitive with other VoIP services. It’s rumored that Google could make the service advertising-supported at some point.

While some people may find 3jam’s à la carte approach to pricing advantageous, I think that businesses will need to know what they can expect to pay; 3jam makes that difficult. The 3jam control panel does offer a running total of calls made and the costs incurred, so users can at least keep track of what they’ve spent.

Setup

Setting up the service is straightforward. You can set incoming calls to the 3jam number to ring on as many as six different phones, not only in the U.S., but in many other locations throughout the world. You can also forward incoming calls to Skype, something that Google Voice doesn’t offer. And you can forward incoming SMS messages to IM services like Google Talk and AIM, which is a nice touch.

3jam offers the ability to import your contacts to its address book from external email accounts like Gmail, and from Outlook, Thunderbird Entourage and .csv files. I was unable to get either Gmail or a .csv import to work, however, and didn’t try the other options.

Quality

Like many VoIP services, sound quality varies from call to call. I had several friends place test calls to me, and we heard occasional echoes, delays and crackles. But generally, call clarity was good — as good as Google Voice, if not better. The transcriptions of voice mails seem to be on a par with Google Voice as well, which is to say, good enough to get the gist of the message, even when some words are missing or incorrect.

Applications

3jam offers three applications that I didn’t try because I’m on a Mac. The first is a Windows-only desktop application for SMS messaging. (The site mentions a web version, but the link to it doesn’t seem to be working.) There is also a BlackBerry app, and a way of having 3jam send messages to you via Twitter.

For people who need maximum flexibility in routing calls and SMS messages, especially internationally, 3jam is likely to be an excellent choice. For those who need to forecast their communication costs, and those who don’t need the international forwarding options, Google Voice is probably a better choice, once it becomes more widely available.

Have you tried 3jam? How does it compare to Google Voice?

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It is outside of the office where things can get a bit tricky. I’ve never really been a fan of text messaging on my mobile phone. While it can work well for an occasional status update or a quick message, using it as a conversational tool has never seemed all that efficient to me. And while IM on the mobile phone exists, the challenge is the same as on the desktop, maintaining multiple accounts and programs that work with the various services I need.

Enter Mundu IM – a cross platform messaging client that helps keeps me connected on my mobile device.

Mundu IM works with MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk and Jabber which pretty much covers all the bases for me. The devices that it works with is also extensive. I had no issue downloading and installing on my Windows Smartphone and versions also exist for Pocket PC, Palm, Blackberry and Sony Ericsson. A beta release for iPhone is also available and Symbian is coming soon. I tested the Windows Smartphone version but features can vary by device so be sure to read the specifics about yours.

I find the Mundu interface to be clean and easy to navigate. There was a bit of setup time to get all the accounts entered and things set up how I wanted them, but after just a few minutes I was able to get familiar with how to accomplish most tasks. It really does a great job of giving me access to most if not all of the features I would have in each of these desktop clients.

I particularly love the Quick text feature (right) which lets me quickly add full sentence responses with just a few keystrokes. The keyboard on my device is good but for frequently used items this is a great time saver.

On my Smartphone, I can stay connected even while on the phone or in another application which is great. I get notified when new messages come in or when folks log in or out. The cross conferencing feature lets me invite users from different IM services to conference in a single chat window. I can also send files and photos to any user I am connected to, as well as maintain an archive of conversations so I can review or act on them later.

The proliferation of devices with a keyboard is really pushing the adoption of mobile instant messaging, and with so many folks already used to the IM interface, getting others on board is easy. Obviously, you’ll want to either have an unlimited data plan or closely monitor your bandwidth to use this extensively. You just might be able to lower or lose your SMS plan though.

You can download a fully featured 5 day free trial of Mundu IM to see how well it works for you. If you like it, Mundu IM is a very affordable $11.00 – They call it a LifeTime use license but that price doesn’t include full version upgrades which may incur an additional upgrade charge.

Do you IM on your mobile? What do you use to stay connected?

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Earlier today the company rounded out its ‘Yuuguu Inside’ strategy by extending its integration of Google Talk buddies to users from AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo’s instant messaging networks, bringing cross-platform and cross-network support to the company’s ‘Yuuniverse’.

With a reach extending into hundreds of millions now, its easier than ever for users of the service to invite participants to a Yuuguu session, though it remains to be seen if removing previous barriers actually makes a difference in adoption of screensharing over face-to-face meetings.

Regardless, Yuuguu remains a useful free tool for web workers and one that now extends a little further.

UPDATE: Yuuguu CEO Anish Kapoor assures me that a bug in the acceptance of .Mac-based AIM screennames will shortly be resolved.

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