Backoffice

1. Invoice management

Freshbooks is still an excellent invoicing service, but there are some new and some improved invoicing apps in this space, such as:

• WinkBill
• SimplyBill
• WorkingPoint

You can also track expenses with:

• Expensify (see our review here)

And add functionality to your online invoicing:

• OfficeDrop (includes Freshbooks integration. See my review here)

Also check out Celine’s piece on managing your finances online. If you are looking for solutions for creating and managing contracts, check out Celine’s roundup of contract resources. You may also want to check out Outright, a bookkeeping and tax prep tool that Scott reviewed.

2. Time tracking

Need to get a handle on how much time you’ve spent on a particular project or task? There are apps for that — some standalone, some that integrate with your invoicing systems, and some like Where is My Time that help you to analyze how the time flew by and how productive you were during that time. Here are some others:

• Klok
• BubbleTimer
• toggl
• Paymo (tracking with invoicing)
• Intervals (plus task and project management)
• RescueTime (with time management and project tracking. See our review here.)

And in the time-, cash- and distance-tracking category, take a peek at 1DayLater (see our review here).

3. Social CRM

Here are some startups that provide useful Social CRM products:

• BatchBlue
• SugarCRM

For quick contact information exchange, I love the Poken social business card and am so disappointed that they aren’t taking off like I think they should. I wear my cute skull Poken at every conference I go to but have yet to get “poked” unless Poken is a conference sponsor.

I’m also keen on Bump for the iPhone and Android, and also covered some other contact sharing apps in this roundup: DropCard, Rmbrme, BeamMe, ShareCard, SnapDat.

At SXSW, I was given a very impressive demo of relationship management tool Gist (see our review here) that promised a lot, though I have yet to incorporate it into my daily work.

4. RSS Reader

I don’t know about you, but I’m over RSS readers. But to be fair to those who have yet to discover the social firehose, you could go with the ever-popular Google Reader and the novelty of Snackr, which puts a little ticker at the bottom of your computer screen for passive, almost subliminal consumption of your feeds.

And here are a few other popular feed readers:

• Filtrbox (see my initial review here)
• Netvibes (this is really more of a “build your own landing page” service that incorporates feed reading features)
• Feedly (a similar landing page service)

For saving articles to read later, I currently use a combination of Delicious, Instapaper, and “favoriting” tweets containing links on Twitter.

Communications

5. Email management Social communications management

I have changed the heading of this section because I find that my communications are no longer mainly taking place through email, and are increasingly moving into my social networks.

While I am trying to move away from Gmail and start using email management tool PostBox again (its attachment management tools make it a compelling option for me), I am also looking out other social communications management systems and apps.

I was panicked to find Threadsy — the intriguing integrated communications client that you could use to see your email, social networks, and Twitter in a single place — under “re-construction” but have signed up to see what is happening with the app.

You might also like to check out a few email productivity add-ons we’ve reviewed, such as Xobni, Rapportive and MailBrowser.

6. Calls, Conferencing and Instant Messaging

Right now, my company has been moving away from Skype. Although we all love the app, it seems to drops our calls almost constantly now. We are moving back to the old-fashioned telephone for calls, while for conferencing we have been using FreeConference.com.

Here are a few phone conferencing and webinar-style conferencing systems that I also use:

• Calliflower
• DimDim
• GoToMeeting

Note that I didn’t include WebEx in the list. I am convinced that the company, which once dominated this space, has had a hard time keeping pace with the more nimble startups.

One other phone-related service that my company is trying is eVoice, because we need a virtual PBX system that can accommodate our UK office as well as multiple U.S. locations. Unfortunately,  I don’t have enough experience with it yet to tell you how it is working for us. Stay tuned.

Work Process

7. Project management

My company first used Basecamp for project management before switching to 5pm. Today, I’m seriously checking out glasscubes as it provides project management together with collaborative space. It is much lighter on the project management side — it’s really just a task management  app — but I’m getting a feel for the company’s interesting take on how virtual groups can work better together. More on that soon, too.

Just for giggles and grins, check out my old post about this topic: “Project Management, Collaboration and How Our Brains Work.”

8. Calendars and Schedules

I’m excited about the web-based services that allow me to give out a link to my calendar — or just a portion of my calendar — so  people can get on my schedule. But as my post about a scheduling bungle at SXSW due to system time zone issues, I know that there is still no single tool that “does it all.”

Still, here is a quick rundown of a few tools I’m still using or trying out:

• TimeBridge and their Meetwith.me feature
• TimeDriver
• Tungle
• ScheduleOnce

9. Cloud-based collaboration/document sharing

While I still use Google Docs, some fundamental integration issues are making me look elsewhere. As I mentioned earlier, my company is currently experimenting with glasscubes.

Here are a few others:

• iWork.com (from Apple)
• Zoho
• Colaab (see our review here)
• Backboard (useful for feedback on docs and files)

And I know you’re going to think this is kooky, but the 2.0 version of Spinscape combines mind mapping principles and collaborative communications in a way that is quite compelling to me.

10. File storage/backup/sync

Take a look at SugarSync. It provides backup, file sync and file sharing “on-the-go” on any Mac, PC or mobile device (check out my review here). Here are some other useful options:

• DropBox
• Box.net
• Mozy

A newbie in the “active backup” and file storage space is Soonr, which also has Mac, PC and mobile capabilities.

What are some of the must-have applications you’ve found invaluable in your own web work?

stock.xchng images by johnnyberg, gun, toutouke

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Since I’m all about making my iPhone as efficient and useful as possible, I’ve sought out apps and services to help me not only deliver my deets to others but also gather and organize theirs.

Kevin Tofel wrote about DropCard in a previous post so I recently gave it a whirl. The set up was a cinch – a quick form to fill out including your mobile number. Then all you have to do is text the service with the message: “drop colleague@theiremail.com” and of course fill in the name of the person you’d like to receive your contact information.

The theory is that once I meet someone, I can simply text the DropCard service with their email address, and my info will be waiting for them in their Inbox before we’ve even left the event. They can then add your information to their address book. By adding a “p” after your text message (with a space before it), you can send personal contact information instead. Both profiles can include links to your social network profiles as well.

Rmbrme by ChroniQL, Inc. let’s you customize and optimize your vCard with a photo and social networking links. Then you can beam your social media vCard from your mobile to someone else’s mobile via text message.

Or you can use their BeamMe app. This free app works with the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Treo, wifi-enabled computers, and more. The recipient can then use the vCard to add you to their address book or even an application such as Salesforce if they are a hardcore CRMer. The vCard conveniently integrates with LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace and other social networks. Plus you can track every contact you’ve made.

Speaking of beaming content, the BeamMe app from ChroniQL should not be confused with the BeamMe from Beam Me Pty Ltd which is a nifty service for web site publishers where you can add a button to your site to have content “beamed” to someone’s mobile via SMS. Sounds like a nifty idea but could not get it to work at presstime.

Another vCard app for the iPhone is ShareCard which costs $1.99. For an app you have to purchase, I was surprised that Sharecard only gives you the option to email your stats while BeamMe also sends your info via SMS.

While I was sending my vCard from BeamMe, it allowed me to edit the content of my card after selecting it from my iPhone contact list, however, the changes I made were not permanent so I had to change them. Sharecard didn’t seem to let me do any edits of my contact information within the app itself. I had to exit the app, make edits in my iPhone contact list, then return to the app and turn on the details I wanted to send.

Another free app, SnapDat calls their graphically-enhanced vCards “SnapCards” and provides 40 custom designs for your cards. Instead of the on/off feature of ShareCard to select the content you want to send, SnapDat lets you create as many cards as you like, each one customized for a different type of recipient such as the “I’m for hire and here is everything you need to know about me” SnapCard versus the “Met you at a networking event, here’s my email” version.

While I had to type in some registration information to get started with SnapDat, once I was registered, my first SnapCard instantly popped up, fully populated with the information from my iPhone contact listing, and with an edit button so I could customize it. I immediately gave it a name (Main Card for main business networking purposes) and was able to change the background design. Then I just tapped the finished card and was able to email it. The first option is to send to someone else with SnapDat but the second option is to email.

While all of these apps we pretty intuitive to get started with and use, I have to say so far I like the extra options SnapDat offers, however, I was surprised that when the SnapCard arrived via email, the pretty design wasn’t viewable in the email. BeamMe has the nicest looking email. ShareCard, for the money, just seems a bit lacking overall. DropCard is nice but lacks the fun iPhone app although it works with iPhone SMS.

What are you using to beam your biz card?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Earlier this month at the Mobilize conference, I must have passed out a hundred cards; doing so reduced my weight by about 3 percent because I have the heavy stock card type. Towards the end of the event however, I witnessed “business card nirvana”. Andy Abramson and I were chatting about mobile technologies over drinks when all of sudden he whips out his BlackBerry to send a text message.

Note: we don’t recommend nor condone drinking and texting here at WWD.

Andy asked for my e-mail address as he’s texting something to 41411. Curious, not tipsy, I oblige. Less than a minute later, my iPhone receives an e-mail with all of Andy’s contact information. Even better, there’s an attached vCard containing that info, making it simple to import Andy’s details into my Contacts application. Drop. Dead. Simple.

Dropcard is the solution that Andy used and it’s free for a basic account. Once you sign up and enter your contact information in a virtual business card, you’re set. Using text messaging, all you need to know is someone’s e-mail address and then you simply text 41411 with a command like: “drop kevin@gigaom.com”. The “drop” command tells the Dropcard folks to shoot your contact details to the e-mail address you specify. There’s even a few shortcut commands to speed up the process: you don’t have to type the “gmail.com” bit of an address, for example. Dropcard will assume that no domain in the address means Gmail.

The free account allows you to pass 15 virtual business cards a month, offers two profiles and includes an on-line contact list. $4.99 a month nets you up to 100 Dropcards a month, 20 profiles (for you secret-agent types) and a logo or photo on your Dropcard. Up the ante to $9.99 a month for unlimited Dropcards.

While I’ll still always have a few paper business cards on hand, it’s a safe bet that most people I meet have e-mail addresses. If they have one, I’ll hang on to the physical card and shoot them a Dropcard.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

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