Planio is a web-based project management system that takes its cues from Wikipedia when it comes to keeping large swaths of information organized and available at a moment’s notice. Planio facilitates online collaboration, automatically generates Gantt charts, and offers time-tracking features to keep everyone in the office on schedule.

Sign up for an account with Planio based on the number of ongoing projects you have and the number of users who’ll need access to your company account. Once you’ve gotten your employees on board, you can get to work uploading key files and assigning tasks to associates from within the Planio system. Each user who is assigned a task is granted specific permissions and roles, which makes it easy to track when milestones have been met and point the blame if critical errors are ultimately made. To ensure those types of mistakes never happen, it’s important to stay in constant contact with your team. Planio offers a communication system that features company forums and numerous commenting capabilities to ensure everyone stays in the loop.

People who enjoy Wikipedia’s organization style will appreciate Planio take. The web-app offers individual wikis and full-text search options to help users find the exact documents and conversations they need at a moment’s notice. Large companies and teams will never feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information they’ve stored in Planio, since the application keeps that information structured in a way that is always organized and controlled.

Practical Uses:

• Assign tasks to employees without speaking in person
• Keep your employees organized when working with multiple clients
• Share files without relying on email attachments
• Collaborate on an upcoming presentation with colleagues

Insider Tips:

• Planio offers a CRM helpdesk to improve the way companies work with clients
• Individual tasks can be attached to specific milestones
• Planio backs up user content each day
• Users can customize their own workflows

What we liked:

• Individual employees can all be granted different levels of access within Planio
• Users can estimate expenses with the time tracking tool
• Colleagues can share files and collaborate on presentations
• All changes made to group wikis can be tracked

What we didn’t like:

• Users are not eligible for free trials when they upgrade plans

Alternatives:

• Basecamp – http://basecamp.com
• DeskAway – http://www.deskaway.com
• Tree.io – http://www.tree.io

Company Info:

• Launched: 2010
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
• Founded by: Jan Schulz-Hofen
• Web site: http://plan.io/en

Costs:

• Free 30-day trial
• Silver plan is 9 €/month
• Gold plan is 29 €/month
• Platinum plan is 99 €/month
• Enterprise plan is 199 €/month

Who has time to flip through a photo album these days? Slidemotion is a tool that modernizes photos by turning them into moving videos – complete with background music and all the other flourishes people have come to expect from professionally designed video montages.

Putting together your first video with Slidemotion doesn’t have to take any longer than three minutes. Assuming you already have the latest version of Microsoft Silverlight installed on your computer, you can get started by clicking “Create new video” and uploading the images you’d like to use. Add up to 15 images from your hard drive or Facebook account. Each photo is its own “section” in the movie, and you can add unique songs – which either come from your computer or Slidemotion’s collection – and overlay text to as many sections as you like. You can also edit specific images by rotating, cropping, or zooming in. When you’re done with your masterpiece, click “Finalize” and “Complete.” Slidemotion will send you an email when your video is ready to view and share.

Heavy Facebook users will appreciate Slidemotion’s easy integration with the social networking platform, making it easy to turn entire albums worth of photos into memorable videos in mere minutes. Slidemotion is a great tool for individuals looking for fresh ways to preserve their vacation memories, as well as small business owners looking for low-cost ways to market their companies online.

Practical Uses:

• Create a video based on the photos taken at your wedding
• Use images from your vacation when creating a family video
• Turn the photos your customers submit into a commercial for your store
• Use music and text to add context to the video from your recent trip to Jamaica

Insider Tips:

• Facebook users can create videos in just three clicks with Slidemotion’s VideoExpress app
• Images can be cropped, rotated, and zoomed in on
• Videos can be shared or kept private
• Users with PRO and PRO Reseller plans can use Slidemotion for commercial purposes

What we liked:

• Videos can be made in HD quality
• People with Home Premium accounts can add up to 200 images to a video
• Users can upload their own music or use the tunes from Slidemotion’s library
• Slidemotion lets you add multiple songs to a single video

What we didn’t like:

• Slidemotion’s free trial only lasts for 30 days, after which people must select a paid plan to continue using the app

Alternatives:

• Animoto – http://animoto.com
• Stupeflix – http://studio.stupeflix.com

Company Info:

• Launched: September 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Founded by: Marko Petkovic and Matjaz Clemente
• Web site: http://www.slidemotion.com

Costs:

• Free 30-day trial
• Home plan is $5/month
• Home Premium plan is $12/month
• PRO and PRO Reseller plans are coming soon

What do you want to learn about today? If it’s physics, history, language, or virtually any other topic under the sun, then Memrise has got you covered. The online learning platform uses mnemonic devices – which it calls “mems” – as a way to help people memorize foreign languages and other advanced concepts.

When you’re ready to hit the books, log on to Memrise and choose a topic worth exploring. In addition to the heavy hitters – like Spanish, physics, and geography – Memrise also offers lessons in more superfluous topics like famous people, random facts, and football. Once you find your interest, start a new session and begin the education process. One of the core principles behind Memrise is that learning should be like a garden, and seeds of information should grow into gardens of long-term knowledge over time. Answer questions throughout each lesson, and you’ll earn points or “seeds.” As the knowledge you’ve accumulated becomes more embedded in your brain – with use of practice questions – those seeds will sprout into plants, and eventually blossom into gardens.

If Memrise is missing a course that you think would be worthwhile, then you can get started creating it yourself. The entire web-application is crowd-sourced, which means the topics and content are developed by other users just like you. For people who enjoy the process of lifelong learning, Memrise is an excellent educational tool that’s completely free to use.

Practical Uses:

• Improve your Spanish skills
• Improve your knowledge of molecular biology
• Memorize the capitals of all 50 states
• Learn about the Civil War

Insider Tips:

• Mems are anything that helps a person learn the meaning behind a word
• Users can create their own courses, flashcards, and mems
• Memrise tracks how many people use the mems that each user adds
• People can upload spreadsheets, videos, and audio to the mems they create

What we liked:

• Memrise is a great tool for learning foreign languages
• People can use Memrise for free
• The gardening concept is a great way to solidify information inside your head
• People can focus on studying only the memories that are “wilting” in their minds

What we didn’t like:

• Memrise is currently aimed at helping English speakers learn other languages, and not the other way around

Alternatives:

• Ediscio – http://www.ediscio.com
• Memorize – http://memorize.com
• Quizlet – http://quizlet.com

Company Info:

• Launched: September 2010
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: New York, New York
• Founded by: Ed Cooke and Greg Detre
• Web site: http://www.memrise.com

Costs:

• Free

Looking for additional streams of revenue for your online publication or mobile application? Peecho can help. The seriously simple web-application gives web publishers a way to start selling their digital goods as print products. Readers, meanwhile, get the pleasure of viewing the digital products they know and love – including online magazines, reports, and photos – in print format.

If you’d like to start making more money from your digital publication, mobile app, or photo sharing service, then it’s worthwhile to check out what Peecho can do for you. Once you sign up, you’ll get access to a print button code that can be embedded on your existing website. People who visit your site once the code has been embedded will see a print button, as well as a price. Magazines and books that you plan to sell online should be uploaded as PDFs, with specific defined aspect ratios based on Peecho’s recommendations. Choose the published products you’d like to sell, make sure the correct PDFs have been uploaded, and you can start letting users buy content right away. Once a reader makes a purchase, Peecho will make sure the content gets printed and mailed to the recipient in a timely fashion. Peecho lets you track orders throughout the production process, and transfers the money it has collected into your bank account on a monthly basis.

The products printed and sold through Peecho are produced at top-notch facilities, which helps to ensure a high quality for people purchasing printed goods online. The web-application is free for publishers to use, and it involves no minimum volume requirements or financial risk. For these reasons, and many more, Peecho is an excellent option for digital publishers looking for additional streams of revenue.

Practical Uses:

• Give your readers a way to purchase your online magazine in print
• Let users of your digital photo service purchase copies of their images
• Make money off of the content you’re already putting online
• Set your own retail prices for the printed products you sell

Insider Tips:

• The print button automatically calculates the price for a printed product based on the specifications of the document
• Print buttons can be customized to fit in with a website’s current design
• Peecho does not require any minimum number of orders
• Money is deposited into the publisher’s bank account once each month

What we liked:

• Peecho gives publishers a new way to make money from their digital products
• People can purchase hardcover books based on their favorite online content
• Photo sharing websites can give users an easy way to print their images
• All Peecho products are printed at high-quality printing facilities

What we didn’t like:

• Nothing

Alternatives:

• Fotomoto – http://www.fotomoto.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2012
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Founded by: Sander Nagtegaal and Martijn Groot
• Web site: http://www.peecho.com

Costs:

• Peecho determines wholesale prices, but publishers can set higher retail prices to increase revenue

WP Remote is a tool that people with WordPress websites can use to track their online properties and look for signs of danger. The virtual security camera keeps a close eye on WordPress powered websites and lets publishers know when their plugins and themes are out of date.

Signing up for WP Remote is completely free, and you can start tracking all your WordPress sites at once almost immediately once you create an account. Type in the name of your website and the URL, and then click “Add.” WP Remote will prompt you to install and activate a special plugin on your websites with an API key. The websites you add can be organized into groups by topic or theme, making it easy to see how your fashion blogs are doing at a glance, or whether your science websites have been updated with the latest themes. WP Remote will keep you up to date on all the latest core WordPress updates, plugin updates, and theme updates. When one of your sites is out of date, just click “Update” to get back on track.

In addition to helping you keep your WordPress sites current with the latest security standards, WP Remote also helps manage WordPress backups. Although the application doesn’t currently create automatic backups, it does make it easier for web publishes to create full off-site backups that are stored in the Amazon S3 cloud.

Practical Uses:

• Keep your WordPress blog up to date
• Create remote backups of all your blog content
• Never forget to update your WordPress theme
• Update the plugins on your blogs when the time is right

Insider Tips:

• WP Remote can only update themes and plugins on sites where it has the correct permissions
• Backups are saved on the Amazon S3 cloud
• Websites show up as yellow on WP Remote when new updates are ready to install
• Websites show up as red on WP Remote when there is an error connecting

What we liked:

• WP Remote is a great tool for people with multiple WordPress blogs
• Users can organize their blogs into groups
• WP Remote helps ensure that plugins and themes are kept up to date
• Blogs that are monitored by WP Remote are more secure than those that are not

What we didn’t like:

• WP Remote does not work with some types of premium WordPress themes

Alternatives:

• ManageWP – http://managewp.com

Company Info:

• Launched: January 2012
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: United Kingdom
• Founded by: Tom Willmot and Joe Hoyle
• Web site: https://wpremote.com

Costs:

• Free

Most email address books are a pain, but Xobni is something completely different. The automatic address book and contact list manager offers its users a smarter way to organize their personal contacts and sync their information across multiple devices.

Xobni takes information from your email, mobile phone, and social networking accounts and uses it to create robust profiles for each person listed in your email address book. Each profile includes the necessary contact information, as well as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn updates, a complete message history, and a list of contacts you have in common. Once you’ve set up the platform with your own email system, it works automatically in the background. The next time you log in to your Gmail account, for example, you’ll see a Xobni sidebar to the right of your emails. Click on an unread email, and this sidebar will instantly populate with all the sender’s personal information. Xobni’s address book automatically updates when people change their contact information, making it easy to stay up to date whether you’re using your personal laptop, your work computer, or your mobile phone.

Groups and teams looking to increase productivity can check out Xobni, as well. The application offers a cloud-based service called Xobni Pro and a service for offices or teams. The application offers plugins that work on both Gmail and Outlook, and mobile applications that work on Androids, iPhones, and BlackBerrys.

Practical Uses:

• Get updated contact information for people who change their phone numbers frequently
• Make sure everyone on your team has your current pager number
• Add personal touches to your client emails
• Export your contacts to Outlook

Insider Tips:

• Xobni’s mobile apps work on iPhones, Androids, and BlackBerry devices
• People can use Xobni with their Gmail and Outlook accounts
• Xobni pulls personal information from LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
• Professional users can connect with their Salesforce accounts

What we liked:

• Xobni helps people sync their email contacts across multiple devices
• People can put a name to the face when emailing clients they haven’t met
• Xobni provides users with personal information about the people they’re emailing
• Pro users can get daily spam rescue alerts letting them know if important emails are incorrectly filtered

What we didn’t like:

• Many of the best Xobni features are only available to people with Pro accounts

Alternatives:

• Plaxo – http://www.plaxo.com
• Rapportive – http://rapportive.com
• Scrubly – http://www.scrubly.com
• Soocial – http://www.soocial.com

Company Info:

• Launched: September 2007 (Private Beta)
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California
• Founded by: Adam M. Smith and Matt Brezina
• Web site: http://www.xobni.com

Costs:

• Xobni Pro is $7.99/month

Potential clients take just seconds to judge a business based on the look of its marketing emails. Unfortunately, this can end up hurting many smaller businesses that don’t have the budgets to use sophisticated messaging software. As a result, many of these businesses end up sending emails that look unpolished and unprofessional – a definite turnoff to potential clients and customers.

Busy professionals that use Gmail for sending and receiving business messages now have a solution. BrandMyMail is a web-application that any Gmail user can use to create and send personalized, customized, branded emails that won’t get ignored or pushed aside. When you sign up for an account, you get access to BrandMyMail’s template editor. Using drag-and-drop functionality, this editor lets you place all the features you want in your business emails – including company banners, social media links, and embedded blog posts or videos. Once your email template is finalized, head back to your Gmail account and start selecting BrandMyMail as the “sendor” each time you send a new message out. The messages you’ve designed will be dropped into your email document, and they’ll be ready to send to clients in mere seconds.

iPhone users will appreciate being able to send branded BrandMyMail messages from their mobile devices, as well as their home and work computers. The web-application is powered by Python, Django, Postgresql, exim, Apache, and Amazon EC2, and it’s completely free for people to use.

Practical Uses:

• Send professional looking business emails
• Encourage clients to ‘like’ your company on Facebook
• Generate more clicks on your professional blog
• Give your one-person business a professional appearance

Insider Tips:

• The service only works for Gmail users at the current time
• BrandMyMail works on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch
• Drag and drop various applications into place on the editor screen
• BrandMyMail is powered by Python, Django, Postgresql, exim, Apache, and Amazon EC2

What we liked:

• Any Gmail user can use BrandMyMail
• Small business owners can create branded marketing emails
• People can promote their Twitter accounts within their marketing emails
• BrandMyMail makes it easy to embed blog posts and videos in emails

What we didn’t like:

• Businesses that don’t use Gmail can’t use BrandMyMail

Alternatives:

• Moveable Ink – http://movableink.com
• PowerInbox – http://powerinbox.com
• WiseStamp – http://www.wisestamp.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Funchal, Portugal
• Founded by: Shay Rojansky, Limor Schweitzer, and Roberto Varela
• Web site: http://www.brandmymail.com

Costs:

• Free

Itching to find out more about your neighborhood’s history, or maybe to learn a new skill like fire eating or unicycle riding? Gidsy is your site. The application lets qualified experts share their skills and knowledge with others in their cities. Meanwhile, people looking to get out of the house and try something new can sign up for the activities and tours other locals are offering nearby.

You don’t have to be a tourist to take advantage of the fun – and sometimes wacky – tours and excursions that people post on Gidsy. Just select your city from the list, choose a category like history, nature, sports, or shopping, and click “Search.” Gidsy will provide you with a list of activities that meet your specifications, including brief descriptions and pricing information. Click on an activity that looks interesting to find out which dates it’s being offered and read any posted reviews, and make a reservation once you’ve made up your mind and decided to attend. Although Gidsy requires that you pay with a credit card or PayPal account before the event takes place, your money won’t be transferred to the host until 24 hours after the activity occurs. This serve as one way of protecting participants from flaky hosts who don’t show up or provide the activities they described.

To start earning money from your hobbies and skills, sign up to host an event with Gidsy. Create a listing that describes the activity or tour you’d like to organize, making sure to include details like the minimum and maximum number of participants and the times or days when you’re available. Once your listing has been verified, you can start hosting events. Gidsy will deposit the money you’ve earned directly into your PayPal account.

Practical Uses:

• Find out more about the history of your neighborhood
• Go on a ghost tour in your town
• Learn how to eat fire
• Try out a new skill like unicycle riding or rollerblading

Insider Tips:

• Participants can pay via credit card or PayPal
• Money is deposited into host’s accounts 24 hours after an activity occurs
• Organizers can list activities on Gidsy for free, however the site charges hosts based on actual bookings
• Small businesses can use Gidsy to advertise their events

What we liked:

• Gidsy is a great way for people to explore their towns
• People can make money by offering their services on Gidsy
• Gidsy protects event attendees from fraud by holding their payments until after an activity is complete
• Organizers are automatically sent confirmations when people book their activities

What we didn’t like:

• Gidsy is currently only available in six cities

Alternatives:

• Flextrip – http://www.flextrip.com
• GuideHop – http://guidehop.com

Company Info:

• Launched: November 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Berlin, Germany
• Founded by: Edial Dekker, Philipp Wassibauer, and Floris Dekker
• Web site: http://gidsy.com

Costs:

• Gidsy charges a 10% service fee for each booking

What’s the point in putting on an extravagant event if people don’t know about it? With Erly, any person can plan virtually any type of event online. By creating a colorful landing page for the event, planners and organizers can ensure that every guest has access to all the most pertinent information, like where to be, when to be there, and what to expect.

Before you can start inviting guests, adding photos, and collecting RSVP’s from people who can and cannot make it to your event, you’ll need to sign up for an Erly account. Click “Create a new Event” and you can begin building your first digital invitation. Select a cover photo for your event page from one of Erly’s high-resolution options, or upload your own for a more customized landing page. When you’re finished editing your invite, enter your friends’ email addresses and Erly will ensure that every person gets the message. Friends who click on the invites you send will be directed to an Erly RSVP page, where they can view event details and click once to let you know whether or not they can attend.

In addition to helping people plan upcoming events, Erly is also an incredibly useful tool for capturing memories from events that happened in the past. Users who create pages for their past events can collect photos, videos, and stories from the people who attended. This content can then be posted in a beautifully stylized online album that anyone can download and view.

Practical Uses:

• Create beautiful online invitations for your upcoming charity function
• Find out how many people are planning to attend the event you’re hosting
• Invite people to your upcoming birthday party
• Collect photos and videos taken at your parent’s anniversary gathering

Insider Tips:

• Only the people who’ve been added to a guest list can see an event posted on Erly
• Hosts can adjust the settings to prevent invitees from inviting additional guests
• Every Erly event page comes with a built-in multimedia album
• The event host is the only person who can change an event title and details

What we liked:

• Full-screen landing pages help give events a polished look
• Hosts can select a background photo from one of Erly’s themes, or by uploading their own
• Event organizers have the option to keep all names on the guest list hidden
• People can add photos and videos to an event via email, or by uploading them on the site

What we didn’t like:

• Nothing

Alternatives:

• Evite – http://new.evite.com
• Punchbowl – http://www.punchbowl.com
• SeeYouThen – http://www.seeyouthen.com

Company Info:

• Launched: 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Palo Alto, California, and New York, New York
• Founded by: Eric Feng, Eugene Wei, and Andrew Lin
• Web site: http://erly.com

Costs:

• Free

Teams that collaborate and work together on projects have the tendency to get better outcomes. In today’s workplace environment, however, it’s becoming less and less common for teams of coworkers to actually be present in the same room. Hall is a web-application that people can use to facilitate productive group meetings online using video chat and instant messaging.

Enter a work email address to begin using Hall, and then create a personal profile. Hall invites you to connect with colleagues by sharing your new Hall profile on Facebook or LinkedIn. To create your first war room, you’ll need to choose a room title and select a custom URL. This is the URL that colleagues will type into their browsers to find the room you’ve set up. You can also decide whether to make your room public or private, depending on the topics being discussed. War rooms are divided into multiple sections, with large chat-room like boards for immediate discussions and a video stream section where up to four people can chat face-to-face simultaneously. Rather than passing papers around the room, which you might do during a traditional war room meeting, Hall invites you to upload any files you wish to share with co-workers who’ve joined your discussion. These files can then be downloaded and reviewed at any time.

By setting up Hall’s desktop notifications, you can avoid ever being left out of important discussions; Google Chrome users can get pop-up icons that let them know each time new Hall events are going on or when their names have been mentioned. Hall users can also sign up for email digests, which summarize recent conversations and let absent team members know what they missed. For tech-savvy companies with remote workforces, Hall is a fantastic solution for brainstorming sessions and semi-regular meetings.

Practical Uses:

• Hold a brainstorming sessions with the telecommuters in your office
• Get email summaries of all the meetings you missed while you were sick
• Share files with workers who aren’t in the office
• Find out what your team of freelancers thinks about recent changes you’ve made

Insider Tips:

• Individual war rooms can be public or private
• Google Chrome users can get desktop notifications
• Users can subscribe to Hall’s company email digests
• War rooms are secured with 256-bit encryption

What we liked:

• Hall offers a real-time, collaborative notepad for teams
• Multiple colleagues can video chat at the same time
• Telecommuters can participate in group chats without having to use the video feature
• Users can respond to messages via email, or from within a war room

What we didn’t like:

• Only four people can video chat at the same time

Alternatives:

• OpenTok – http://www.tokbox.com
• Vyew – vyew.com
• WebEx – http://www.webex.com

Company Info:

• Launched: October 2011 (Beta)
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Mountain View, California
• Founded by: Brett Hellman
• Web site: https://hall.com

Costs:

• Free