Web Collaboration solutions for web-design teams?

Something to help a long-distance team

[picophd]

Greetings,

Do you have experience with any web collaboration solutions or programs out there, which would help a team of long-distance web designers and developers collaborate in their projects properly?

I'm looking for something with a proper whiteboard, seamless image sharing, and working on the same web page file would make it literally heaven (kind of like the Twiki thing, but it didn't impress and was even down I think).

I'll be more than happy to get any recommendations only by sticky mail, so as not to disobey any of the rules here. But are there even solutions or options that are practical and speedy enough, yet don't require any specific software, for instance?

Thanks for anyone taking the time to share experience and tips.

[txbakers]

I think Macromedia has something like that now.

[picophd]

Man, I think I know what you're talking about, and I think our budget cannot cover Macromedia's expectations for that solution, and I don't even know if when our budget permits, the ROI is worth it. Meaning, I wonder if using normal conferencing and scribbling whatever I want then sending it on the fly wouldn't be a better solution than to pay that money for Macromedia's solution. My judgement may be based on old news, though, I'm not sure. So someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

[vkaryl]

Contribute works.... IF all you want is to allow non-web-savvy, non-html fluent folks to alter basics on static pages and refresh same. But if they do the wrong things or try something "esoteric", your whole page or even site could break - not permanently of course, but you'd have to take the time to fix it....

And besides, it's $150 US a copy, with a small discount for 5, 10, etc. copies....

[I downloaded a trial copy, and spent a week or so messing with it. I don't advise bothering with it. There are probably other far better CMS solutions out there. Ultimately, I decided just to deal with updates myself - saves me time in the short AND long run....]

[picophd]

Thanks, vkaryl. But I had the impression that txbakers meant another Macromedia program, Macromedia Breeze, because it is indeed a conferencing or collaboration program. And that's the program I meant when I said that I cannot afford it.

And, on the other hand, Contribute may facilitate easy updating and so, like you said. But I'm looking for a conferencing, collaboration program for a group of web savvies, developers, and designers, hopefully giving them the ability to update web pages somehow together, not necessarily simultaneously, and share files seamlessly, and with a whiteboard. That's basically it.

[vkaryl]

Ah. Hadn't even heard of that one! Sorry - but I DO know the pain of Macromedia's $$ fixation....

[superbird]

What about Basecamp? It's a web based service and goes from free to $59 depending on amount of projects. I'm not sure I should post the url but that seems silly considering the subject of the thread so if it sounds like what you want then it's basecamphq.com

[picophd]

That program is too much of a "project management" type of a program. We need something more "live" and "simultaneous".