Podio, the real-time work collaboration tool acquired by Citrix last year, has today rolled out a new instant messaging service called Podio Chat.
Chat works across all platforms supported by Podio and allows groups of users to communicate in real-time about the projects they’re collaborating on. It’s currently just text-based, but the company says that video and audio chat will be added during the summer. Chat is synced across whatever Podio clients you may have, so you can switch from your desktop browser to your phone and continue the conversation. Podio offers apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.
As a recap, Podio is based around the idea of workspaces designed for specific tasks like task management, sales lead co-ordination or expense reporting. Users can create their own ‘apps’ within the service to tackle different tasks. These can be shared with others via the App Market.
While IM is hardly an earth-shattering addition to a service in 2013, it does make Podio a more well-rounded service, and as the demo video below shows, it’s nicely implemented. Video and audio will be even more useful, and the company has released images showing how it will look when it’s rolled out. In addition to one-to-one chat, it will allow users to jump out to Citrix’s GoToMeeting service, which offers group video chat via its ‘HDFaces’ feature.
Podio is free for up to five users, and costs $9 per user per month beyond that.
➤ Podio
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