After a long gestation, first as a Mac-only application and then as a preview-only Web-based collaboration and team support service, Near-Time has been just launched.

Near-Time is an online asynchronous collaboration platform that supports collaboration on all environments. It’s Web-based. It’s hosted, so there’s zero installation. Near-Time is based upon emerging Web standards and takes advantage of many of the core components driving the new Web. Near-Time integrates blogging, wikis, calendaring, e-mail, file sharing, RSS output, tags, and more. All, in a quiet, secure, and well organized advertising-free online environment.

Among some of the unique interesting capabilities of this new service are branding and customization of your collaboration space and no limitations to the number of project spaces that can be created and to the number of people invited to participate in each.

Near-Time is fast, easy-to-learn, and capable of interoperating with some of your existing critical assets like e-mail. Content placed on the Near-Time collaboration platform is also replicated on multiple servers, so a full and up to date back-up is always available.

Also just announced, is the Near-Time pricing plan which includes a fully free entry-level offering which includes an unlimited number of members and collaborative spaces for a 12 month period. Commercial plans start at $4.95 per month and include the ability to share files and collaborate securely via SSL.

I had already met Reid Conrad, CEO of Near-Time, over a year ago here in Rome, when his tool was still a Mac only app. At the time I, and my good friend Massimo Curatella, had expressed to him our view on how, from a user standpoint, his tool could have been further developed to become a usable and valuable asset for team collaboration and newsmastering-related tasks (aggregation and republishing of selected content). And while I am sure we were not the only ones contributing some such suggestions, I was pleasently surprised to see much of what I had myself suggested materialized in this new Web-based online collaboration platform.

So, after having tested myself during the invitation-only period the new Near-Time platform I have re/contacted Reid for an audio interview (23 mins) in which you can learn more about this new free Web-based online collaboration platform and about its unique strengths:
Online Team Collaboration Services: Near Time is On

[tags]robin good,near-time,web-based collaboration,reid conrad,massimo curatella[/tags]