Webware

Each year at the Office 2.0 conference about Web-based business apps and processes, paid attendees get some cool gadget pre-loaded with information relevant to the conference. In 2006--the first year of the show--the gadget was an iPod Nano with the conference schedule built in. In 2007, attendees got an iPhone with links to the conference information and the show's social-networking apps pre-loaded. This year, the giveaway is an HP 2133 Mini-Note PC (the Linux version, not Windows). Given that the cost of attending the conference ($1,495--but read to the end for a discount code) is half that of two other conferences popular with the Web 2.0 crowd, Demo and TechCrunch50, one has to wonder how the organizer of the Office 2.0 is making any money. Especially since the Office 2.0 venue is leagues fancier than those other shows' locales.

Here's the secret: he isn't.

Ismael Ghalimi is doing this conference for the love of it. "I love the workmanship of work, the business of these tools," he told me. "I like interacting with the people who are passionate about this stuff. Somehow it all fits together. We don't have very sophisticated motives. It's just plain fun."

Now, to be clear, both his business and his wife benefit from the conference. Ghalimi's day job is is running Intalio, which provides open-source business process management software, both free versions as well as paid subscriptions for large companies; Intalio has about 400 customers, the newest of which is the Bank of Venezuela. Ismael's wife, May Chang Ghalimi, is CEO of the Monolab Workspace, an office suite rental business designed to be compatible with the needs of Web 2.0 start-ups. Subscriptions even come with their own carbon offsets. Exposure to the Web 2.0 productivity wonks who come to the Office 2.0 conference no doubt help the Ghalimis sell their services.

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To get a signature recorded via fax, recipients must use the service's cover sheet. (image edited for clarity).

The Office 2.0 conference was set up almost entirely without paper (except for some checks that paid for sponsorships). Even the contracts necessary to set up the show were signed electronically, using EchoSign. There are other companies that provide services to create legally binding signatures, such as DocuSign (review), but EchoSign has simplicity going for it.

If you want to have a document "signed" electronically, EchoSign will convert it to a PDF, send it to your designated recipient, and give you the option to have it signed via a Web form, or with a pen, via fax. For e-signatures, the service confirms when the recipient opened the document and when they "signed" it with keystrokes on their computer; this transaction is actually a legally valid signature. Still, traditionalists might want to use the fax option, in which case EchoSign sends your recipient a PDF of your file, which they then print, sign, and fax to the number printed on a special cover sheet. This fax is then routed to your EchoSign account automatically. Whichever method you use, EchoSign keeps track of all your contracts and can remind you of which ones are pending signature.

The service also puts rudimentary workflow on top of your contracts, informing you of which ones still need to be signed.

The product does not confirm that the person who signed the document is who you intend it to be. It's an electronic record-keeping and workflow service, not a notary. But electronic signatures are more legal than you probably think, and much easier to manage than paper transactions.

If you only need to manage the odd contract from time to time, you probably don't need this product, which is $12.95 a month. But if managing and tracking contracts takes up a noticeable portion of your work time, EchoSign could probably get some of it back for you. There's also a version that integrates with SalesForce.com, which is great for salespeople.

At the Office 2.0 conference, as you probably know, every attendee got an iPhone with their paid admission. There was a very useful iPhone-friendly Web site set up, and several companies were showing off shiny new iPhone business applications.

But is the iPhone a business-class product? I talked to the developers making applications for this platform, and to attendees at the conference, and came up with a disheartening answer: It is not. From the two-handed interface to capricious keyboard to the slow Edge network to the lack of a real developer's interface to the phone, it's just missing too much to be adopted as a business platform. Most of the iPhone applications I saw were highly de-featured offshoots of their full online versions.

Next year at the Office 2.0 conference, organizer Ismael Ghalimi is hoping that he'll be able to have a custom device built for attendees. Or he could just take Palm's inventory of abandoned Foleos off its hands.

Among the announcements at the Office 2.0 conference this week, Jotlet's online calendars will provide two-way synchronization with Microsoft Outlook later this month. At first glance, the calendars appear elegant and easy to use, with visual niceties such as color coding. Personal accounts are free, while corporate accounts allow a company to use branded Jotlet calendars within their Web sites. While heavily customized calendars such as those displayed during the conference demo might cost in the ballpark of between $100 to $200 per month, Jotlet's prices vary widely with the features and support offered. Jotlet allows user permission controls with customized events and tasks, as well as ICS and VCS compatibility. Mobile support will come later.

Jotlet is available as a standalone service, and it just joined the ShareMethods suite (more here and here), which uses the OpenSAM platform. The people behind OpenSAM hope that in addition to its current members, more large companies will adopt the open standard, making it easier for users to move freely among various services without losing their data behind a locked door. Note: This post has been updated since its initial publication to clarify pricing as well as timing for Outlook synchronization.

Ismael Ghalimi, the organizer of the Office 2.0 conference (more) is serious about living the Web 2.0 dream: Aside from a browser, he has no applications installed on his laptop, except for iWork, which he says he uses to remind himself what old-style software is like. (Even I use traditional software for writing and e-mail.)

Check out Ismael's notes on Office 2.0 services that work. And this comprehensive database of Office 2.0 applications that he's put together. Useful tips.

But what if there's no available Internet connection for Ismael when he wants to work? "I just take a break. Which can be a good thing."

I'm hosting a panel about Office 2.0 standards and platforms that will probably start around 9:30 a.m. (although it's scheduled for 9). Tune in to the conference live stream to check it out.

For a conference about getting work done, there are sure a whole lot of toys here at Office 2.0 in San Francisco. Sure many of them are old hat, like the the Nabaztag/tag, but there's some new stuff here too like Pano Logic's zero client desktop. This shiny metal cube is actually a computer--well kind of. Actually it involves setting up a a beefy server to give everyone in your office a full version of Windows sans hardware. Just give give them a keyboard, mouse, monitor and one of these shiny cubes and they're ready to go.

For Skype fans there are also several handheld receivers from iPevo that hook up to your computer via USB and look cooler than wearing one of those headsets. The newer model of the handsets even has a screen to let you access your buddy list and start a call without having to manage your contacts inside the Skype app. The top of the line "Solo" is an entire desktop phone, complete with a keypad that doesn't require a phone at all. Just jack it in with a LAN cable, sign in to Skype, and you're ready to make and receive VoIP calls.

There are also e-Readers on hand, the first generation model from Sony, along with iRex's iLiad that launched last year.

On a side note, all conference attendees had their choice between a brand new iPhone, or a Sony Playstation 3. The few who chose the PS3 were seen (unhappily) lugging around the giant black boxes throughout the day. One Yellow Dog Linux-running PS3 was hooked up to a 40"+ plasma, although only to show off the conference schedule on Firefox--games were nowhere to be found. I've embedded some shots of the gadget goodness below.

The Office 2.0 Conference is only two days long, and in that time there are dozens of announcements big and small from a wide array of productivity and business companies. Amidst the bevy of panels, and discussions lies the launchpad event, a small 45-minute time slot carved out for product announcements. It's basically everyone's chance to show off their stuff, or as much as they can in the brief three minute allotments. Here's a rundown:

• Zoho, mentioned itsits Zoho Business platform, which they launched this morning. We've got a full story on it here.
• Veodia, the live broadcasting folks are launching a new portal for the iPhone and iPod touch. The team has been live broadcasting conference coverage all day.
• TimeBridge is launching the public beta of its personal scheduling manager. It's a little bit like CircleUp (coverage) meets Outlook, to lets you sync up your scheduling decision with your Outlook or Google Calendar. Previous Timebridge coverage can be found here.
• Pano Logic has a really neat piece of hardware that does "zero client computing." This means with a server setup, you can get little portable computers that run off of these little metal cubes. This is great for small businesses who want to save some cash on desktop hardware, or who want to fool their employees into thinking they're in the future.
• OpenSAM discussed creating an open set of standards for sharing online file types and information. ShareOffice is adding calendars from Jotlet, and conferencing from Persony. They've also built an iPhone app for accessing documents on ShareMethods.
• Nozbe announced its business service, which features project collaboration for small and medium sized businesses. The team has also put together an iPhone-friendly version of the site for users to access projects on the go.
• gOffice has a really nifty service that lets you type a Microsoft Office document on your iPhone. You can type to your heart's content, add a custom signature, and even get gOffice to print it out and send it (via snail mail) to wherever you want for a small fee.

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The bookmarking and reference service I use most is adding a show-and-tell slideshow feature. Diigo lets you mark up Web pages, then share and export your notes. Its new WebSlides, in closed beta testing, will enable you to create narrated presentations of Web pages that you've saved and annotated.

Diigo is meant to be more practical than something like StumbleUpon, a fun way to discover new sites. Diigo Vice President Maggie Tsai touted Diigo WebSlides at the Office 2.0 conference today as an ideal tool for teachers. Her demo showed off handy-looking recording and playback controls for making presentations out of your saved pages and then sharing them with groups of other users. The slide shows also display text you've highlighted or notes you've taken on bookmarked sites. Unfortunately, you can't test WebSlides yet; only a beta wait list sign-up is available for now.

I use Diigo instead of Delicious because it has more research-friendly features, and it can simultaneously save stuff to Delicious, Newsvine, and other services. Diigo's toolbar and pop-ups could be easier to use, and I wish it could annotate PDFs. Still, I'm hoping that more changes will continue to come along as the beta service matures.

First, the bad news: No, Google is not announcing a business wiki or presentation product at the Office 2.0 conference. However, I did get a demo of a few new features in Google's spreadsheet.

First, there's a new autofill function. If you enter a series of consecutive numbers, it will extend the series. OK, yawn. But, using data provided by the old Google Sets experiment, the spreadsheet will automatically fill in a row or column with items it thinks match your selection if they're not in an obvious sequence. For example, highlight a name of a state, press Ctrl (on a PC) and drag down a few cells, and the spreadsheet will fill in other states. You can also try a state of mind (e.g., "happy") to get other emotions. Or names. The more items you select before you control-drag, the more likely Google is to fill in items you expect, as opposed to wild guesses.

Google Apps product manager Rishi Chandra demos spreadsheet user stalking.

(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CNET)

Second, you can now pull in data from other sources, including RSS feeds. (For instructons, see this Google Help page.) This means the Google spreadsheets can now be real-time, for any data that's expressed in an RSS feed. Previously, you could look up certain real-time data, like stock prices, but this is much more flexible.

There's another important feature that launched a few weeks ago: If you're collaborating with someone on a Google spreadsheet, cells that other people are working on are color-coded by user. When someone starts to edit a cell, it will get grayed out so you don't collide with their edits. You can also follow a user as they read and edit a spreadsheet. This is a feature I've been waiting for. It's great for collaboration and training.