What's in a Name?

"What's in a name? for which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - Wlliam Shakespeare

Speaking of names, I thought now would be a great time to discuss all the different IM programs out there. There are a LOT of business related apps and messengers available for business today. At last count, there were well over 150 for business related communication. I'm not going to run down the full list but I am going to go over a few noteworthy apps/programs.

Before I give you the rundown, it bares mentioning that not all apps are created equal. As such, some apps are better suited for small business, while others are better for larger companies.

So what makes a great app for small business? Well, primarily, free. Free is good and when you're a small start up or struggling to get things off the ground, free is GOOD. Did I mention free is good? Okay, I know. You got it. Moving on.

There are some great free apps out there. First up is Google Hangouts or Gtalk (different but amalgamating in the near future). Most people know about Google and most have at least one Gmail account these days. This is one of the reasons that Hangouts can be a great way to start your business off with IM, it's convenient! You can see when co-workers are online, you can send offline messages and they'll receive them when they get back online. Sort of like a text message. That said, it's a bare bones messenger, you won't get any extra frills here.

Others worth mentioning that are free include Spark, Jabber and Adium. Adium is for MAC platform only so if you're working with PCs or anyone from your team isn't on a MAC, they'll be left out. Sort of like the last kid picked to play freeze tag at recess. Spark was specifically made for businesses and the messenger has the ability to link to the business server so employees can access IM with their company ID and passwords, just like email. This provides a little more security for the small business owner as well. Lastly, Jabber offers your company IT the department to control the messenger so that if you have any technical issues, you go to them, not a third party.

As far as paid apps go, there are quite a few to choose from but I'd like to focus on one in particular. An app called Slack. This app is relatively new to the market but it's been taking the market by storm for the past six or seven months and does so much more than just IM. The great part about this IM app is that it allows the user to create channels of communication. Channels include things like messaging, files, comments, projects, etc. and it provides users the ability to integrate things like DropBox and Google Drive which many companies use every day. Of course, awesomeness does come at a price. Also, if you've got time, check out this article on the creators of Slack, it's pretty serendipitous how it all came about.

Here's a great video on how Slack works in the workplace. I'd love to hear what you think about it. I personally think that apps like Slack are going to take the business world by storm in the next little while.