New Feature: Let the Live Show Begin with Real-Time Commenting

12.02.13 Posted in Product News by

As we announced at the end of last year, 200,000 companies have now jumped on Podio to change the way they collaborate for the better. But there’s no resting here. We have grand plans for what the future or work will look like, something that we can reveal more about today.

One of the best things about Podio becoming part of Citrix last year is that we can bring great technologies together to create an even more powerful platform for you. And, we can do this faster than ever.

We’re aiming to add real-time collaboration to the structured responsibilities, deadlines, and the clear overview that Podio users already enjoy. This will bring live, in context, discussions right into Podio, creating the most complete collaboration experience ever.

Not on Podio yet and want to find out what this all about? That’s easy, sign up for free here.

Following the initial integration of GoToMeeting in Podio Apps last year we can now bring you further enhancements to Podio’s real-time capabilities, and there’s more to come… Here’s what’s new today:

Live commenting on items: When viewing any app item in Podio, perhaps a project or a sales lead, you’ll see new comments apear as soon as they’re posted by your coworkers. There’s no need to refresh the page or check your inbox.

Presence on items: Along with seeing how many people are following an item, you can now also see who’s viewing the item at the same time as you, reducing the chance of both editing the item at the same time, but also making it easier to start a conversation with your coworker who are also looking at the same item as you.

And one more thing… Like comments: Mouse over any comment in Podio and you’ll notice a new like icon. We’ve been testing this within the Podio team for a couple of weeks now as the finishing touches were put on the new commenting features and I have to say it’s been more useful than I expected. Of course it’s nice to be able to like witty comments, but it’s also a useful gage of opinions when we’re making decisions. You find that you’re getting more feedback and information than before because it’s so easy for people to show they agree with something, rather than needing to write a comment and really involve themselves in the discussion.

We’ve made a little animation to show you how these new features work (and in doing so proved there is a use for animated GIFs beyond clips of cats doing funny things!)

That’s the present, but what’s the future? Well, at Citrix Synergy in Barcelona last year we gave a special preview of some of the exciting real-time features we’re working on now. You can watch the video of this demo and find out more about our vision of real-time collaboration here.

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About the author

Co-founder at Podio. For several years Jon Froda has been researching the field of social software, specializing in strategies and tools that help organizations develop knowledge, lead and stay ahead of the market. At Podio Jon is involved with marketing, product development and customer service.

Twitter
@Podio
Email
froda@podio.com
  • Alexander Colson

    Hmm nice.

    Is it also possible to use this as a normal chat? Can I initiate a chat conversation with someone without it being a comment to an item?

  • http://www.facebook.com/bjarke.walling Bjarke Walling

    Nice feature, is it available in the API?

  • Scott McReynolds

    Any chance their will be integration with Xero.com, Quickbooks Online, or other cloud accounting systems?

  • http://www.facebook.com/santoro.alessio Santoro Alessio

    the video that explain the feature is really cool and useful. nice idea

  • http://twitter.com/dreigr David Reig

    Great! I think this is one of the most powerful improvements in UX on Podio.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jerdeboer Jeroen de Boer

    Really, is this the best you can do? live commenting and likes? Maybe you guys have following Facebook to long….not impressed.

  • Diana

    I think the progress is wonderful but there are also some pretty critical enhancements that (I realize are larger tasks) but would improve workflow in a meaningful way. Examples:
    -Permission setting on an app level in order to control who has access to content.

    -A solution for faster upload times for larger files (such as PSD) or at least an estimator letting us know how long the file will take.

    -What about connecting one Podio account to another so that two companies who both use Podio can share a mutual workspace and accomplish goals together? :)

  • Russell Tanner

    I like the feature. The only problem I see is that most web app items are not super fluid like a Google Doc. So hanging around a web app item to see new comments might not happen very often. I’m usually in and out when I visit a web app item (unlike a Google Doc where I might be sitting there for hours writing something in collaboration with another person). It’s a cool feature, I’m not sure if we’ll benefit from it though.

  • Udo

    Live comments and Likes?!? This is total boring!

  • http://torkiljohnsen.com Torkil Johnsen

    I have to agree with a couple of others here: This seems a bit “nice to have” rather than “need to have”, but I’m sure the developers had fun building it. :)

    What technology is powering this? Any particular JS framework for instance?

  • Anthony Steiner

    Wonderful feature.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kaushal.mathur.58 Kaushal Mathur

    its a good progress..waiting for more.

  • http://twitter.com/vkhlebnikov Vasily Khlebnikov

    yep! rizzoma is great tool for conversation

  • http://twitter.com/ajwmedia Adrienne Williams

    Very nicely done. Can’t wait to use the latest updates…

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.nunn.169 David Nunn

    Sure it is very nice, but much rather the effort was spent on something meaningful like improving navigation in Podio, customisation etc. those are the things my colleagues are asking for.

  • http://triplethreat.org/ Jordan Wilson

    Sweet! Thanks Podio crew!

  • Andrew Harrison

    Also feel there are many more critical fixes/enhancements needed over this ‘new feature’… including your customers in your roadmap/dev plans would allow you to better hit the nose on what people actually want, not what you think they want

  • eronlloyd

    I have to agree with some of the other posters here; there are many more core functions that have been in demand for quite some time over this. Something like more powerful calculations in apps, for example. Things like that restrict Podio’s use as a replacement for legacy systems.

  • Mark S

    Great New Feature! This will make Podio an even more powerful Social Work Tool. Glad to see Podio grow and take it to the next level. Kudos to myself for choosing Podio as my main Workflow Tool.

  • http://about.me/mikeschinkel MikeSchinkel

    +1

  • Sean Proctor

    I have to agree with some of the other comments, whilst this is a ‘nice’ addition, it has limited use in most environments. For me there are other fundamental issues which should be focus on which would greatly enhance workflow, such as;

    Allowing users to define what information is shown on Badge and Card views

    Better integration of the rating system, which is currently so hidden away that it is pretty much useless

    Both of these changes have been suggested and discussed for some time.

    A bit worried that Podio could be focusing too much on the big ‘wow’ developments and missing out the smaller upgrades which have a much larger effect on workflow.

  • http://twitter.com/neilspellings Neil Spellings

    I think this is a bit of a gimmick personally. I’d rather developers spend time coding what I’d consider key features to make Podio an essential business tool, such as the ability to expose data in your apps on your own website via a HTML snippet (like you can with web forms to collect data)

  • http://www.facebook.com/helton.baia Helton Baiá

    thanks podio team for this great workplace, I think it will a good place to discuss many importants things,local and global problems and to share adeas about possible solutions…

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Bjarke, yes it’s available in the API. Do you plan on using it?

  • http://twitter.com/benAbraham Daniel Srb

    Everybody has its favorite and long awaited features. No need to be offtopic here.

    One little interaction design hiccup was introduced in this version: To send a multiline comment with a keyboard it was just “Tab, Enter” now it’s “Tab, Tab, Enter” because the checbox. Just using plain old tabindex would fix this before a lot of people will have to change their habits.

  • Derek Turner

    Agree with most others regarding this “update”. There are so many other core features missing that it is disappointing to see such fanfare over trivial updates like this. It gives the appearance the company is pursuing internal pet projects instead of focusing on the needs of it’s paying users.

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    We do much more than that, in fact we did 99 updates last year – you can read about them in this post http://blog.podio.com/2012/12/21/we-made-99-updates-and-the-ipad-apps-just-one/

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Diana, thanks, as I said this is just the first step towards more realtime collaboration. I’m not sure I understand #3. Employees from two companies can easily share the same workspace, this is a common use-case for Podio. Could you elaborate?

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Russel. Good point. It really depends on what your app “is doing”. In some cases people are spending hours on a single item, and in those cases realtime updates are valuable.

  • http://twitter.com/benAbraham Daniel Srb

    The most important message here is that this is the first of other “live” features we should see in Podio. Which is not a small thing. Imagine you hadn’t to change to Skype/jabber for IM/audio calls/video conference…

    But again, might not be “your” feature.

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Torkil, You’d be surprised how often we got the request for liking comments:-). As mentioned elsewhere this is the first step towards more real-time collaboration inside Podio – so while we had fun building it (we did), I am quite confident that users will also find this and future real-time enhancements valuable.

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi David, we have much more coming. How do you use Podio?

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Mark, thanks for choosing Podio, happy you like the enhancements.

  • Derek Turner

    Just noticed the ability to add a comment in the preview pane for an app item has been removed.

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Sean, thanks for your input, it’s noted. I hope you will be more exited about our future realtime releases. We are constantly balancing our efforts – I mentioned elsewhere that we did 99 updates to Podio in 2012 alone. A lot of them had to do with improving the layout of app data, sharing individual content pieces, third party file sharing integrations and of course our mobile apps. Card view for example was only released 3 months ago, and we are always interested in feedback http://blog.podio.com/2012/10/17/card/

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Andrew, there will be more enhancements. Have you been to the help centre? We are engaging with users all the time https://help.podio.com/home

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Scott did you try this https://zapier.com/zapbook/podio/xero/ ?

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Currently the live commenting works on items only. This is the first step towards much more realtime collaboration in Podio, so stay tuned.

  • Steve Salstrand

    We have a very similar situation – our company often collaborates with our sister company on client projects.

    While someone with an outside email can be added to a wordspace, we need the ability to have whole workspace added to the external company’s Organization panel… that way management can casually check in on team member deliverables without being tagged as a team member in the workspace.

  • Lonnie VanZandt

    “enable collaboration like you’ve never imagined”. Actually Podio Team, while you are introducing some nice services, don’t let your Marketing Team underestimate the visionary ability of your customers. We are imagining a lot of collaboration that service providers still don’t understand or implement poorly. For simple examples: sharing a folder of files or adding a file once to a Workspace and then linking to that multiple times from Apps within the Workspace or collaboratively editing a shared file.

  • Diana

    Hi Jon, just to clarify we’ve set up a few of our clients on Podio and plan to continue to do so, this presents a challenge in two ways, 1. I haven’t seen a feature that allows real time shared workspaces and 2. We’re all set up to use the Google (Enterprise) App for Podio and it seems to only work for one Podio Organization at a time (no drop down menu). Are we missing something?

  • http://about.me/mikeschinkel MikeSchinkel

    @twitter-20700282:disqus – Publishing a roadmap would be really helpful.

  • jeremy nagel

    It seems that there is a bug with entering multi-line comments in stream view. If I press enter, it posts the comment right away which is quite frustrating. This doesn’t happen if I click on the actual status item and respond to it in isolation.

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  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Thanks for clarifying. We would love to help you out. Diana #1 The workspaces are shared with the people you add and the role you give them, internal or external. Regarding Google Apps accounts and merging of organizations, could I ask you to send us a suport ticket via our help centre https://help.podio.com/home

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Derek, that shouldn’t be the case, can you try again?

  • http://www.facebook.com/filchambers Phil Chambers

    Hi Daniel,

    Good point – I’ll take a look at that.

    Cheers.

  • http://www.facebook.com/filchambers Phil Chambers

    Hi Jeremy,

    I can’t repro this in Chrome. Can you provide a more detailed report via support@podio.com ?

    Cheers.

  • http://www.facebook.com/filchambers Phil Chambers

    Good point Lonnie. Actually, our customers tend to come up with many more use-cases than we ever imagine. We’ll be beefing up file support later this year for sure.

  • http://www.facebook.com/filchambers Phil Chambers

    Daniel – we’ve fixed this and it will hit production tomorrow. Thanks for the report.

  • Alycia Basile

    I had the same problem in Chrome, Podio support also
    said they couldn’t reproduce it and then they closed my ticket…

    In any event mine is working now, I’m sure they
    did something to fix it

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  • http://blueseed.co/faq.html dandv

    I came here to say that Podio already had toaster notifications for new comments, so this new feature is more like a feature for a feature… while other things that Podio could have done are CRIPPLING missing features – for example the lack of search in the Android app. And I see that almost everyone echoes my sentiments. I think this is an important feedback item for Podio.

    UserVoice and GetSatisfaction are good platforms for getting real feedback from users. Here’s Rapportive, for example – http://feedback.rapportive.com/forums/42557-general

    How does Podio track what features its 200,000 users *actually* want?

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hey Dann, thanks for the opinion – I, personally, have a long list of things I would like to see happen in our product – so I understand where you are coming from. Regarding this release it is a first step towards more real-time in Podio (chat and presence) – it’s one of the most sought after features by the Podio users. We gather all feedback we get from users (From PMs, help-centre, blog, twitter and of course our support channels) in an app on Podio. This app is then used to help prioritize and have concrete user input whenever we start designing a new or improving an existing feature.

  • http://www.facebook.com/IM1RU12 Susan Hawkins

    All these wonderful features, and still no “Show All” or “Show All Activity” function. I guess you’re saving development of the most helpful functions for last. I agree with Diana’s comment below. Perhaps, for a while, you might focus on the functions that would improve your product in a “meaningful” way for the greatest number of users. We’d be thrilled and grateful!

  • nick palfrey

    Looks great and seems to work very well. I have always liked the user interface and feel of podio and this shows that this will stay as is. However, as I have said wherever and however I can, Podio needs to sort out its workspace management. Archiving, folders and other ways of listing them. At present the solution is sub-standard at best… Please make an announcement about that soon?

  • Russell Tanner

    I’m curious what kind of apps people are creating where they spend a lot of time looking at them (enough time where chat comes into play). I’m not criticizing at all, I’m actually trying to better understand how other people use Podio. Thanks.

  • http://www.facebook.com/luke.peek Luke Peek

    Great to see something being done on Podio, it’s been looking very stale lately on the updates-side. But I’m a bit disappointed that more time seems to be being spent trying to make Podio more like Facebook rather than improving the actual project/business management side of it.

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    Hi Luke, thanks – I don’t know exactly what you are looking for, but I’m sorry if you are disappointed. We are working on all parts of the product at all time – This release is about getting realtime, presence, and eventually chat and video inside Podio. A lot of time has been (and is being) spend on better PM overview, tasks and sharing of apps/items across workspaces, mobile apps just to name a few. We’d love to hear your ideas for Podio at our forum https://help.podio.com/ if you haven’t posted already.

  • http://twitter.com/Froda Jon Froda

    My experience is that apps with a lot of interactions (like big fields being edited a lot) sees a lot of people staying on an item for a while. In our case our weekly meetings sees people around the same item before and after the meeting, updating various action points, agendas and minutes. Often times conversations are almost live (chat like) – these are the situations where live commenting is particularly useful. But most of all this is the first step towards a chat/IM feature that will work in context inside Podio. Hope that helped clarify things a bit.

  • http://www.ebsiwebsites.com/ 344kellogg

    Thanks for the info.

    –
    Russell Tanner
    760.593.7877

  • http://twitter.com/benAbraham Daniel Srb

    Thanks for the fix!