PBWorks speeds up collaboration with real-time tools

Collaboration using PBWorks‘ technology is about to become more fast-paced — the San Mateo, Calif. company plans to add real-time communication and editing to its tools on Nov. 17.
Though it now includes features like document management, the heart of PBWorks platform (as suggested by its original name, PBWiki) is a set of company wikis. Previously, if you were working on a wiki, everyone else would have to wait until you were done to even see what you were changing. If you wanted to talk about the edits, you could send emails back-and-forth, or instant message each other using a separate application, or organize a web conference with tools like WebEx.
Now, you can do all of that within PBWorks itself. If, say, three team members want to work together on a wiki, they can start a group IM session to toss ideas back-and-forth during the editing process. And through the Live Editing feature, everyone sees changes as they’re made, so you’re all looking at the most current version of the page. (It sounds like only one person will be able to edit a page at a time, though.) Other new features include Live Notifications so you can receive updates on the activity in a team or on a project right away, wherever you are in PBWorks, and Voice Collaboration, which basically allows you to hold conference calls with coworkers.
As far as I know, PBWorks is the first among the batch of collaboration companies like Socialtext and Box.net to go this far into instantaneous communication. The closest other companies come is through the Twitter-style microblogging applications offered by Socialtext, Yammer, and PBWorks itself. The company’s page describing the new features also positions the real-time version of PBWorks as potential competition for Google Wave, which also combines instant messaging with live document editing. PBWorks notes that Google Wave still in testing, and works more as a standalone product, whereas PBWorks’ IM and video conferencing services just plug into the existing workspace.
PBWorks raised $2.45 million to date from Seraph Group, Mohr Davidow Ventures and independent investor Ron Conway. It says it has more than 50,000 customers. Real-time tools will be available as a free upgrade to Project Edition and Legal Edition users.