Need to Stay in Close Contact with Co-Workers? Try this Facebook-for-Business Collaboration Tool

As we've already talked about in recent weeks, face-to-face contact may be going extinct. Yet we have more need to collaborate with co-workers than ever. How to stay in touch, delegate tasks, and stay in sync on status? It's easy with the right tools.

Engage is sort of like Facebook for business -- it's a set of integrated collaboration tools that let you network, sync, and communicate with co-workers and partners.

The comparison to Facebook is pretty apt. Not only can you ave a network of followers on Engage, but you can post public messages to them -- like microblogging -- as well as send instant messages, start group chats, and even work with Facebook-like extensible apps. There are Web, desktop, and even iPhone versions of Engage available.

Using Engage, you can organize projects, delegate and track tasks, conduct polls and share files. Think of Engage as a combination of SharePoint and any half-dozen other online collaboration tools, all mushed together into a well-executed social networking tool with a business focus. Bottom line: It's surprisingly well done. The service is free, but prermium feature -- like custom branding, advanced security, and sophisticated administration controls, require you to step up to a subscription account (starting at $4/month).

Engage evolved from TaskBin, a task sharing tool that Rick told you about a long time ago. If you're already a TaskBin user, know that this service has been fully incorporated into Engage, and TaskBin as a standalone Web site will go away this summer.