Comparing Help Desk Applications: ZenDesk, HelpDeskPilot, Ticketish, and Helperoo
In a business climate where costs are rising and there is an increasing reliance on the web it is not surprising that companies are finding that web 2.0 applications such as help desks are a cost efficient way to keep satisfaction high and alert them to potential product flaws. This week we took a look at some of the help desk applications on the web. Each offered customers the opportunity to submit help tickets and businesses the chance to manage them. Email was the primary method for this interaction, though each of the applications allowed agents handling the tickets to enter in tickets manually. We evaluated the applications on the ease of use, the options available, and whether the applications were suited to heavy or light users. Read More »
Businesses looking for a way to handle customer service and bug reporting may seek applications that offer flexibility inside and outside the company. One such application is Ticketish, the help desk and ticket handler that keeps ticket handling simple and on the web. 
No matter what side you sit on it, dealing with a support desk can be a frustrating process - hard for the company, hard for the customer. Making the process a little less painful is ZenDesk, the web 2.0 application for help desks and customer support. Simplified, easy to intuit forms make the ZenDesk a timesaving platform for enterprise, and the customer. 
Catching up on your blogs, news, and sites is no simple matter - unless you have a RSS reader, that is. RSS feed readers combine all the stories you care about into one place and some, like Bloglines, help you find new feeds as well. 
Let's face it, whether you're flipping through papers, running through the channels, or even scrolling through a basic RSS feeder to get your news, it's not much fun. Voyage, the RSS feed reader that puts feeds into a three dimensional grid may just change the way you feel about your news reading. 
With so much news and information out there, we all could use a little help to make it more accessible, but what if we want to share what we find? FeedEachOther is an application with this in mind; get the news you care about and provide a way to share information without pestering your friends with emails. 
Anyone that has tried to keep up with the news knows that it's no simple matter. TV, radio, tens of newspapers, and hundreds of places on the internet to keep up with make just staying up on the latest events a full time job, but web 2.0 has a solution to this problem. This is where NewsGator comes in. RSS feeds are links to the source - references if you will, so to get the benefits and interaction out of them you need a reader that can combine them. NewsGator not only combines your feeds into an easily readable page, but it lets you sort and organize them as you wish. 
If there was one word to describe the project manager application 5pm, it would be simplicity, and that's a good thing. Projects have a way of running over budget or out of time, becoming disorganized, or just plain getting out of control, so when a clever bit of web 2.0 can bring simplicity to the process, we feel we should talk about it a bit.
A project management tool with a user-friendly interface, 5pm is a tool to help you with organization, project tracking, information flow, and project management. To see how 5pm... 
Some people regard Basecamp as the original web-based project manager, since it has inspired so many similar products, and has helped launch a thousand interface look-alikes. Basecamp continues to have a loyal following, offering basic project management as part of the 37 Signals productivity suite. Its "web 2.0" methodologies allow everyone working on a project, not just a project manager, to contribute notes and files to a central location, and to collaborate on project deliverables and due dates.
GoPlan is project management application that uses the simplicity of blog-style posting as an interface to manage projects, to do lists, and notes. It has a simple, straightforward functionality that gets to the essentials of project planning. As project managers go, GoPlan has all the elements you would want and a few more: tools for organizing, tracking, and communicating. 
