It is easy to think Dropbox when talking about file sharing, online collaboration etc.. Little wonder why - Dropbox is doing its thing really well. It is easy to use, quick, and offers large file storage even for free account users. If it's specifically file sharing you're after, it can be your best friend.

However, if you realise that file sharing per se is not equal to "efficient collaboration" - which is ultimately what we want, right? - things start look a bit different. Dropbox may eliminate the pain of sending large email files back and forth, but you still need to communicate with your stakeholders about the uploaded file and give a relevant context. Or maybe you receive feedback and questions, which you and others need to reply to...

But since you cannot integrate comments, feedback or approvals with files on Dropbox, you are most likely using email to sort out these questions (well, that's my personal experience in any case). The problem is that when separating content from its related communications, it is harder to maintain control or keep everyone in the loop on new changes - it can easily become a mess!

"That's why I use Clinked for my online collaboration"

With Clinked, your shared files or web page content are never separated from their related feedback, comments, questions - it's all visible from a single view (see below). This makes your total overview much easier, and eliminates the need to maintain communications via email to discuss your shared files.

Just like Dropbox, Clinked is cloud-based making it extremely easy to provide user access to anyone internally or externally. All you need is a web browser, and you're ready to go. True, there is an element of local file installation with Dropbox, to strengthen the file uploading and notification experience even more. With Clinked, we put more emphasis on creating a great collaboration platform, where content and communication are integrated.

A reminder of the Clinked collaboration tools:

• Create multiple groups for targeted communication & collaboration, with customizable branding & design
• File sharing storage, from 100 MB in our free accounts, up to 100GB and beyond.
• Wiki page platform, enabling you to quickly build web pages for use as Intranet/Extranet, or even public access
• Ability to comment on content (ie files & wiki pages), status updates, etc.
• Project management tools like:
• Tasks assignments
• Event calendar
• Member management
• Discussion boards

More features to make your Clinked collaboration more efficient:

• Decide what member or content you want to "Follow" - get notifications about everything or cherry pick yourself
• Powerful version control; easy to compare current and previous versions
• Tagging & tag cloud to simplify content search
• Upload files by email; very handy when receiving files via email which you want to share on Clinked
• Google Apps integration
• Single sign-on with Google accounts

In sum, Clinked goes beyond file sharing. We believe collaboration is most efficient when content and its ensuing communication are merged, whether it is file sharing collaboration or web page collaboration. That is what makes Clinked different from Dropbox.

Other tools are more similar to Clinked - but are often more comprehensive in terms of features (integration to Microsoft products eg) - this usually makes our competitors quite more expensive. Take a look at how much Clinked costs based on your requirements, and draw your own conclusions...