Just under a year ago, we took a look at Podio, a social and online work network rolled into one and we liked it very much, so much so that we gave it a extremely well-deserved score of 9 out of 10. Since writing that review, the Podio team have been working extremely hard on the product and there are plenty of new features to show for their efforts.
Read on after the break to find out what exactly they are!
New Mobile Applications
Podio has introduced new applications for both iPhone and Android smartphones that help you access your Podio apps, items and workspaces directly on your mobile. All of Podio’s apps and extensions are available on the mobile platform and you can even create your own app items directly from either your iPhone or Android device for everyone to work on. Photos and videos can also be directly uploaded into your app items.
The iOS version of Podio. There is a similar client available for Android devices as well.
Podio is available on both the App Store and Google Play and are both entirely free!
Real-Time Alerts
Podio now features a system-wide notification system that previously would have just popped up in your inbox. Now, notifications for any event are shown as a pop-up in the lower-right hand side of your screen and all in real time. If you click on the alert, it will take you straight to that piece of information. Podio also supports streaming notifications as well (just like in the web version of Twitter) so now there is no longer the need to refresh the screen to bring up any new events – simply click on the bar and Podio will show you exactly what’s new.
Free for Students
Probably my favourite new feature about Podio (this may be a little unfair seeing as I am a student) is the fact that students from any university in the world can visit Podio’s new student website (students.podio.com) and sign up to an account for free using their university e-mail address. The app isn’t just designed for use in the office – it’s also a great place for students to organise their studies, collaborate with their classmates and complete group projects.
Podio is now free to all students across the world, as long as you sign up with your university e-mail address.
The best part of this fantastic deal is that there are no limitations: students still get the great features that any other user of Podio would, including all the additional apps built into the program as well as the moble platforms on both the iPhone and Android. Why? Well, the developers of Podio believe in the principle of preparing students for a career of productive work, as university really is the best place that most students learn how to collaborate with others and work in teams.
Tighter Third-Party Integration
There has been a real push towards tighter third-party integration in recent times at Podio and consequently the app supports a far greater variety of third-party clients now. The app integrates with plenty of cloud-based storage services, such as Box.net and Dropbox to allow you to access and share any files or folders that are stored on Box.net and Dropbox directly from within Podio. This feature also extends to the mobile versions – so long as you’ve connected your Podio and Dropbox/Box.net accounts on the web, then they will be visible on the mobile client as well.
Podio provides integration and support for many third-party cloud-based storage services.
Podio also supports Evernote, meaning that you can make your content there sharable, actionable and collaborative in your Podio workspace, applications and so on. Further integration includes (but is not limited t0) Google Drive, Zendesk, GoToMeeting and Freshbooks.
App Referencing across Workspaces
The core ability of Podio is to keep everything within the program tightly integrated (thereby making collaboration far easier) and now you can connect apps to one another, thereby meaning that you can link content from other applications on Podio when you post an item.
You can also reference pretty much any app in a workspace that you are a member of. Another pretty neat trick is that you can continue to have your apps grouped into workspaces that make sense to you – and still reference apps across those workspaces. For example, if you’re working with clients in separate workspaces, you can now link timesheets to individual projects from a central administration workspace.
What Do You Think?
Remember, these aren’t all the new features of Podio (for the full list, head over here) and the massive addition of features and tighter integration with a wide range of third-party programs show that the app really is going from strength to strength (despite being purchased by Citrix Systems back in April of this year) and, crazy enough as it is, Podio is still 100% free for up to 5 users!
Last time, Podio got an extremely commendable 9 out of 10 score and with all these new features (and these aren’t even all of them) this has bumped the app up to our pristine 10 out of 10 score. I really do love the app and as a student I am extremely impressed with their free giveaway – it shows that the developers are actually bothered about helping people rather than just making as much profit for themselves. However it’s not just students that can benefit from it. You will find that once you start using it, the app will fit and tie into virtually any situation you could use it for – and it won’t cost you a penny (for up to 5 users). My one request to the developers: please don’t abandon this product, it really is absolutely fantastic!