Boomerang is another Chrome extension that enables email-send scheduling. If it's important to send messages at a particular date or time, users can schedule the drafted email and forget about it.

Collaboration

It's never been easier to work remotely and collaborate across continents. Google Docs is the most obvious way to share documents, allowing users with edit privileges to both view colleagues' changes in real time and make their own, simultaneously, with comment sections. Some broadcasters do not even bother with expensive, proprietary industry software for scriptwriting; instead they use Google Docs.

Startups are constantly honing similar applications for designers, artists, architects and others working on visual projects. Korean startup BeeCanvas was born out of frustration when its founder struggled to communicate with an engineer. He created BeeCanvas to function as a whiteboard for more graphic, visually-driven projects, with a 'refrigerator' to store important elements or items. It is described as a Google doc for creatives.

Comms

At Accelerate Korea, a transnational accelerator/incubator in Seoul, associate director Vladimir Munn and his team switched from Skype conference calls to Google Hangouts. "It works much better," Munn says. "For example, to use Google Hangouts you do not need to register or even know a participant's Gmail account. Everyone can be invited through a shared link similar to Google Drive documents sharing feature. We also use Uber Conference, which is more like a business solution where fixed-line telephones can be used."

Video conferencing is so effective in reducing the length of calls that many offices have converted. Being able to see one another forces participants to pay attention and engage more. Some report that video conferences shorten calls by a third.

With the rise of co-work spaces and remote working there's been huge demand for wireless headphones; many promises of cancelling out external sound.


The latest pair are from RippleBuds, a startup that has raised almost a million dollars on Indiegogo for its headphones with a mic built into the earpiece.

Workflow

Software and applications that aggregate multiple tasks, like Google Calendar, along with docs and hangouts, are increasingly more sophisticated. Zoho has been around for a while, and is popular for its ability to export an invoice attached to an email and import it into the recipient's expense template, removing extra steps like downloading the document first, then entering each item into a spreadsheet. Workflow time is also reduced by easily attaching documents related to a single, specific project.

Mobile payment processing

With attachments as small as a thumbnail, anyone can accept credit cards. Square is a mobile-only app and credit card reader that attaches to a phone. Square's dock and its app can handle orders, inventory and payments between multiple devices. Products like Square makes payments easier for customers and vendors, particularly those in business for themselves, like artists and others.