Meet me online.

Is your business ready to work on the Web?

When running a small business, you don't always have the space to hold meetings with staff and clients. And renting a hotel conference room or meeting site for a day or two can cost a small fortune. So, how do you get your team together to work on projects? Consider Web collaboration.

What is Web collaboration? It's a way for teams to work on a project together--online and off--while eliminating travel costs and paper. Online collaboration works pretty much like this: One person signs up and sets up a virtual meeting room. That person then informs the rest of the group where to meet online. It's a bit like a personal chat room, where members can communicate and work securely.

In addition to Microsoft's NetMeeting (www.microsoft.com), which is free, there are several services that let you collaborate with far-flung clients and employees. Punch Networks' WebGroups (www.punchnetworks.com), for example, lets you automatically and securely work on important projects. WebGroups also features document management tools such as version tracking, audit trails, and automatic change notification.

Another popular Punch Networks tool is Instant Folders, which lets you send, receive, and synchronize files. Here's how it works: You and your team need to work on the same project, so you set up an account and send the team the files via e-mail. Once they sign up, the folder you set up can be accessed by everyone as long as they all download the software. If one person updates a file, everyone's file is updated automatically.

Each Instant Folder can support up to 100 users and costs $49 a year per person. It's a bit pricey, but if you frequently collaborate on projects, it might be worth it. You can try out the program free for 30 days.

Another service to check out is TeamOn (www.teamon.com). With TeamOn, each person gets a workspace and a "private online office" for e-mail, documents, calendar, and address book. You also get team workspaces--which are dedicated virtual offices--to collaborate and share information with others. And this is the best part: You can add anyone to your online workgroup. They don't need a TeamOn account to be a member of your team.

TeamOn's professional service costs $9.95 per user per month and includes e-mail domain name hosting along with additional storage. You can also opt to buy up to 1,000MB of storage for $70 per month.

Two free programs worth a look are Groove.net (www.groove.net) and Zaplet (www.zaplet.com).Again, as with any Web service, you should first decide what your business needs are. With Web collaboration, you will save time and increase productivity--even if you collaborate only occasionally. Can you get by with sending e-mail and attachments back and forth? As your business grows, your answer will likely be "No."