LookWithUs launches powerful platform combining collaboration and social communication

Startup company LookWithUs.com, Inc. has unveiled its beta version of its LookWithUs software, a social collaboration and communication platform for business and personal use. Individuals and groups can function like an onsite team to use text, voice, video, images, links, and attachments naturally, while collaborating on projects. A free beta version of LookWithUs software is available now.

File-storage sites like Dropbox and Box.com, and hosted office suites like Google Docs and Microsoft 365, have enabled improvements in how teams share and manage documents online. LookWithUs takes collaboration further and offers users features for accessing and co-working on the same file, plus social communication tools, in a single platform. Instead of annotating a file using simple text comments, or the traditional "track changes" function of some office apps, LookWithUs users can record an audio or video message, attach a supporting document, web links, and even YouTube and Vimeo videos and add them to the file. LookWithUs has been awarded the patent on its key technology, which is the ability to add rich media files to any digital object.

LookWithUs simplifies the problems of organising, collaborating, and communicating within teams by significantly streamlining business resources, workloads, and processes while reducing the volume of emails, phone calls and meetings.

Users create projects starting with Microsoft Office files, PDFs, images, or virtually any other file type, then invite others to participate in and contribute to the project. Projects can be kept private and accessible by invitation only, or can be publicly available via a link.

Participants add their own notes via text, voice, video, web links or even YouTube videos to the project file, and a marking indicates the exact reference point within the file. Files and annotations are securely bound together and hosted on the LookWithUs cloud so they remain protected and accessible from anywhere – and those working on a project can access the files even if they do not have that file's supporting software installed.

Key benefits of LookWithUs include:

• Combine multiple applications into a single easy-to-use collaboration platform
• Share and work on any file type using any browser
• Manage a collection of files, comments, interactions, links and more in a single project that is automatically backed up and auditable
• Control access and interaction levels on comments, files and projects
• Eliminate the dreaded "reply to all" deluge of emails and email attachments that proliferate as teams collaborate on business documents
• Eliminate version control headaches
• Upload a public project, and invite the world to see or even participate in music, film, creative writing, art, fashion, wikis, and more

"LookWithUs reflects the way people interact, collaborate, and communicate with each other every day," said LookWithUs CEO Mark Smith. "It's a powerful but simple, intuitive social collaboration platform with sophisticated file viewing and management capabilities."

Examples of how users put LookWithUs software to work:

• Sales and marketing: Collateral, graphics, and other content can be shared publicly or with a limited group of users, who can add comments or questions.
• Law: Organise all client and case materials, depositions, audio recordings, documents, emails, and billing information in a single virtual binder. Share documents with clients and colleagues electronically to eliminate unnecessary printing, faxing, and couriers.
• Education: Teachers can invite students to collaborate securely online, encouraging feedback while keeping student comments visible only to the teacher. Students can upload research projects and papers as digital files, then add videos, files, and web links to support their work.