The hardest part about using any of these products is getting employees to switch over- I have found that if you don't use them from the start, employees will never adapt to them. Any time a startup I worked for decided to use a product similar to the ones on the list, the only employees who used them were the ones who started after the change was implemented.
The problem is that employees get used to a certain workflow (such as email), and it is hard for them to get into a new mindset. If Basecamp or the other products are used from the beginning, it would be all they know.
Basically, when you introduce a product like Basecamp to an organization, employees get frustrated it doesn't conform to their current way of doing things. It needs to be the other way around- users need to conform to the way Basecamp does it (which is hard once employees already have a workflow).
These are a bit obvious. I'd be worried about any start-up that's not aware of the first three, and I have actually heard of and used all of them before.
I hadn't heard of DimDim, so I just setup a trial account hoping it would be a viable alternative to GotoMeeting. Short answer: no. Sadly, it seemed very slow and unresponsive. The extra $40/month for GotoMeeting now seems good value.
That's easy! Get everyone on dropbox and create a projects folder which you share with everyone in the company. Create a subfolder in projects/ for each project you have. Inside those folders make "bugs", "source", and "docs" folders.
It's simple and easy. (And you'll want to shoot yourself after about 3 hours of using it)
The problem is that employees get used to a certain workflow (such as email), and it is hard for them to get into a new mindset. If Basecamp or the other products are used from the beginning, it would be all they know.
Basically, when you introduce a product like Basecamp to an organization, employees get frustrated it doesn't conform to their current way of doing things. It needs to be the other way around- users need to conform to the way Basecamp does it (which is hard once employees already have a workflow).