ReadWriteEnterprise recently published "The Four Essential Apps for Distributed Teams." It's a list of the four types of applications you'll need for groups who work from geographically separate locations — and some examples of the popular places to get them.
One type of tool you'll need according to RWE: IM & Chat. And Campfire "can't be beat."
Group chat is slightly less common a need than IM, and is less useful for informal access in your daily workflows. But for certain use cases, only group chat will do. Skype and Campfire from 37Signals can't be beat from our perspective...
Another recommended type of tool: Task Tracking. Basecamp makes that list.
By task tracking, we mean any tool that exists to keep track of the group's work. These can be issue trackers like JIRA, Trac, or Redmine. For those less-development oriented, it might be something tailored only to project management, like Basecamp, LiquidPlanner, or the offerings from Microsoft and Oracle.
