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HiTask is a task management application, that has built an extremely usable team centric service. HiTask lets you manage tasks, meetings, reminders and birthdays. Users can also chat with team members in real-time using a simple in browser chat client. There is also a nice calendar with drag and drop capability to allow users to schedule tasks and these tasks could also be shared and assigned to specific team members.

HiTask has built a really clean, neat and simple service, and I personally have not seen a better use of AJAX in any other service. The entire application could be used right from one screen. You will find the calendar on the left, tasks in the middle and your teams on the right. Just about anything could be done by dragging and dropping tasks. Drag it on the calendar and you have assigned the task to a certain date, drag it on a team member and the task gets assigned to that team member, drag it on the daily overview and resize it to determine how long it should take to complete.

You can also chat with your team members to discuss the different aspects of the task or other project related issues. To start chatting just click on the name of the team member and type whatever you have to say in the chat box below. In case the team member is offline, the message will still be sent and the member will see an email icon next to your name, indicating that you have sent him a message that needs to be read. The chat also acts as a log, as it automatically creates a message when a task is assigned to a team member.

The chat capability is really handy, because often while discussing tasks several new tasks are identified, which usually force me to make a to-do list that is sent back and forth for quiet a while. But with HiTask, I can discuss a task with any team member and if a new task is identified, it can immediately be created and assigned to a team member right away. This feature will prove immensely useful for teams that work over the web.

HiTask offers a basic free plan that could be upgraded to a premium plan for $15 per annum. The premium plan allows you to manage unlimited tasks, projects and team members. I however would like to see HiTask becoming totally free, with bandwidth and storage costs diminishing to negligible levels this is certainly possible. A free service will explode user growth, which in turn will allow HiTask to make a swift exit making more money from the event than it could by selling premium accounts for a lifetime.