Zoho, which offers a competitive alternative to Google’s online productivity tools (and uses one of The Hotspotter’s most favorite mottos: “Work. Online.”), added a powerful new tool to its impressive list of offerings today; Zoho Discussions, which it describes thus-ly in the official announcement on their blog:

Zoho Discussions allows organizations to create external and internal communities where problems are solved, topics are discussed and ideas are exchanged. Businesses can create a customer support forum where solutions to problems come not only from the company support reps, but also from other users in the same situation. Customers can make their voices heard and vote on what they like – and don’t like. Employees can discuss important topics in an environment that fosters collaboration much better than e-mail.

External customer feedback forums are nothing new (I usually recommend UserVoice and use it myself when setting up customer feedback forums), but what intrigues me most about this application is that they have taken the foundation of a customer feedback forum and loaded it up with many social network features such as messaging, profiles, activity feeds and chat. Based on my quick review of the available videos tours and feature lists, I think that the most interesting use of this app will not be customer interaction but more in-depth group communications through private micro-social networks based on a very specific subject, like planning a trip to Vegas or discussing a marketing plan.

For a deeper look at the app, Leena Rao at TechCrunch went hands-on with Discussions and spoke with Zoho’s Evangelist, Raju Vegesna. She reported on her impressions, Zoho’s business vision and posted some screenshots.

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