Tracklr have just released a public beta of their lightweight time tracking service. Tracklr is a service that aims to give individuals such as consultants, contractors and web-workers, the ability to generate lightweight reports of the work they do on different projects.

The concept behind Tracklr is based on the notion that an individual works for a discrete entity that has one or more clients. For each client there can be multiple projects and events within each project. Tracklr doesn't seek to be a project management tool - it is a very simple time tracking service that allows individuals to get quick reports based on the variables that are of relevance to them (ie time report based on a project or time report based on a client).

Tracklr has some cool time saving features le allowing for the option of times to be rounded to a predetermined figure, and events under a predetermined level to be ignored (although knowing the way that contractors like to bill - I surmise that roundup will be the most used feature )

Marek Kuziel, the guy behind Tracklr is involved in the OpenID community so unsurprisingly Tracklr supports OpenID fully, for those without OpenID, Tracklr generates one time authentication codes which allow for use - in this way Tracklr isn't tied to a particular email address and users can attach as many OpenIDs or email addresses as they like to their profile.

The current version of Tracklr is free but there are plans for a pro version that will allow multiple users for one company and enables an individual to work for multiple companies. There are other "pro" features which the company is not yet disclosing.

Tracklr is currently integrated with Twitter and there are plans to integrate it into Basecamp. Tracklr is also in the process of further integrations - it would appear to me that project management and accounting applications would be two obvious service classes that Tracklr could be integrated with.

Tracklr is entering a fairly busy space. Apart from the multitude of desktop time tracking software options, there are a number of other services that include time tracking. Some of these include it as part of a broader accounting or project management offering, while some have stand-alone time tracking as their core offering. Tracklr is targeted at the small stand-alone end of the market, leveraging it's easy integration with other offerings - specific competitors include Harvest, 1time, 14dayz and Atlantic Global.

Personally I believe these feature style plays will win and lose on their ease of use and ease of integration with other applications. Time will tell who builds the best integration first.