Robin Good: Watchitoo Playground is a low-cost, high-quality alternative video conferencing and collaboration tool allowing up to 25 participants to video chat and collaborate online.
Watchitoo meetings can be fully integrated and embedded in any web site and the service integrates document, screen, and link-sharing capablities while being 100% web-based.
Additional features include white labeling, event recording, live moderation, support for a broad range of document types, HD video quality, audio-bridge and analytics.
Playground is available in a free version as well as in a more powerful version starting at super-low rate of $3.80/per user/ per month.
Robin Good: Bitrix24 is a web-based service which provides small and medium-sized companies with a unique set of collaboration tools for managing projects, sharing documents and messaging.
Bitrix24 functions as a company internal social network and as a hub for all of the projects, tasks, contacts, files, and correspondence taking place within it.
Its key basic features include (free account):
Social networking and messaging
Personal Profiles
Task & Project management
File sharing
Integrated file storage from 5GB
Shared calendars
Photo gallery
CRM
Paid accounts (starting at $99/mo) also include:
Extranet
Time Management
Meeting Planner and Reports
Reports
Custom Domain Name
File Storage size (50 or 100Gb)
No installation is required.
Bitrix is also accessible via smartphone and mobile devices.
Robin Good: Mindmeld is an upcoming iPad app which allows you to conference in real-time with other people with video and audio, and to find relevant related information about the things that are being mentioned in your talk.
As you are video-conferencing you can tap a light bulb icon which powers a background search on the terms being mentioned in your conversation. By sliding the conferencing pane to the left, you can then reveal a information page that lists both the key terms being mentioned, as well as related information pins, on the very topics being identified.
You can also type in manually any term or topic you would like to see more info on, and immediately share any relevant info block with everyone else in the meeting.
"MindMeld is an iPad app (for now) that uses Facebook’s open graph and identity to help create quick audio or video conferences. Add a few people and start talking. But here is where things get interesting: As you speak (or other participants speak), the app listens and starts surfacing information pertaining to what you are talking about."
Robin Good: If you are looking for a free video conferencing solution, here is my selection of the top 15 (and more) solutions available right now online.
I have personally checked each one of them, and while you may not like each one, they all guarantee the ability to video conference with more than two people (FlashMeeting is the only exception I have included) without you needing to pay anything for it.
Some, as good as Vidyo or Zoom.us may provide HD quality video and even full support for mobile platforms. Others, like MeBeam or Sinfor offer bare-bone ad-supported solutions that have zero frills but can do the job if you need an immediate, zero-cost solution.
Robin Good: Zoom.us just launched a new cloud-based free HD videoconferencing service integrating full screen-sharing and other rea-time collaboration capabilities.
The service allows you to start conferencing immediately with up to 15 other users live, while supporting both Macs, PCs andmobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.
Zoom also integrates with both Google’s Gmail and Facebook, making it possible to easily access contacts from both of these services.
Zoom.us doesn’t offer all of the features that other video-conferencing and real-time collaboration tools may offer, but it’s free and has capabilities such as high-definition 720p video as well as the ability to do screen-sharing.
Robin Good: BizAnytime is a new online collaboration platform which integrates real-time audio and video conferencing, a sharing workspace, task management and more.
The key strength of the service is a very-low entry price ($10/member/month) which gives you access to all of its features.
Robin Good*: TeamWox is both a groupware app for small teams as well as a full-fledged enterprise management system integrating tasks, documents, CRM, contacts and more.
TeamWox is available both as a cloud-based service or as a downloadable software for your PC (Windows-only).
The cloud-based solution, TeamWox SaaS, provides all enterprise management services including chat, boards and IP telephony management free of charge for the first two months. Thereafter it charges $15/user/month.
TeamWox On-premise is the small-team, groupware version, which allows you to download a free Windows application that you can use for groups of up to 10 users.
Robin Good: VidyoWay is a new free videoconferencing offering from one of the established leaders in the industry. The service, for which you can request an invite here, accomodates up to nine simultaneous HD video streams and works across standard PCs, mobile units and legacy systems regardless of which vendor technologies they are using.
Key features include:
-> Seamless interconnectivity of Cisco, Polycom, Lifesize, and other legacy H.323 and SIP-based endpoints
-> Supports Microsoft Lync and voice only devices
-> Provides free mobile client for users without access to legacy VC or MS Lync
Robin Good: SalesCrunch is a web-based meeting platform providing screen sharing, presentation delivery, and full VoIP and audio-conferencing capabilities.
Key features include the ability to get a persistent meeting space at a dedicated URL, a dedicated conference number, compatibility with desktop PCs and mobile tablet devices.
Salescrunch interfaces and hooks up to SalesForce and LinkedIN and tracks your invitees and their participation to your events.
Robin Good: Fuze Join is an iPhone app which allows Fuze Meeting enterprise customers to launch video-conferences with up to 12 people directly from their iOS device.
From IntoMobile: "FuzeBox unveiled today an update to the Fuze Join app already available in the App Store that most notably brings multi-party video conferencing to iPhone owners.
Fuze Join is geared toward enterprise users who travel but need to communicate with co-workers.
...
The group video chat feature looks somewhat similar to a Google+ Hangout.
There’s a large view of one video feed at the top above smaller views for other participants, but you can drag and drop to rearrange them any way you want.
Up to twelve people can video chat in a single meeting.
What makes Fuze Join really stand out for business users is the ability to share files within the session. It supports documents, photos and even video.
A good ol’ fashioned text chat feature is included as well.
Free to download but you have to be a FuzeBox member to get any use out of it."
(Reuters) - "Travelling and looking for Internet access?
A new smartphone app allows users to share mobile Web access for free with other people nearby who have the same app.
Called Open Garden, the app forms a mesh network that enables each person connected to it to relay it to other users.
"Every smartphone is a computer and a router, so we thought it was the right time to interconnect all of these devices together to make general access more ubiquitous," said Micha Benoliel, co-founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based company Open Garden."
From Lifehacker: "Open Garden is both a Wi-Fi tethering app and a mesh network. Install it on your Android phone and you can use your mobile data wirelessly on your Windows or Mac laptop, as well as Android tablets.
Not only that—you can piggyback on others' mobile connections.
Once you've installed the app on your phone and the client on your computer, Open Garden will run in the background managing the connection over Bluetooth.
The Android app shows you all the devices connected in Open Garden, as well as the data being transferred.
Open Garden supposedly sniffs around for other devices using Open Garden and will manage the best way for yours to get online."
Robin Good: Omnijoin is a video conferencing and online collaboration platform integrating all standard conferencing funcionalities in a cost-effective solution.
Key features include:
- > Video conferencing up to HD
- > 720p or 1080p video quality
- > Screen Sharing
- > File sharing
- > Event recording
- > Shared video playback
- > Text chat
- > Multiple interface layouts
- > Phone bridge
From the official press release: "OmniJoin is available in a variety of plans. The standard, single-host version starts at $49 per month, and allows up to 30 meeting attendees, of which up to 12 can be "video attendees", with live faces shown. OmniJoin Pro starts at $79 per month, and supports more total attendees and video attendees..."
Omnijoin works both on Macs and PCs (downloadable versions).
Robin Good: Sidecar is a mobile app for iOS and Android which allows you to make voice calls while enabling you to share video, images, notes or a map showing where you are in relationship to your other caller while you are talking.
Key features:
a) See What I See Video: Sidecar users can share amazing real-time videos of what’s happening around them.
b) Photos: Sidecar users can easily share vivid photos at the click of a button.
c) Locations: Sidecar lets users look at an interactive map, see where they are in relation to the person they’re calling, and share locations to meet up.
d) Contact Information: Sidecar lets users pass along and integrate contacts from their phone’s address book.
e) Whisper Text: Send a private text message to another Sidecar user during a call, and keep the conversation going when it’s hard to talk.
Sidecar users can call anywhere in the world for free: As long as both parties are using the Sidecar app.
Sidecar users can also call anyone in the US or Canada for free over Wi-Fi: The person you’re calling doesn’t need to have the app. (When you call, they’ll receive a text message telling them how to download Sidecar so next time you can use Sidecar’s exclusive smart calling features.)
(Calls to any number in the US or Canada from the Sidecar client over Wi-FI are free too. When using Sidecar over a 3G or 4G data connection, normal carrier charges for that service apply.)
"Japanese cellular operator NTT DoCoMo is demonstrating a chat system that aims to accurately portray your facial emotions online."
To drastically improve the quality of video within videoconferencing sessions DoCoMo Japan has engineered a new approach to compensate for the often low-quality, pixelated images typical of such collaborative events.
The company has in fact invented a headset that "features two cameras that point at your eyes to replicate blinking, facial expressions and skin tone in the digital world, and features a camera at the front and back for picking up your hand gestures and where you are in a room.
When your image is rendered by the cameras and projected into the digital conference, you end up looking more like an incredible video game rendering of yourself, rather than a two-dimensional human.
The addition of realistic facial movements, though, helps re-enforce the concept that this is a real person you’re talking to, rather than a lifelike avatar."
Robin Good: Marqueed is a web service which allows you to create collections of images that can be shared, marked up and used for discussion with partners or clients.
Ideal for graphic design and visual communication projects Marqueed makes it extremely easy to bookmark and capture from the web or to directly upload (or drag and drop) most type of images as well as PDF files into easy to arrange collections.
Each image can be marked multiple times by highlighting specific areas and it is possible to place comments, requests and replies next to each markup point.
You can receive immediate notifications via email for any message or change to a collection while being able to directly upload images from Google Drive (and soon from Dropbox too).
Robin Good: Hall.com has released a new version of its web app which allows you to create persistent collaboration workspaces, adding video-conferencing for up to 12 people and screen-sharing.
The free version allows for up to 6 people in a video conference, screen-sharing, online storage, chat, IM and more. See more about feature and pricing here: https://hall.com/about/pricing
The Hall desktop app runs on Windows and Mac and apps for iPhone and Android are already available.
Robin Good: GoToWebinar, my favorite webinar delivery platform has released a new update which provides a long-awaited featured for Mac owners: full event record.
From the official site:
-> Record sessions organized from a Mac (OS X version 10.6 or newer).
-> Guests can use HDFaces™ video conferencing on iPad.
From the original article on Patent Bolt: "The US Patent & Trademark Office has published a patent application from Google that reveals that they're working on a computing device which could either be a laptop or some form of hybrid notebook tablet that will incorporate dual cameras.
The dual cameras which could be used in different configurations, appear to have been keenly designed with video conferencing in mind: In fact, 3D video conferencing."
Robin Good: QuicklyChat is a new real-time collaboration downloadable software for PCs and Macs (Linux coming) which allows you to easily video chat with your teammates.
Key characterizing trait for Quicklychat is its ability to auto-signal to your contacts whether you are effectively busy or not (depending on what you are actually doing on your computer - this is configurable) and to connect to any of your contacts in one-second time.
From the official site: "The biggest difference between QuicklyChat and conventional video communication is that QuicklyChat auto-answers incoming calls when the recipient is available.
Incoming connections are displayed in an unobtrusive notification window, so you can keep working if you're in the middle of an important thought, without having to think about how to respond to an incoming call."
Robin Good: YouDazzle is a web-based collaboration and conferencing platform providing file-sharing, Dropbox integration, VoIP and screen-sharing for up to 250 participants for $39/month (Pro version).
YouDazzle Pro also integrates, sharing and showcasing of presentations and any other type of file as well as video conferencing, webinar recording and support for mobile devices.
There is also a Starter Plan ($19/mo), a Free Plan as well as a 14-day trial.
Robin Good: eMeet.me is a new web-based online meeting service offering free videoconferencing, VoIP, screen-sharing, whiteboarding and text chat for up to 5 people.
Key features include:
-> Text chat
-> VoIP
-> Video
-> Screen-sharing
-> Whiteboard
-> File-sharing
-> Recording
-> Statistics and reports
-> Private or open meetings
The Pro version which allows you accomodate up to 20 participants per meeting costs $9/month.
eMeet.me is accessible via any type of dekstop computer or tablet device.
Robin Good: The guys at Vline are busy developing a new tool that will allow any developer to integrate a videoconferencing app on any web site without ever needing to use Flash or other plugins.
By leveraging the original Google Web RTC project, which provided an open framework for enabling RTC in the browser, the small team at Vline began building a tool that bundles together all the technology required to build video conferencing capacity into an inexpensive and easy-to-use package without using Flash or requiring you to be logged in into Google.
From the official site:
1) Add video chat and instant messaging to your app with a few lines of Javascript or Objective-C.
2) Built from the ground up for the new HTML5 video conferencing standard(no Flash or plugins required).
From VentureBeat: "VLine, a cloud video conferencing platform for developers, showcased its platform for the first time yesterday at the Google developer conference.
It also revealed raising $1.5 million in seed funding from Kleiner Perkins and Harrison Metal.
VLine enables web and mobile developers to integrate high quality, video conferencing into their applications without using Flash or plug-ins.
...
During the beta period over the next several months, the product will be free of charge."
Robin Good: DisplayNote is an cross-platform app which allows a presenter to share (over WiFi) his presentation live to his audience, by allowing them to capture, view, edit and contribute to it in real-time fom whichever device they use.
Key features include:
Capture - Capture the presenter's notes, slides, images and video in real-time and all on your own device.
Annotate- Highlight what is important to you, underline key phrases, mark / tag important items for later review, and send annotations to other connected devices.
Collaborate- Work together in groups of any size and on any device. Share annotations with the presenter and other connected devices. Create and join groups for collaborative learning.
Note Taking- Add written notes, post-its and references to any slide, image and video.
Display Control- In presenter mode, use your tablet device to present from anywhere in the room, access and control your desktop, create collaborative groups, pass control to other participant's devices and even view the screen of another connected device.
Private messaging- Send and receive private messages with the presenter and other connected devices while you work.
Any Device, any Platform - Works on any device (smartphone, tablet, laptop etc.) and across all the major platforms including iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
Robin Good: Airtime is a new social videoconferencing app that allows you to have one-to-one video conversations with people you have probably never met before, but who share your same location and interests.
From TheNextWeb review: "Essentially, it’s like Chat Roulette, but not nearly as creepy, and with little to zero nudity.
From Telepresenceoptions.com: "Airtime is the combination of two existing technologies; web-based videoconferencing and interest-based user pairing."
"Airtime is tied to your Facebook account (Parker is the former President of Facebook, which should help to ensure successful integration).
The Facebook connection serves a few purposes. It allows Airtime users to easily initiate video chat with their Facebook friends, and it also allows Airtime to peek into your publicly listed "interests" (likes, subscriptions, etc.) and use that information to connect you with other, random, Airtime users."
Robin Good: UberConference is a kind of audio-conferencing app focusing on making it easier for both the host and the participants to find out more about the other people participating, while "seeing" always who's who, who's attending and who's talking.
UberConference integrates a full conference audio recording function (downloadable .MP3), the ability to mute or "boot" anyone who is not behaving properly inside an event or a discussion, and the option of talking "secretly" just to one or more selected persons (while the others cannot hear you).
To make all of this possible UberConference has created a visual board that displays all participants faces and names, and allows once you click on anyone of them to check their social profile and their online activities.
At the end of a conference the service provides you with a summary report listing you the topics covered, who participated and who talked (and for how long).
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