Yugma - Great webconferencing but for the install! Saturday, September 22, 2007

I'm a regular user of web conferencing services but unlike the majority of people who tend to use them for internal meetings inside a corporation, most of my meetings will involve people from other companies.


This creates a tremendous challenge since most services demand that the participants install an application on their desktop. Less of an issue inside a small firm, but a nightmare in most corporations, where desktops tend to be locked-down for very sensible reasons.

As with other applications, I'm always on the lookout for better alternatives. So, I was really disappointed when I tried out Yugma to find it required an install on the PC of each participant. The application very looks slick and encompasses most of the features you'd find in high-end, well known and expensive services.


They have provided for conference calling services but it is not mandatory to use them, indeed it specifically acknowledges skype as an telephony option.


If this is adopted by corporates for internal use, then the obstacle to installation goes away. More significantly, the pricing model looks a steal at $900 dollars for sessions involving up to 500 participants. I suspect that one licence might well suffice for a corporate if one person is assigned to be the primary contact point and operator, albeit that clearly is not what Yugma hopes for.


There is a free version that allows up to 10 attendees to be in a meeting, albeit each participant has to register and there are other limitations.

But just like buses, a similar service is Yuuguu which even sounds similar. It too requires a desktop install but this one is presently FREE regardless of number of attendees at a meeting. Sam Seithi wrote about them here.


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posted by John Wilson @ 8:42 PM Permanent Link ,

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Zoho Meeting is excellent Wednesday, May 16, 2007

I confess to being a big Zoho fan - the combined quality and range of their online offerings is probably unequalled.

Their online office applications are excellent and already offer an ability to automatically synch files with local Microsoft office documents. Hence I can work on a doc in MS Word on my laptop but have it auto syncing to an online copy as a background job via a local copy in near real-time. Thereafter I can open the document up in a browser from any PC once I have logged into my account.

So onto their latest release which is Zoho Meeting, which is a web conference facility that allows you to broadcast your screen to invitees to your online meeting as well as share control. I was kindly granted access to the private beta of service.

The application works via an add-in in Firefox but requires no install on the part of attendees to your meeting, who simply can use flash to view, albeit their is also an Active X viewer to choose from. The interface is stylish and compact, not to mention intuitive.

Today, whilst chatting to someone on Skype, I decided it would be helpful to walk them through a website application. I was able to quickly launch Zoho Meeting, ping them an email invite containing a link and within 2 minutes from initiating the entire process, my counterpart was able to view my onscreen activities without having to worry about installs on their machine.

Presently, you can't restrict what the attendees can see on your screen, so you should de-activate instant messaging service to avoid embarrassing IM messages popping up mid meeting. Likewise, close any unnecessary tabs in your browser. The application includes Zoho Chat which means you can swap messages in text with your invitees, but doesn't include VOIP or video. Consequently, you may want to run a skype call or other VOIP service alongside in order to allow you to talk (you could even run a landline teleconference!)

As I understand it, Zoho Meeting isn't presently targeted at supporting huge numbers of attendees to an online meeting. Nonetheless, most people rarely (if ever) need to link in 20+ people into their desktop screen view to do a demo or the like. Consequently, I think that this will be an invaluable addition to many workplaces, not to mention a winner with web workers.

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posted by John Wilson @ 12:59 AM Permanent Link ,

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