Solutions for web demos

Discussions
#1

I want to be able to share my screen for doing demos to prospective customers, possibly also for support. Mostly I have used Skype screen sharing so far, but not everyone has Skype. My requirements:
-works on WIndows or Mac
-built in VOIP
-easy for customer to set up (ideally no install)
-good experience for customer
-cheap or free (I don’t expect to use it a lot)

Would be nice, but not essential:
-option to control customer computer
-meeting can be recorded

I found a couple of cheap solutions, but they don’t have built-in VOIP, which is a pain:

http://quickscreenshare.com
http://meetingburner.com (free plan)

Here are some non-free solutions which seem to tick all the boxes.

http://www.mikogo.com (£10/mo for cheapest plan)
http://www.gotomeeting.co.uk (price not shown=too expensive)
http://www.teamviewer.com (£439 one off fee)

mikogo (used to be beammyscreen?) seems to do all I want for a reasonable price. Anyone had any experience with it?

Are there other alternatives I should consider?

#2

I’m honestly not sure how VOIP works with it, but what about Google Hangouts?

#3

I had forgotten about Google Hangouts. Anyone tried it for online demos?

#4

For just sharing your screen and audio, join.me is pretty good as it doesn’t require the viewer to install anything and it has built in VOIP. Pro plan ($13/mo or $19/mo) allows for recording and control-swapping, but I would imagine the control swapping requires the viewer to download the join.me application.

#5

Join.me is a great service and their free plan is usually enough. The pro plan also allows a custom URL so you don’t have to give a Join.me code to your participants.

#6

We have been using Webex for many years for web demos now. I’m sure there are better (and cheaper) services out there, but we never had the need to switch. One nice thing about Webex is that it works in basically any environment, regardless of the firewall or system permissions customers might have in place and we rarely have issues with it.

#7

If you have a spare server/VPS you could consider http://demo.bigbluebutton.org/

Pros:

  • You can upload and show slides from any PDF/Powerpoint presentation, annotate them, show a shared cursor, etc…
  • It does have built’in audio/video conferencing via pure Flash, no installs required (also a little chat avaliable)
  • You can share your screen/app via the embed java app
  • No hardcoded limits on simultaneous users
  • The server can be configured to store recordings of the meetings for later consumption
  • You can use your own branding/domain name
  • You can even customize the skin (dev skills required)
  • Open Source, maybe not the asiest in the world to install, but pretty straightforward

Just my 2 cents

#8

Gotomeeting is £29 per organiser per month though we signed up when they had a 20% off deal from memory (http://www.gotomeeting.co.uk/web-conferencing-comparison) - we have tried quite a few and went with Gotomeeting as it is rock sold reliable, integrates nicely with Outlook and also allows us to do webcast for up to 25 people.

#9

Thanks for the feedback. I am going to try mikogo and join.me and see how I get on.

#10

Hey Andy

How did mikogo and join.me work out? Was there a clear winner? I’m trying screenleap.com for a couple of demos soon. It looks OK, but the phone conferencing relies on a US number, so doesn’t really tick that box.

#11

I had this bookmarked and it plus Google Hangouts would give you a completely free solution: http://www.screenleap.com/

#12

I tried join.me (free trial of the paid version) and it seemed fine.

#13

I just used used my trial join.me account for the first time today. Totally painless to install, start, and use. My attendee (semi-technical) was able to connect through MSIE immediately and with zero problems. She said it was very easy. At $13/mo, the join.me Pro plan seems like a drop kick.

#14

I did, and it works quite well. But join.me also looks great.