Yugma: Free Web Conferencing and Collaboration
February 14, 2007 ·
Yugma is a Sanskrit word meaning “the state of being in unified collaboration.” When I saw that, I figured mediators in particular would appreciate hearing a bit more about Yugma, a new free web conferencing service that’s getting excellent reviews.
Web conferencing enables people to be “together” in a meeting via the World Wide Web, regardless of where they are geographically. In a web conference, each participant sits at their own computer and is usually also on the telephone, either through traditional means or through services like Skype. Using the web conference, participants can jointly view and collaborate on a single screen or document together, even making use of the software on one participant’s computer without all participants having that same software on their own computers.
Yugma is just such a service, as is WebEx. Unlike WebEx, Yugma is free for up to 10 participants and I found Yugma’s interface to be elegantly simple. I took only about 3 minutes to set up without hassle and it’s both Windows and Mac friendly. Yugma places a small piece of spyware-free software on your computer as part of the sign-up process and it’s there whenever you need it from that point forward. Premium services (for more than 10 participants or expanded features) are available starting at $9.95 per month.
Yugma says that some of the most popular uses of its services include “presenting sales proposals, product demonstrations, conducting training, project management, customer service, team reviews, remote support and troubleshooting, and collaboration by web communities…” If you’re part of a geographically diverse team, I think it’s worth a look.
Copyright © 2007 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.
Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com) just released vRoom - our “Three for Free” webconferencing which anyone can get at http://www.GetvRoom.com . I thought your users may want to know since it has all the functionality (and then some) for any online collaboration you may want to do including:
Two way voice, Live video, load/show presentations, joint brainstorm or take notes on shared whiteboard, share applications, send files to others, and even an ability to lock your meeting!
To top it off, it’s completely cross platform(Windows, Mac, Linux) and works great whether someone comes in on a dialup (28.8Kbps) or Broadband connection.
Thanks for letting me know about vRoom, Rajeev…I’ll definitely check it out!
Rajeev emailed me the following additional information about vRoom: “…it allows different users in the same session to even see the user-interface in their own native languages (half a dozen or so supported, including English, Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese and Simplified Chinese).”
Of interest to readers:
Yugma will have a virtual stage at Web 2.0 (April 15-18; San Francisco). At Yugma, we believe good ideas deserve to be shared, regardless of the resources of their creators. That’s why we are using our software to turn our booth at the Web 2.0 conference into a virtual stage. We’re calling the project Stage 2, and are currently seeking individuals and companies who wouldn’t otherwise have a presence to share their ideas and products.
If you have content to share (best practices, innovative idea, new invention, product or service), please visit
http://www.yugma.com/stage2 to read more information about participating. Slot are limited, so please enter your submission as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Karel Lukas
COO, Yugma
http://www.yugma.com
(Free Web Collaboration & Free Web Conferencing)