Chicago (IL) - A
young startup with Steve Chazin, the ex-Apple marketing whiz who
had been part of Steve Jobs' inner circle for years, is
challenging the likes of Cisco and Adobe with a new online web-based
conferencing service dubbed Dimdim. How does it stack up against the big boy offerings?
Dimdim is best described as "conferencing
for the rest of us." It not only frees average users from the hassles
of setting up online conferences with video and audio, but it also
delivers thoughtful all-in-one features that are free of charge - the same cannot be said of other hyped services. In addition, Dimdim offers a software platform which enables developers to build new services on
top of their base - with open-source and enterprise versions to address the needs
of big business.
Dimdim, a young startup which emerged in April of 2008, has big boys like Adobe and Cisco in its sights, challenging their ConnectNow and WebEx web-based conferencing platforms which are being predominantly used by businesses to host online meetings. But heavyweight players like Adobe and Cisco have a problem: Web-based conferencing is becoming increasingly popular among end-users and small- to mid-size teams as well.
A new player to rival them all
While Adobe's free-of-charge ConnectNow caters to those segments as well, free version of the service come with some limitations that narrows its use. On the other hand, Cisco's powerful WebEx platform doesn't come cheap. In addition, it lacks ease of use - a feature consumers highly value these days. Although the networking giant recently posted a free iPhone application that lets iPhone users participate in WebEx meetings, those users are not allowed to host a meeting on their handset and instead have to do it via a somewhat clunky web interface from their desktops.
Enter
Dimdim, an affordable and easy to use web-based video conferencing
solution "for the rest of us." Dimdim efficiently exploits weaknesses
of other services to its advantage, playing the ease-of-use card.
It's a clever move since average users still can't get their heads
around web-based conferencing services. The company also has the
right man on board, someone who knows a thing or two about ease of use: Steve
Chazin, a part-time blogger at MarketingApple
and Dimdim's marketing chief who worked for years with Steve Jobs as
Apple's marketing honcho. That said, the positive influence of Apple's DNA
clearly shows in Dimdim.
Conferencing for the rest of us
I
have been beta testing Dimdim service since it came out early last
year. Although it recently came out of beta, it has already garnered
over 1 million users in 185 countries. I was awe-struck in early
beta days with the simplicity and inviting, crisp user interface.
Joining a meeting is as easy as following a link in an invitation
email. Unlike other services, you are not required to create an account
to participate in a meeting. No
special software is required, no plugins to
download either, and conferences with multi-person audio
and video run remarkable smoothly inside your browser, even on low-spec machines.
Read on the next page: Hosting a meeting, Paid upgrades, Enterprise and Open-source versions, Conclusion...