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Dimdim Launches Synched Web Sharing Features in its Conferencing App

We've written before about Dimdim, an outstanding open source web conferencing application which may be of special interest right now to businesses looking to save on travel for meetings and the like. Today, Dimdim has announced an upgrade that offers synchronized co-browsing, better scalability and enhanced performance. Version 4.5 now lets you start a Dimdim "room" and send anyone the room's URL, after which users on the other end can see what you see as you go to various web addresses, view data and videos, and share online data. This is another good move that differentiates Dimdim from a very crowded field of conferencing applications.

Dimdim has been quick to add features not found in many popular, free online meeting applications. For example, you can have up to 20 people in a free Dimdim meeting, but only 10 in most other applications, such as the free version of Yugma. Dimdim also allows you to record online meetings without the fees that most of the freeware applications charge. It should be noted that the new Pro version 4.5 of Dimdim does cost $99 per year for some extra features, but you get the co-browsing features in the Free version as well.

A lot of the utility of the SynchroLive features in Dimdim will depend on performance, especially if meeting participants are going to share videos and the like. From the announcement of the new version: "For example, a meeting host can view a YouTube video and every attendee will immediately see this video play in their browser. Simultaneously attendees can chat, talk, and see the presenter live using just their browser."

That's where I could see some latency issues pop up, but the company claims that performance is excellent. WebEx, which is widely used for online meetings and for sharing things like video content, has conquered a lot of performance issues by building out its own network of servers nationwide. That's hard to compete with, but Dimdim is focused on high-performance competition, as seen in their "WebEx is Dead" screenshot below.

Dimdim has also released "Liberty," which is the newest open source community edition of its application, under a GPL3 license. And, in a move that I think is shrewd, the company is pursuing integration with other open source applications, including:

• Zimbra: Dimdim now offers a free zimlet for Zimbra's open source email system;
• Moodle: Dimdim is integrated with version 1.9 of Moodle's Course Management System;
• SugarCRM: Dimdim is integrated with the leading open source customer relationship management system;
• Claroline: Dimdim is embedded within with the collaborative learning environment.

This type of integration makes sense for Dimdim. Moodle, for example has hundreds of thousands of dedicated users of its open source e-learning software. Online conferencing is an ideal adjunct to such applications, and these types of mashups of multiple open source applications can help people avoid substantial costs for proprietary equivalents. 

• Dimdim

by Kevin Micalizzi on Dec. 03, 2008

Sam, thanks for the post. We've very excited about our SynchroLive platform. Co-browsing is a new feature that leverages the new platform to keep attendee browsing in sync.

This co-browsing or sharing of web content is part of Dimdim Free. You don't need to purchase a Pro account to take advantage of it.

Thanks!

-k

Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager

Dimdim Web Conferencing / www.dimdim.com

e: kevin@dimdim.com / twitter: @meetdimdim

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by Sam Dean on Dec. 03, 2008

Hi Kevin, I updated the story to reflect the Free version's ability to do co-browsing.

Thanks

Sam

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by anoFEnymous on Dec. 05, 2008

there are more nice solutions out there. Take spreed.com - it has screen-sharing possibilities, remote-control and also released co-browsing quiet a long time ago - and it's all available in the free version as well. I like it pretty much for its easy-to-use user interface fit - and my participants like it that for, too...

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by Anil Madugula on Dec. 15, 2008

I have tried spreed.com. its very bad. They are giving free for only 3 participants. There are no extra features compared to dimdim

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by William James on Dec. 17, 2008

I would try a web conferencing service called YUGMA. I really think it is the way to go if you are looking for a more affordable way to host meetings online. Using just the free version of Yugma one can share their desktop with attendees and these attendees will be able to view the entire browser so no problems with not being able to view the entire page. One will also be able to use the built-in instant messanger feature and the FREE teleconferencing service. The paid accounts are very reasonably priced and can be changed from month to month (very flexible) and offer many more interactive applications such as: share mouse and keyboard, change presenters, whiteboard, sharefiles, recording...etc. The website is http://www.yugma.com and it is extremely quick and painless to download. Seriously, during this hard economic time I think it's truly the way to go!

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by Abhijit on Apr. 04, 2009

I tested Dimdim pro version. I like the simplicity of the tool and the performance. Only two things bother be with Dimdim

1. The latency is pretty noticeable and may limit your experience of a real time interactive session.

2. To upload a presentation takes a lot of time.

I am sure if Dimdim can fix the latency problem we can use it for more satisfying interactive web session.

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by skip on Oct. 02, 2009

I have a customer that would like to upload classroom sessions stored on a hard drive

as avi files to sessions on Dimdim. Is this possible? Even a paid version would be greatly desired if this is possible.

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