We’ve been wanting to offer regularly scheduled webcast tours (or is it a webinar??) of our products for a while now, but we’ve been unable to find the right piece of software on the Mac to get it done.
Here’s what we want: We want to be able to share our screen and our voice and allow up to 100 (?) people at a time to follow along in their web browsers. People who wanted to participate would go to a URL to watch the presentation. Voice could be handled via the net or via a coordinated conference call.
At the end we could do a Q&A session. We’d need some way to moderate the questions so everyone doesn’t jump in at once. We could ultimately just take questions via text/email and then pick a few to answer.
We’re aware of services like GoToMeeting, but you can’t initiate the webcast from a Mac. You can watch along on a Mac, but you can’t seem to broadcast from a Mac. Adobe Captivate looks interesting too, but you can only have a max of 5 people on the webcast.
Anyone have any ideas? Anything I’m overlooking? Thanks for your help.
Kevin Haggerty
on 21 Jul 08Please Please Please don’t call it a “webinar”. No help on your question though. Scratch that, don’t think of sharing your screen – think of sharing your web view through whatever product you’re demoing. Have everyone log into a product page, and have some javascript that mirrors your page actions to everyone else… As you mention, voice over a conference call, and visuals are the REAL PAGE, not encoded video of the real page…
Matt
on 21 Jul 08Does webex let you originate on a Mac?
Douglas Neiner
on 21 Jul 08I just hosted an Online Meeting from GoToMeeting that I launched from my Mac. It worked great, and was much more reliable than Acrobat Connect. I think their Mac support is newer, but I would highly recommend them as a service. They offer a free trial, so check it out.
JF
on 21 Jul 08Douglas: Oh, maybe they did add Mac support. I’ll check it out again. I remember looking at it recently and they said while you can follow a meeting on the Mac you can’t launch a meeting from the Mac.
Ric
on 21 Jul 08What about Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro? I’ve used the non-’pro’ version of that in the past with some success.
Appwerks
on 21 Jul 08Hi Jason,
Take a look at Vara Software’s Wirescast. It works natively on Mac and provides for some rather sophisticated production arrangements if need arises.
I have done a number of the presentations for internal use by several of my clients and it has worked great.
The new version comes with built in streaming server that can handle a decent though limited audience and can easily hook into a dedicated QT Streaming Server for larger audiences.
From the cost standpoint, it is an affordable solution for anything other than casual/occasional use. Adding HD option/upgrade is well worth it especially if you have an HD camcorder and plan to use the presentations in the future as well.
Hope this helps.
Jesse Wolgamott
on 21 Jul 08We use a service called Yugma that lets you run from a Mac… It’ll even let you use Skype or Google talk instead of traditional phone systems.
We started as a 1 user trial and now everyone uses it daily.
Appwerks
on 21 Jul 08Sorry for misspelling of the product name – it’s Wirecast. Also, I appear to have forgotten to close the a tag.
The links should be Maccius.
leethal
on 21 Jul 08Screenshots with command + shift + 3, and a background process that feeds images to a website using AJAX, Cloud Computing, Flex and Load Balancers to auto-refresh the tagged images Client Side.
Graeme Shaw
on 21 Jul 08Wimba Classroom would do the job for you I think. Not sure whether the pricing would suit you or not.
Charles
on 21 Jul 08You mean the Mac can’t do everything a PC can?
Jamie
on 21 Jul 08Jason, We’ve used WebEx and Adobe Acrobat Connect in the past. They both work pretty well. We have also used them in conjunction with a telephone conference call just to make asking questions easier. However, they both have “chat rooms” to moderate the conversation. Hope that helps!
Jonathan Weber
on 21 Jul 08Yes, GoToMeeting did just recently add full Mac support, although it’s not at all clear from their website. Maybe it was because I already had an account and downloaded the PC software. But once I did manage to actually find the Mac GoToMeeting software, it worked like a charm. I’m the only Mac user at my company (so far) and I’d been using the PC version on VMware Fusion previously. Now it’s much more convenient.
Paul Greatbatch
on 21 Jul 08Since you’re talking about “webcast tours”, is it necessary that it be interactive? To me, a tour would be a standalone instructional video or series of videos. You could even set up a subscription series in iTunes like Apple and several other companies do.
That way you could limit the numbers for the truly necessary interactive presentations (sales, marketing, training, etc.) that might require more intensive feedback.
Peter Urban
on 21 Jul 08I’ve used WebEx to broadcast from a mac recently and it worked well. I haven;t tried it with 100 viewers but I expect it to work the same. It has all the moderation tools you’re asking for and I’ve seen webcasts with well over 100 users.
Brian Puccio
on 21 Jul 08VNC and let people connect with their own VNC client (if they are savvy enough) or opt for a web-based VNC viewer. All of this would cost you nothing. (And it works, the Drupal folks use it a lot for their real-time screencasts.)
Melvin Ram
on 21 Jul 08People are up way too early today. It’s only 8:15am and already so many comments!!
Anyway, Adobe Connect works on Mac since it works using Flash.
Russ Thornton
on 21 Jul 08Check out www.yugma.com—I think it might fit the bill for what you need
Keith
on 21 Jul 08Webex.
Kyle LeNeau
on 21 Jul 08Hi Jason,
I have a friend at work who hosts a TV show from his home using camtwist studio for the mac, and uStream TV. Ustream Tv has an interactive forum for people to watch you and chat back later. Camtwist would allow you to capture your audio (from a source) and/or video (from a source) and mix it using the studio. You can also mix in a video source of a computer desktop. The best thing is you can do it live, not have to pre-record. If you don’t believe me then check out this post by my friend Benjamin Higginbotham and also his show Spacevidcast.com. This is going to give you the most flexibility and power. Keep in touch if you decide to go this route. I’ve used it before on my mac, and have learned the basics.
Tony Stubblebine
on 21 Jul 08The folks at Hacker News turned me on to glance.net. It’s dead simple, originates from a Mac, plays in your browser if you have Java, doesn’t require user accounts (just a passcode) for people watching, and claims to support 100 people. I pair it up with a conference call line all the time. I’m not sure how well it supports 100 people, but if it does it’s a light weight solution that you and your viewers would be pretty happy with.
Derek Gavey
on 21 Jul 08I think your best chance would be with dimdim.com. It’s an open source or hosted webcasting / web meeting software. No Plugin required to view, and it says a Mac/Linux version coming soon. I bet you guys could get in on a beta for it.
Stephen
on 21 Jul 08Webex definitely works for this. I use it all the time.
Derek Gavey
on 21 Jul 08Oops messed up the link…
it’s dimdim.com
ep
on 21 Jul 08Leo Laporte broadcasts video and his screens through Stickam on his Twitlive.tv. There has been shows where thousands were watching without a single glitch. I find it pretty neat and a real no-brainer for the viewer. The Stickam chatroom is quite ugly but I guess that you could show only the video and maybe use Campfire for the interaction.
If you added video wouldn’t it be a far better experience than just watching your cursor on a screen? Have a look at Leo’s MacBreak weekly live. It’s somewhere between watching television, listening to a podcast and having drinks at a friend’s!
Colin
on 21 Jul 08We went through this too, and ended up using Gatherplace (www.gatherplace.net). It has worked well, and is much easier on the wallet than Webex, GoToMeeting, et al.
E
on 21 Jul 08Basically you want a campfire with video? ;)
Brad Garland
on 21 Jul 08We use Adobe Connect Pro on the per user/per min cost. If you’re running that many people though it would be better to go with a monthly service fee. I’ve tried just about every flavor that’s out and still haven’t found something I’m thrilled with yet.
Thanks for just asking the question and please let us know what you ended up trying and using.
Matt Radel
on 21 Jul 08Acrobat Connect (though they might be rebranding it as Brio) is a really good option. It has an integrated chat for questions and you can also record the webcast to post as a video on your site at a later date.
One note of caution – I think there’s an option you have to turn off t keep users from messing with the panels in the interface during the presentation – I’ve been involved in webcasts where panels are popping up an moving around because the option wasn’t turned off.
Best of luck! I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing this stuff. :)
Colin Scroggins
on 21 Jul 08I second the suggestion of Adobe Connect. I have used it successfully for all platforms that support Flash Player.
As an aside, I have noticed weirdness in all screencasting apps when screencasting a 14:9 display to clients with a 4:3 display, so you might want to consider that. The reverse, does not seem to be an issue.
gary
on 21 Jul 08Take a look at Avacaster…
http://www.avacast.com/
Justin
on 21 Jul 08I know that peepcode has a screencast about screencasting on a mac (how meta!). I’ve not viewed it myself, but have enjoyed some of the other screencasts that they provide.
Peepcode: Mac Screencasting
Anonymous Coward
on 21 Jul 08It looks like Adobe Connect Pro is only good for 5 users at a time though, no?
Marcos Kuhns
on 21 Jul 08I don’t think their current price plans support the number of people you want, but I found Vyew to have a great selection of tools. Plus, it’s completely web-based and works on Macs (& Linux & PCs).
Aaron Alexander
on 21 Jul 08Our organization uses Elluminate (http://www.elluminate.com/) to host peer-reviews for research proposals. Chat, screen/application sharing, voice, and a whiteboard—all running on Java, so it’s a simple cross-platform solution.
Marshall Huwe
on 21 Jul 08We have tried several and so far the best we have found is Glance. (www.glance.net). Nothing to download for the participants and they have a Mac client for the presenter.
Good luck – MH
Erik Bartz
on 21 Jul 08Dimdim.com – its great for webinars and screensharing on the Mac is currently in beta. Can’t beat the price.
Brian M
on 21 Jul 08iLinc has worked really well for us using both Macs and PCs.
Good luck.
Chas
on 21 Jul 08I just used iLinc from my Mac for a conference last weekend. Client was free, in Java, and let me share my desktop and included, chat, etc.
Glenn Batuyong
on 21 Jul 08You may try the new (beta) Flowgram which allows for platform-agnostic webcasts without any extra plugins. It allows the presenter to annotate while browsing the web, without the need for slide creation. If live presentation is the key, I would go with Ustream or Blog.tv since you can host a Q&A session. It would be nice if either of these integrated with iChat AV’s abilities to show multimedia.
JF
on 21 Jul 08Thanks for everyone’s suggestions so far.
Wow, been trying out some of the recommendations above and I can’t believe how bad most of them are. Complex, strange, confusing, not working, unpredictable, etc.
Adobe Connect Pro definitely looks like the best, but once you get past 10 participants the price skyrockets since you have to pay per minute per user. A 60 minute webcast with just 50 people is $1000.
If anyone from Adobe is reading this I’d love to talk. Shoot me an email. jason at our company name dot com. Thanks!
Matthew Scott
on 21 Jul 08I am a Mac user and have been using Webex to deliver e-learning and web conferences with great success. As part of my service, Webex even branded my Webex link that people are sent to with my logo, etc.
As you have noted earlier, the hitch is the price to deliver to over 100 people can really get expensive.
I can vouch for the great service and delivery of Webex, but if Go To Meeting can enable Mac users to host for over a $100 people for under a $100 dollars-I am switching!
JF
on 21 Jul 08Matthew, it looks like WebEx is $0.33/user/minute which is about the same price as Adobe Connect. A 60 minute webcast with just 50 people hits $1000.
Matthew Scott
on 21 Jul 08Jason, I just checked with Go To Webinar and confirmed they offer hosting service for Mac for around $100 dollars.
I never use the Webex audio services because of the expense. I have used a free 250 person bridge line from Basement Ventures, thebasementventures.com. It works great and provides you with a audio recording.
As a backup, I also record using audio acrobat.
BillP
on 21 Jul 08Just thinking 80/20 here…
In an simplistic way, can google docs be used to accomplish some of this functionality? I know it lets you share presentation docs and have multiple collaborators. I also know it’s free.
Does it do audio? Not sure. But if you could jury-rig audio for a small cost (even externally) it could save a LOT of $. Especially for a small, cost-constrained company.
Does this sound feasible?
Josh N.
on 21 Jul 08It sounds like 37signals needs to develop a new product! ;-)
Ian L.
on 21 Jul 08If you could figure out the video portion somehow TalkShoe might work for the audio side.
Martin Edic
on 21 Jul 08We had problems with webex for mac users on the receiving end. GoToMeeting works for participants but I can’t find the Mac client for presenters…they say they have one. Guess I’ll go back and look again.
Matthew Zito
on 21 Jul 08We use WebEx for this – they do a very good job, and the mac client works fine for desktop sharing, presentations, etc. You can also do embedded recording, including teleconference recording, and then share the URL with people later, and just click to launch the meeting. Very slick.
Matthew Zito
on 21 Jul 08Whoops – I missed the comment above – if you call WebEx and negotiate a rate, it gets dramatically cheaper than the generic support they offer. If you know you’re going to be doing a couple of these, you can structure a package deal. Which, again, is what we do.
Rachel
on 21 Jul 08I have used gatherplace.net in the past and it works great. Simple and to the point. Works well on my mac.
Carlos Eduardo
on 21 Jul 08Hi, we have a Brazilian tool, which allows capture screen make the mac and live online training. This tool is made in Flex + Ruby on Rails and flash media server. Visit http://www.treinatom.com.br
Treina TOM is a robust and interactive web communication tool that empowers users to deliver rich media trainings, presentations, or events in real time and on demand. With Treina TOM you can schedule and hold a global virtual meeting with dozens, even hundreds of people in a fraction of the time and cost it would take to meet face-to-face.
Benjamin Carlson
on 21 Jul 08I see it mentioned above, but dimdim works good for us on Linux… only negative is you can’t share your desktop (yet) on Linux or Mac, but the presentations are fine as is audio.
-Ben
Owen van Dijk
on 21 Jul 08Hey Jason,
Forwarded your blog to some Adobe guys, they’ll probably get in touch soon :)
Robert Castelo
on 21 Jul 08http://www.brighttalk.com is the best I’ve seen, highly scalable and being able to use a phone to provide the voice for your presentation makes it a lot more reliable.
Steve Chazin
on 21 Jul 08Screencasting for Mac is coming in less than 10 days on Dimdim. I promise you will LOVE it!
Diego
on 22 Jul 08I use Webex and it works. I had the same problem with GotoMeeting, but webex is the best and works great.
Seth
on 22 Jul 08If it’s a private invite, you can use a closed platform like Passenger. Check it out at www.thinkpassenger.com
Troy Stein
on 22 Jul 08FWIW: I’ve done a lot of talking at people online. I have learned there are better ways of communicating and spending money.
I recommend pre-recording your walkthrough. Let people watch it whenever they want… and skip the stuff that we as presenters think is always sooo important.
Then, I’m fairly certain you could find a means of bringing people together for an online discussion. Phone conferencing systems are a dime a dozen, if you feel a need to add this option.
We found that for every one person who’d watch something live, we’d get 30 people to watch the archived video of it.
Dennis
on 22 Jul 08We have a few products with can take 100+ connections. Need all users in one (1) room, use our Video Presentation – www.gizmovideostudio.com
Works with PC and Mac and access from one (1) URL (you get your own URL) The system works via Flash Plugin, so no need to install any software, just attach a Webcam for Video and Audio.
Login as Guest Login to test.
The account is based on the amount of total bandwidth transfer per month . It is NOT based on how many people are connected at any given time. Powered by GizmoVideo.com Flash Media Interactive Server 3 Hosting.
Ray Irving
on 22 Jul 08DimDim is the best from the ones we have used to deliver online lectures / presentations.
(A friendly and extremely helpful support team if you need them as well).
£250 for 100 user ‘room’ 24/7/365.
Recording will be built into the next version which will be released soon.
DHS
on 22 Jul 08How about blogTV?
Todd Lane
on 22 Jul 08Try Vyew (www.vyew.com). It can handle up to 100 webcast participants and there is no software to install for anyone including the moderator and it works on Mac, PC and Linux. We currently have simplex VoIP so that one person speaks at a time and participants can click on a “Raise Hand” button if they want to speak. Some participants will see advertising but you can purchase additional ad-free participants. The default limit is 45 participants for the professional service but we can increase the limit to 100.
Rob Kingyens
on 23 Jul 08GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar came out with their latest release about 3-4 weeks ago that allows Mac users to host and participate in web meetings, as well as VoIP and Dial-in support included.
Several of our Mac users have been using it now for a few weeks in beta for web meetings and webinars and have been very happy with it. It also supports up to 1500 attendees. All at a flat rate of ~$100/mth for unlimited meetings.
The only downside we have found thus far is that you can only record sessions on a PC client for future playback, but we have been able to get it to work using VMWare Fusion.
We also use Adobe Connect Pro 7 for virtual training, which has some unique features such as break-out rooms, quizzes, etc.
Unless you really need the features of Adobe Connect Pro, you really can’t beat the price and reliability of GoTo as a commercial option. We have conducted several Webinars with over 100 attendees with no issues to-date.
Bijou
on 23 Jul 08I think you guys could check out DimDim . It seems to be one cool webapp. Fits the requirement you just made.
Another webapp that does sound fine is Yugma
Dave
on 23 Jul 08We have used Webex for large-scale webinars with some success, but yes, it’s expensive.
The people at ReadyTalk have been really nice to work with, and they’ve cut us some nice deals.
Here are some key considerations: 1) The usability on most of these services range from decent to poor. The mainstream services are serviceable, but if you want to do anything more than the basics, it starts getting complicated and glitchy pretty quickly; things don’t work as smoothly/easily as you would expect. 2) Not all services auto-scale the presenter’s screen. In other words, if you’re screen resolution is set greater than 1024×768 or not 4:3, you’re audience will end up having to scroll in both directions to see what you are sharing. This is a smaller detail, but one that I’ve found to be a major convenience issue (one less thing to worry about on your pre-flight checklist). 3) I dislike anything that requires attendees to download and install software first. Webex has this issue, but it usually isn’t too bad in practice because so many people have already handled this for prior Webex events. ReadyTalk avoids this except that it requires a certain version of Java. This may not be as big an issue for your intended audience, but I’ve had this derail the experience quickly in some cases where users spent several minutes downloading and installing or even cases where people just couldn’t participate because they didn’t have privileges to do the install/update. 4) What is the purpose of the session and what value do you want to create for yourself and your audience? If you can accomplish this by posting a video + discussion board + follow-up (or some other, self-serve mechanisms), it will be cheaper, easier, and more flexible for you and your intended audience.
After having done some webinars, I question the tradeoffs vs. incremental value they create.
Chris
on 23 Jul 08Plus 3 for Glance (www.glance.net). I don’t believe there is a scaling charge – so one person or 100 you’re good to go. It’s a great product – they’ve really embraced the keep things simple mantra. I’ve always thought they would be a great advertiser for The Deck.
Karim
on 24 Jul 08Jason, please post a follow-up once you’ve found the best solution.
This discussion is closed.