Updated July 9, 2014 So Google really has dropped the Vidyo plugin for Hangouts as it switches over to its VP8 video codec. It’s still not on WebRTC, although it’s surely getting there. On dev versions of Chrome, Google Hangouts is now plugin-less. In my article on VSee vs. Google+ Hangouts, I…
by NW Indiana artist Steve Johnson With Nefsis (now OmniJoin) being acquired by Japan-based Brother Industries, I thought it was a good time to revisit Nefsis and see how its video conferencing product has matured since I first tried it in graduate school. Early this week, we got a group…
maternity ward at Albert Schweitzer In a previous blog post, Penny talked about the unique opportunity we had to travel to Gabon to deploy VSee telemedicine for the The Albert Schweitzer Hospital (HAS). The hospital was the first one to be established in Gabon nearly 100 years ago and continues…
Are VSee and ooVoo really that different? After all we both claim to have HD video conference, ongoing collaboration, free video calls, and no need for fancy equipment. While I can’t tell you if VSee is the ooVoo alternative for your needs, I will point out some issues with video quality,…
Several people have commented on the speculative nature of my earlier article on the TokBox acquisition being a semi-fire sale. I want to give our readers a more thorough explanation for my statements. When a company is acquired for more than $20-30M, typically the price is leaked, since the acquiring…
Last week, a struggling TokBox announced its acquisition by Telefónica Digital for an undisclosed amount. This is a pretty sad news for TokBox and its investors. They raised a lot of money, and given this is a semi-fire sale, its investors lost money. Also, its people, who have worked long…
The newly launched Zoom Video Communications hit the waves last Tuesday and received a rave review from WSJ’s Walt Mossberg. In his AllThingsD review of Zoom, Mossberg was wowed by Zoom’s “free, high-definition, group video calls for up to 15 people simultaneously,” its ability to work over “wired and WiFi Internet connections, or…
Airtime was launched on Tuesday by the founders of Napster – Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning. This Chatroulette-inspired random video chat service seems to have piqued the curiosity of even Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg. The event was filled with celebrities, but with so much fanfare, 2 years of work, and…
photo credit: bitjungle Blue Jeans Network is a hot video conferencing startup that has been gaining a lot of attention even since before the public release of its product earlier this year. They raised $23M from a set of A-list investors with its cloud-based solution that aims to bridge any…
Convenience The beauty of Flash for video conferencing is that it’s nearly ubiquitous. Unless you happen to be working on student computer in a public school, Flash is probably already installed and running like a deer on your computer. In fact, if you can watch videos on YouTube, Reuters.com, or…
One of the highlights of life at VSee is the annual wakeboarding trip at Don Pedro Lake, which was just this past weekend. We rent a houseboat and pack as many people into it as is advisable and then set off with a whoop and a holler. This year we…
Summary: Mirror neurons may be the key to explaining why it’s so important to see people for social interactions. With the remote work revolution seriously getting underway, a recent article from Knowledge @ Wharton Today reminds us that remote workers may be losing more knowledge than we know from the…
In a study of virtual teams, Stanford management science professor Pamela Hinds found that 6 months after virtual team members participated in an intense week-long team building retreat there was zero correlation to their ability to work together. Hinds believes that in order to increase a group’s relational coordination or ability to…
The Harvard Business Review (HBR) recently had an article by Professors Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi titled “Effective Managers Say the Same Thing Twice (Or More).” We put this principle into action all the time in our personal lives, like repeatedly telling your child to look both ways before crossing…
It’s no big secret that virtual teams need to meet face-to-face. As mentioned in an earlier post, a study completed by Dubé and Robey found that the most prevalent contradiction or tension in virtual teams is the necessity for face-to-face presence. There’s something important about corporeality that allows us to…
If we’re talking purely about their goals and functions…nothing, really. Like all other teams they are formed to solve a problem, do a project, perform a service, or come up with some answers. What makes them so special is that they are able to pool together talent and expertise from…
