Okay Geek Farm
iMeet is Skype meetings without the suck (and too much Flash)
Brandon Davenport
This is the scenario for lots of people (including the folks at Okay Geek) — You shoot out an email to every staff member you can think of with the subject “Meeting in 1 hour!!!” (exclamation marks are crucial). You then sit and wait for everyone to show up on Skype (which takes a good hour and a half), and this is where the real pain in the ass starts.
Not too long after you finally start the meeting, things start going pear-shaped. Skype gives you that “low quality connection” warning and then that one guy on his iPhone via 3G drops out. You try to get him back on, but while you attempt to save the meeting, the entire operation hits the fan. Skype craps out, and you have to re-assemble the group call — of course, you do that after Skype asks you to “rate” your call quality. This is how most Skype meetings go, but iMeet is something new that could make it a whole lot easier.
Short overview of iMeet
When it comes to great meetings, it’s not cheap. iMeet has probably the best system to host (and join) meetings with no software, special requirements or technological know-how — but it costs a very pretty $69. With everything you get it seems really worth it, and it is — if you have the spare cash lying around. If you’re on a tiny budget like us, there’s no room for stuff like this.
What you get with iMeet
- Free for everyone (guests) in the meeting
- You can call in via landline or mobile
- Themes for the meeting room
- Neat social integration
- Bio’s, Avatars and local weather
- Video and audio
- Indication to who is talking
- Detailed info on people in the meeting
- Super easy to invite people
- Nothing to download for guests
Something we really like is the fact that iMeet has all of the features we usually use in Skype, and since it’s in browser theres no app that’s running in the background. The entire service is pretty stright forward, and my mom could probably set it up no problem.
What sucks about iMeet?
This is more Flash than any human should have to handle — iMeet rely’s so much on Flash that they practically use it for everything. Hell, even the little buttons on their homepage are Flash, when they could easily be HTML, CSS3 and a few images. iMeet seems to be all hot for Flash, and that sucks pretty damn hard.
iMeet could easily change 95% of their service to plain HTML, but Flash is easier, so it must be the best right? Well, after seeing my Macbook Pro’s CPU temperature sky-rocket to 75+ degrees celcius I had to end the meeting with fear for my testicles. The fact that iMeet rely’s 100% on Flash makes it less than responsive, even when using a Core i5 Macbook Pro with 4GB of RAM and the dedicated graphics going full blast.
The Verdict
iMeet is leaps and bounds ahead of any meeting software out there — it’s in-browser goodness, wrapped in a beautiful interface with an enviornment that makes it feel personal. The addition of social networking makes the experience super transparent, and everyone in the meeting will be pals after a few minutes. The sign up process is pretty smooth, and setup took about 7 minutes.
If you’re looking for awesome meeting software, you have $69/month to blow, and you don’t mind a truck-load of Flash, try out iMeet. They have a 30 day trial (we are testing it out) and signing up isn’t that hard. They also have an amazing commercial you should check out…
