Free Web Conferencing: 'Join.me' for Instant Screen-Sharing
Web conferencing tools are a dime a dozen, but many of them make attendees jump through hoops in order to participate: register for the service, download and install software, and so on. Hassle city!
Join.me offers fast, hassle-free Web conferencing. As the host, all you do is click Share, then download and run a small client program. (It's available for Windows and Mac, but there's nothing to install.) That program generates a code and URL you can copy to your clipboard or send via e-mail.
All the attendees have to do is click that link (or paste that code at the join.me site), and presto: they see what you see.
A little five-button control bar appears at the top of the screen. The phone button produces a number everyone can dial for free conference calling! There's also a chat button, a "pause" control for the host (that temporarily disables screen sharing), an attendees list, and a share-control option (which enables one or more attendees to control your screen instead of just viewing it).
In my quick tests, I found that screen refreshes were a bit slow on the attendee side (and by "slow" I mean they took 2-3 seconds), but that's my only complaint with this otherwise stellar service. Join.me is perfect for those times when you want fast, easy, hassle-free Web conferencing -- and don't want to pay a penny for it.
By the way, Join.me comes from the fine folks at LogMeIn. It's currently in beta, and I don't for sure that it'll remain free after it's final -- but I'm guessing it will.
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