GNI | GNU ( and other good things )

August 25, 2009 by alexanderhayes · 1 Comment

[ image : GNI ]

Shortly I’ll be departing for Dunedin via Auckland to the upcoming GNI Symposium , co-presenting with John Eyles who has graciously offered to host me on Waiheke Island for a few days also

Here’s some blurb about what we are up to and how it all fits into the bigger EDUPOV picture:

Presentation Description: Technology Enhanced Collaboration.

An interactive view of emerging point of view technologies (POV) and their intersection with communication, art and science. This presentation posits future directions for where POV can augment technology enhanced collaboration at the intersection of education and entertainment. Alex will utilize wearable point-of-view technologies to engage both physical and the virtual GNI audiences including live-to-field streaming of education oriented training and assessment underway in rural and remote locations of Australia. John will look at issues around connectivity, engagement and mobility for achieving great communication across contexts, and will invite participants from around the world to collaborate.

Alexander Hayes - Operations Manager at EDUPOV – http://www.edupov.com

John Eyles - Research and Venturing at Telecom New Zealand – http://www.johneyles.tel

Keywords: POV, mobility, mobile devices, bridging between the real and virtual, global, Voip, APIs, cloud computing, self serve-mash ups, dashboards and the power of networks, the social operating system.

You’ll notice from the description of the session that we have set a high benchmark for ourselves in ensuring things connect and operate from the Adelaid server end of things and that our suppliers get our gear to us ASAP so I can hop onto the plane with it

I can see some great connections coming from this trip. the greatest challenge will be ensuring I get to connecting flights !

Filed under Cloud Computing, Community, Conferences, Promotion, Research · Tagged with APIs, bridges, Cloud Computing, global, mashups, mobile devices, mobility, networks, pov, real, self serve-mash ups, socialoperating, virtual, Voip

DimDim : Funny Name Great Platform

July 15, 2009 by alexanderhayes · 3 Comments

After weeks of trialling Webex, Adobe Connect, Elluminate, Yuuguu, Wimba, Skype screen casting / sharing and a plethora of other “free” web conferencing tools to use with our clients we have finally settled on DimDim Pro …..

We value the :

ease of setting up accounts for users
the simplicity of the interface for users
the extensibility of the interface to customize it for our clients view
the dashboard for setting up meetings
the brilliant floating video broadcaster
the simplicity of the whiteboard
the relatively lightweight ratio of wait-time to access the rooms
the builds that improve the product
the direct feedback from contact with the developers
the lack of “hands-up” control based moderator driven hosting of meetings
the overall yearly cost to the business

We would like to see the following developments occur for DimDim to be of even more value for us including;

removal of comparison charts from the main DimDim website …..they detract from an otherwise nicely thought out product ( suggestion only )
integrated screen share that dosent require an .exe install
a less cluttered dashboard upon login
an embedded login feature for Pro users that they can embed in their own site
ability to reduce video windows and retract them to the room sidebar
the ability to customize invitation meetings to read as from the room owner
ability to output the recording in multiple video formats

So…….time will tell and if it proves to be a stable platform for our business use then we will consider making application to become a partner.

Runner up was Webex……Wimba might have been an option if we’d needed vestibules and had 500 concurrent users or perhaps there is other reasons for why it competes with DimDim.

Time will tell and we are looking forward to the conversation.

Filed under Research, Web Conferences · Tagged with adobeconnect, dimdim, webconferencing, webex