DimDim is a web conferencing tool. Its capabilities and pricing scheme are appealing, having the ability to present to up to 20 people, record, not require software installation, etc. The paid version (Pro) is still very affordable and improves performance and security.
I gave DimDim a test run and found that in practice, it would not be very useful to my team, in its current form. Web conferencing should involve the seamless integration of following:
- sharing presenter’s desktop,
- sharing audio and video playing on presenter’s desktop
- sharing microphone of all attendants (so everyone can be heard)
- ability to switch presenters
- easy to setup so no firewall config, apps to download etc
- ability to give control of desktop to any attendant to move mouse and/or keyboard
- recording of all meeting activity of whole meeting at full resolution, regardless of change of presenters
- encryption of all communications
- good performance so that lag/latency minimal
I would NOT expect a free application to do #8 and 9, and perhaps not the “full resolution” aspect of #7. But DimDim, while it does #1 to #5 quite well, doesn’t seem to support #6 or #7 in any useful way in any of its versions. That could possibly be fine for the free version, but not for the Pro version. None of the DimDim versions appear to support #6, and for #7, recording is at a low resolution, only shows screen (chat is separate), and only for one presenter; so if presenter changes during meeting, the recording must be stopped, started on another machine and… it can’t be started again on the first presenter’s machine because only one recording is allowed! It was also impossible to scroll the playback to a couple minutes from the end of the meeting but this might have been performance related (I was using free account) so I’ll ignore that problem.
For DimDim to be used as a web conferencing tool, rather than just a presentation tool, the recording should show whose desktop is being displayed, the list of attendees at all times, and the chat window being updated as the meeting takes place, and all audio spoken should be heard. Those, rather than corporate branding and other fluff, should be the focus of future development.
DimDim looks good, but I look forward to seeing if new versions will support the above before I can make real use of it. I would be willing to spend a couple $100 a year for that tool if it had those features because the rest seems to be well thought out.
July 3, 2009 at 7:42 am
Oliver-
Thanks for your feedback. At this time we do not offer remote control (#6) capabilities, but the team is working on it. I’ll share your feedback about recording multiple presenters, high quality recording, and what you would like to see recorded with the product management team.
Thanks!
-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing
e: kevin@dimdim.com
twitter: @dimdim
facebook: dimdim.com/facebook
Experience the Dimdim Live Webinar! Register at:
http://www.dimdim.com/aboutus/events.html
July 11, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I just gave this app a try, and think I will have to stick with GTM for now. I don’t want the emails that go out coming from DimDim. I want them to have my email address as the From, and my message for the contents looking just like a regular email. I also noticed that when I added the meeting to my Outlook calendar, hardly any of the contents of the email about the meeting (that had come from DimDim) were actually included in the calendar item. So if the meeting reminder popped up a week later for a meeting, the person would have to hunt through their inbox to find the actual email invite to click the “Join Meeting” button therein!
After I started the meeting as the presenter the invitees did receive emails that the meeting had started, and these included the Join Meeting info, but 1) that should happen at the scheduled time, even if I start the meeting a minute or too late myself, or else people who do find the original invite before they get this reminder will get a message saying the meeting room doesn’t exist. 2) Most people’s email software only checks for messages every 10 minutes or so. If you have to rely on this for people to find the Join Meeting link (which isn’t showing in their calendar reminder) everyone will be straggling in over the first 15 minutes or so.
I also hate that the ending of the recording includes your clicking the dialog that pops up confirming you do want to end the recording (tacky), and that the link to the recording on DimDim’s site loops endlessly. Again, not quite polished an professional. The default should be to play once and the viewer should have to click something to reply, as is the case with most video playback services out there.
The quality of the image of my screen display was also so low no one would be able to read the words. All in all, great idea, but can’t be used for anything where professional image is at stake.
July 11, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Thanks for your comments.
BTW what is GTM?
July 12, 2009 at 5:25 am
Thanks for the feedback, we are always working to improve our service. I have already put enhancement requests in to change the way notifications work when you start the meeting. On the recordings, We ask the meeting host to confirm that they want to save the because some people may choose to overwrite the original recording and record again. I’ll ask the team to look at other ways this could be addressed.
Our screen sharing shows your attendees your desktop. Attendees can click the full screen button to make the experience more like it would be if they were just looking over your shoulder at your monitor. I know some presenters lower their own desktop resolution before sharing their screen to ensure that attendees with lower resolutions are able to see everything more easily. Let me know what your expectation is for how things should appear for attendees. I’d like to share your feedback with the product management team.
Thanks.
-k
Kevin Micalizzi, Community Manager
Dimdim Web Conferencing
e: kevin@dimdim.com
twitter: @dimdim
facebook: dimdim.com/facebook
Experience the Dimdim Live Webinar! Register at:
http://www.dimdim.com/aboutus/events.html