Vyew – FREE Anytime Collaboration and Live Conferencing – on the Mac

Tags: Jay Cross, Mark Cuban, Mac, MacBook Pro, MBP, Apple, Vyew, Web Conferencing, E-Meetings, Virtual Conferences, Virtual Meetings, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Lenovo, Lenovo 3000, Windows, Productivity Tools, Knowledge Tools, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Social Computing, Knowledge Tools, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Management

As I continue to read how some of the folks out there on the blogosphere start making their transition successfully from their Windows to a Mac based machine, I continue to enjoy the experience myself very much so with my  own MacBook Pro. So much so that over the last few days I have been consolidating all of the different work-related tools that I use on a regular basis and I am in the process of creating another blog post where I am detailing what those different tools are. However, today I just wanted to mention briefly one of those tools that will become essential to my on the Mac from here onwards.

It is actually a Web 2.0 offering that I have been using already in the past, although perhaps not as heavily as you would have expected. But now that I am on the Mac I can see how I will get busier and busier with it from here onwards. If you have been off my ITtoolbox blog you actually know about it already, but just in case here you have a couple of weblog posts that detail some more the initial experiences I have had with this particular Web application:  Vyew 2.0 – Free Web Conferencing and Always-On Collaboration and Vyew 2.0 – Free Web Collaboration.

Yes, I am talking about Vyew, perhaps one of the most solid and competent e-meeting tools available out there at the moment, and, best of all, free of charge. In a world semi-dominated by Windows based virtual meetings applications, it has always been refreshing to actually find another offering that is not only browser independent, but also operating system independent. That is what Vyew is all about.

A couple of days ago I was actually attending a live demo with a lovely slide deck of some of the new functionalities from this particular offering, and at the time while we were going through them, I was actually making use of my Windows Lenovo 3000 N100 machine to attend the session. Making use of Flock, of course. While we were being explained why Vyew is one of those essential tools for any knowledge worker out there wanting to conduct effective virtual meetings, I decided to be brave and try out whether it would work in my Mac machine.

Well, it did! Yes, indeed, it worked beautifully! I was actually having two sessions, one from my Windows machine and the other from Mac, using Flock in both of them, and getting the most out of it. Performance was incredibly fast and reliable, despite the fact that there were a whole bunch of folks in it. We didn’t notice a single glitch and while I was making use of it on the Mac machine I noticed how I was getting an even much better experience. The Mac experience. I am sure those of you who are Mac users would understand what I mean. If not check out this quote from Jay Cross on something that I can certainly identify with him big time:

"[…] today the action has moved from the desktop to the web. web connectivity may flake out, but it’s not going to disappear forever as did my PC’s hard drive. relationships (the web) trump nodes (the desktop).

I plan to buy a mac to use as a terminal and to make the web my primary platform."

Yes, that is right. The Web user experience is way way different and if you give yourself a chance and try it out with Vyew, both on a Windows and on a Mac computer you would be able to see what I mean.

I was looking for an e-meeting tool that I could use in order to conduct ad-hoc e-meetings on the fly. Without hassle. Without hassle to install extra software. Just sharing a single URL address and off it goes. From your favourite browser! How cool is that?

Well, my search for an e-meeting tool, something that I use on a very regular basis, is now over. I have found my ideal productivity tool to conduct those virtual meetings effectively. Vyew is the word. Vyew is the application and if you haven’t tried out I strongly encourage you all to go through the set of features put together for the current version 2.5 and enjoy the ride. Because I am sure you would.

There are lots and lots of things I could say about Vyew and why I like it so much. Instead, I am just going to sum them up with a couple of words: Free, easy to use, instant access and works beautifully on the Mac. Need to say more?