Yuuguu, the remote desktop / screen-sharing collaboration service which integrates all the main instant messaging platforms is to complete the pack by adding Skype. It officially launches next Tuesday.
That obviously means that as well as chatting via IM during screen sharing you can make free and low cost VOIP calls to your interlocutor. However, there is a drawback as Skype-based screen sharing (as opposed to using IM from another platform) is only Mac-based and will be one to one. But unlike most screen sharing applications, Yuuguu does not require participants to download any software – only the host needs access to Yuuguu. Participants get sent a standard web link that will allow them to view the host’s screen.
The Skype integration will make Yuuguu a pretty competitive offering against many existing online meeting and screen sharing services. The free version is good for 100 minutes a month and supports up to 30 people without time limit.
Yuuguu’s competition is fairly wide. There is Citrix’s GoToMeeting, Microsoft’s Live Meeting and Cisco’s WebEx. In addition there are startups like Glance, BeamYourScreen and TeamViewer.
However the price comparison with WebEX and GoToMeeting shows that Yuuguu’s premium “Plus” service, at $15 per month, allows 30 attendees, which is five more than WebEx at $69 p/m, and twice as many as GoToMeeting at $49 p/m.
Yuuguu makes money from offering a phone conferencing service with a per-minute charge and now its premium version, but clearly it doesn’t rely on revenues from subscriptions as much as its competitors, which is how it is able to attack them from that angle.
Just to clarify, when you use yuuguu to share your screen, it shares with up to 30 people. It is not limited to one-to-one.
You host such a share using a small app which runs on Mac, PC and Linux. You can view using either a flash enabled web browser, or the small app if you like.
The skype integration provides a one-click button to launch a Skype conf call to the group you are sharing your screen with. There is also Skype contact integration – so you see all your Skype contacts in the Yuuguu client.
We still provide the option of pay-per-minute ‘proper telephone’ conferencing. I would say this is handy where you need proper telephone audio quality (and may be having issues with Skype VOIP), or just if using a mobile/handset is easier. SkypeOut provides an alternative path.
Hope this helps –
Al
Yuuguu dev team
Wow… that has to be the worst logo I’ve ever seen. Ever. In my entire life. I’m not joking.
Not to mention the completely uninspired string-of-letters masquerading as a name. Yeesh…
It is a pretty bad logo huh…
You beat me to it, but I wanted to register the same thought.
That is the worst logotype I’ve ever seen. The worst. Wow.
Just out of interest chaps, does anybody care about what our product does – or should we just change the logo !!! A lot less work than some of the software dev we’ve just done !
all the best – Al
We did have one fantastic funny complaint about the logo on twitter, but frankly it’s too rude to repeat on here; must be funny ones if they look like our logo, that’s all I can say!
enjoy your weekend.
I’ll give you, you’re not the first people to have said that
All the best,
Al.
This feature of Yuuguu is not ready until the 19th May.
We have so much more than just Skype calls!
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M.Hussain
You should use http://almostmeet.com instead. It doesn’t require any install on any computer, not even the one sharing its screen. It’s the first purely browser-based peer-to-peer solution for voice, video and screen sharing. Just share the link and all participants can see each others screens (if they allow it). Plus file sharing, document & image embedding, Dabbleboard’s whiteboard, etc.
It’s not exactly a WebEx alternative though. It’s feature set and UI are optimized for small group _collaboration_, rather than one-to-many presentations.
Disclaimer: I worked on it.
Almostmeet sounds promising. Can we have an invite code for Techcrunch readers?
Terrible logo but great product. I want to switch from GoToMeeting but my company won’t let me. Every one of our partners either uses GoToMeeting or FedEx.
Great to see yuuguu progressing well, especially as I am one of their first users and Yuuguu is a Manchester based company, not to mention their great team and Anish been a friend.
I also had the same questions about the logo, but just like many great things in life, once you overcome the initial shock, it becomes more acceptable and then you begin to like it.
The Skype feature was something I personally asked many moons ago, so nice to see it’s availability.
More importantly, I am looking for the day when Yuuguu reach the point where they become operationally profitable, with the new release, this would hopefully be sooner than later.
On a more personal note, Yuuguu has been an inspiration to my own tech startup, edocr.com and many of other northern tech companies. They are probably one of the first web 2.0 companies to get funded from Northern VCs, which is a significant achievement, given how risk averseness they are in general.
Well done guys. You make Northerners proud!
Hi Mike,
We provide a desktop sharing app for web conferencing and remote support that is free for business and private use: Mikogo http://www.mikogo.com Highly secure screen sharing and many features such as one-to-many screen sharing, switch presenter, file transfer, scheduler, recording, whiteboard, etc
We just released the Mac version for cross-platform screen sharing.
If you would like more info, I’d be happy to discuss our development further with you so please feel free to contact me.
Btw, we have a new logo designed for the upcoming new website: http://www.mikogo-blog.com/images/09/04/new-logo.jpg Hope you like it!
Regards,
Andrew Donnelly
The Mikogo Team
While I can’t praise yuuguu enough for their cool screen sharing app, the skype integration on OS X is extremely buggy and prone to crashing.
Almostmeet sounds great. I need to meet with just one or two clients at a time and need a simpler, browser-based solution with video chat and whiteboarding.
Signed up to try the beta. Wondering when it will be available?!