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May 21 2008

Killer App: ooVoo

Back in my Tools for Distributed Communication post, Michael Eaton asked if we had used ooVoo, the free video chat/conferencing software. We hadn’t at the time, but some of us were checking it out a couple weeks ago when we were all in Dallas.

Since then it’s pretty much replaced Skype for when we want to chat remotely. And nowhere is that more apparent than in our daily stand-ups. And how does a team hold daily stand-ups when everyone is remote? Like this:

oovoo

Sure, it looks like a geeked out version of the Brady Bunch, but it works really, really well. ooVoo supports up to 6 people connecting into the same video conference, and the quality is quite good for both video and audio. Every now and then you’ll notice a slight delay or hiccup in the audio and/or video, but it’s nothing major and never lasts for more than a moment.

For me personally, ooVoo has helped me make a more personal connection to the people I work with for the pure and simple fact that I can see their faces on a daily basis. My use of IM has gone down because now I just call someone up on ooVoo and have the conversation face-face instead of relying on text messages in a window. It’s so much more personal and therefore a much better way to communicate.

If you work disconnected from your team, you owe it to yourself and your team to give ooVoo a shot. If you want to try it out first, feel free to add me (arcware) and call me up.

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  • http://www.pennykim.com/ PKim

    Good stuff bro. Wish I could figure out why it doesn’t work on my work macbook but works on my work laptop PC

  • http://webgambit.com/ Karthik

    That’s awesome. But now you have to wear a clean shirt and/or shave on a daily basis!

  • http://arcware.net/ Dave

    Karthik – No way dude. I don’t shave very often. And as far as the shirt goes, I think as long as I’m *wearing* a shirt it’s OK ;-)

  • http://stevenray.net/ StevenRay

    @Karthik you don’t have to wear pants at all though, dirty or clean.

  • http://invalidlogic.com/ Ken Robertson

    Pants may be optional, but Leon should be required to wear the hat.

  • http://stevenharman.net/ Steven Harman

    This is great… your webcam is located such that I can barely tell that you can’t reach your arms don’t reach your waist!

    On a more dire note, it looks like the free 6-way video calling is only free through June 13th, at which point we’ll need to pony up $10/month. That or settle for 3-way calling for $0.

  • jason

    my sister-in-law is moving to Germany. My wife wants to say in touch, is this really free? There is alot of sites but not much info on the real price.

  • http://arcware.net Dave

    Jason – Yes, ooVoo is free for up to 3 people in a call at a time. Over that it costs a few bucks a month.

  • http://arcware.net Dave

    Jason – You might also want to try Tokbox. It doesn’t have the 3-person limitation that ooVoo does and is also free. We use Tokbox now instead of ooVoo, and the quality of pretty decent too.