MM Chronicles

Webapp Update: VOIP and Skins

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:36:00 GMT

Working through a weekend is one of the few privileges that we, the startup folk, cherish and value. Over this long Labor Day weekend we indulged ourselves and rolled out a couple of particularly interesting updates: voice over IP and the UI skins.

First, let's talk about the UI skins. This update is an important step towards a fully customizable meeting interface. At the moment, we all share one look and feel that consists of a dark background and candy buttons. With this update, we are giving you a choice of three UI themes. In addition to the original one, named MightyMeeting, you get two other skins, named Apple and Facebook respectively. It is our tribute to two of the most admired companies, and we did our best to emulate their spirit.

To change the skin of the meeting interface, go to the profile tab in the MightyMeeting web app and scroll to the very bottom of the page. There you will see a combo box offering a selection of choices. Pick a skin you like, and next time you start a meeting, you and other meeting attendees will see the new UI.

Our intention is to eventually offer you the option of uploading your own CSS and artwork. So if you are Coca-Cola, for instance, you will be able to create a great UI for online meetings in vivid red and white colors and with a wavy logo in the upper left corner.

Second, let us mention another tremendous addition to the meeting interface: the conference call button. Our meeting server now has a voice over IP (VOIP) module. We are actually running a farm of such servers to ensure the overall scalability and voice quality. Amazon EC2 rules. Spinning up a farm of servers has never been easier.

With this change, every virtual meeting room gets a conference calling facility. The meeting organizer can start a conference call by clicking on the connect button in the meeting interface. Once a conference call is in progress, other participants can join the call by clicking on the same button in their browsers. The entire conversation can be carried browser-to-browser with no phones or landlines involved.

There are a few limitations to be aware of.

First, the voice option is now only available in our web application and can, for the time being, be only used in browser-to-browser meetings.

Using VOIP also requires client-side Java, which can be easily installed from Oracle's web site. According to our stats, 75% of visitors to our web site already have Java installed. Java is pre-installed on all Macs. So we do not expect this to be a major issue, but do let us know if you encounter any problems.

We will be submitting our VOIP-enabled native iOS application to Apple for approval later this week. The Android app will quickly follow.

Second, the conference call capacity is now limited to five participants. Voice does require a lot more bandwidth than slide sharing. We will be increasing this limit over time.

Third, VOIP calls use the Internet to carry voice. You should have no problem connecting to a conference call from your home network, a 3G/4G mobile network with a strong enough signal, or the WiFi network at Starbucks. However, you may not be able to connect to a call from a corporate network if your IT department blocks the VOIP traffic.

To address this issue we will be adding a dial-out capability in the coming months. MightyMeeting users on corporate networks will be able to push a "call me" button in order to join or start a conference call from a regular phone. In the meantime, VOIP only calls are a good start.

I hope you are as excited as we are about the new changes. Take them for a spin. Let us know what you think. Make every meeting a MightyMeeting.

Hosting a Mighty Meeting

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:58:59 GMT

Since we rolled out the mobile meeting rooms, the number of meetings hosted at MightyMeeting has doubled. It is a great result and we thank you all for using the service.

Here are a few tips on how to host a meeting at MightyMeeting.

It is not all that different from hosting a conference call. You know the drill. A company usually has a conference call number that people use to dial into a conference. Each of the hosts has a conference code that participants must enter at the prompt. The dial-in number can be shared by many hosts but each of them has a unique conference code.

MightyMeeting works in a very similar manner.

We all share the service that can be used to host a meeting -- mightymeeting.com. This is the "dial-in". Each host, a MightyMeeting user, has a mobile meeting room ID. It serves as the "conference code".

When inviting people to join a meeting you need to give them two pieces of information:

The URL of the MightyMeeting web site: http://www.mightymeeting.com
The ID of the meeting room.

You can view or change this ID in the profile section of the UI.

Folks can join a meeting by entering the meeting room ID in a form on the landing page of our web site.

We also have a shortcut URL for joining a meeting. It looks like this:

http://tojoin.me/go/<roomid>

where <roomid> is the ID of your meeting room. You can paste this URL into a meeting request after replacing <roomid> with a true room ID.

A meeting must be active in your room when the invitees click on this link. You can start a meeting by selecting a presentation in the list and then clicking or tapping on the "Start a Meeting" or "Meet Now Online" item in the Share menu.

Only one meeting can be active in a room at any given moment. Make sure to start and end your meetings on time.

Happy Meetings!!

Mobile Meeting Rooms and More ...

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:10:40 GMT

Over the weekend we completed the rollout of an important MightyMeeting update. This is the most significant update since the service was launched earlier this year.

Here are some of the new features and improvements:

Virtual mobile meeting rooms
A new meeting room webapp
Universal app for iOS
Support for multi-tasking on iOS 4
Support for higher resolution displays
Full VGA mirroring
Global content delivery network

New versions of our mobile applications have been posted in iTunes and Android Market. Send us your feedback at info@mightymeeting.net.

Meeting Rooms

Every MightyMeeting user is now the owner of a private mobile virtual meeting room. This room can be used to hold meetings. Users can start or join meetings online at mightymeeting.com or from any iOS or Android mobile device: iPhone, iPad, Nexus One, Droid X, and others.

A meeting room has an ID. This ID is automatically generated based on the email address that was provided at registration. It can be changed in the profile section of the user interface:

Scheduling mobile meetings has never been easier. The only piece of information that must be communicated to the meeting attendees is the meeting time and the meeting room ID. This can be done over the phone, in an email message, or in a meeting request sent via Outlook or iCal.

Uploading Content

With this update we are simplifying the process of uploading presentations. You can now email presentations to

<roomid>@mightymeeting.com

where <roomid> is the ID of the meeting room that you can view or change in the user profile form. We will match the room ID to your account and save the presentation in your library.

Note that if you change the meeting room ID, the upload email address also changes.

Meetings Webapp

With this update we are rolling out a brand new web meetings app that is designed to optimize the desktop user experience.

This new meetings webapp is still very lightweight and does not require Flash or any other browser plugins. As a consequence, it can run on the iPad or any other non-Flash device equipped with a modern Web browser.

Universal Application for iOS

We used to have two different applications for the iOS platform: MightyMeeting and MightyMeeting for iPad. With this update we are combining the two apps into one universal application that runs on all iOS devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Multi-Tasking

We are taking advantage of multi-tasking in iOS 4 by letting you switch to a different app while in a meeting without losing the meeting context.

You may switch to a different app to call someone, for instance. When you switch back to MightyMeeting, we fully and transparently restore the meeting state.

The Retina Display

The screen on the new iPhone 4 is gorgeous. It gives the impression of near print quality for both text and images.

To take advantage of these impressive capabilities, we are increasing the resolution of slide images that are delivered to mobile devices. Your slides can now be viewed on any iPhone, iPad, or a higher end Android phone in their full glory.

Full VGA Mirroring

With MightyMeeting, your entire cloud-based library of presentations is instantaneously "projectable". With this update we are improving and extending this functionality.

First, we are increasing the slide image resolution to 1024x768. This is the native resolution in many projectors used today. Your slides will look crisp and clear.

Second, we are enabling VGA mirroring on iPhone 4 devices. iPhone 4 can be used with the same VGA adaptor that works with iPad.

You can now walk into a meeting and deliver a great presentation with nothing but your phone and a short piece of wire. Traveling light just got a new meaning.

Global Content Delivery Network

To better support the retina display and the higher resolution VGA mirroring we are increasing the resolution of slide images. This results in larger files that must be sent to your device and devices used by the meeting participants.

We compensate the larger size of slide images by bringing those images closer to the edge of the network. We are doing this with help of CloudFront, the highly regarded content delivery network provided by Amazon. This update is especially important given the global nature of our audience.