Show HN: Fast, free online meetings - use code "hackernews" to play

http://www.meetingburner.com/

by aresant • 15 years ago

18 31 15 years ago

aresant7• 15 years ago

We've been working on MeetingBurner for just over 9 months - fully capable online meeting / webinar platform built in the cloud (EC2 & Joyent backup) so we could offer a truly free product (with a freemium vers of course!).

Expect to see more on the build process, the tech, how we made it into LAUNCH at the last minute, etc in the future here - appreciate all the HN support and please send any and all feedback here or through the feedback list once you log in.

paraschopra• 15 years ago

Your video is interesting as you attack competitors directly. Curious to hear what kind of feedback did you get from others and if there are any legal issues involved.

I also wonder how important is extra 15-25 seconds worth as far as online meetings are concerned (which usually last for >30 minutes).

raheemm2• 15 years ago

Your video is great. Leaves no doubt about how much faster you are.

asnyder• 15 years ago

I just signed up to MeetingBurner, it looks promising. As someone that used WebEx and is a currently a paying subscriber of GoToMeeting, this can potentially make our lives a bit easier, especially with Linux users.

Personally, I didn't like the video all too much, I felt the comparison was somewhat deceptive. As a GoToMeeting subscriber I can usually start a meeting in less than 5 seconds, since I already have the client installed. Clearly, if I don't have the client, then it's a longer process with website -> download -> run/install, as such the video, for me, takes something away from your product. While the speed comparison is nice, and something that should be emphasized, I believe the other aspects of MeetingBurner stand on their own.

I feel that the one-touch recording, the no-client download, online access to your recordings, shareable links, and clear reporting to your past meetings already goes beyond what your competitors offer.

I really like GoToMeeting as it's clean, robust, has recording and numerous other niceties, however, it is lacking in certain areas and having a full web solution like MeetingBurner would be ideal.

I will definitely try it out in GoToMeeting's place over the next couple of days and provide whatever additional feedback I can.

[edit: grammar]

aresant7• 15 years ago

Well said and good points.

We struggled with what to highlight, and in a future blog post we'll address why we focused on that screen record.

Looking forward to your additional comments - submit via the MB helpdesk (feel free to repost here too) to make sure we see everything.

mentat3• 15 years ago

The narration on the video is pretty funny. It didn't come across as exactly "professional" and at some point ought to be less trash talk, more demo. Nonetheless, amusing.

mentat3• 15 years ago

Just used it. Very smooth process for signing up, though I didn't really like giving my phone number. What are you thinking the pricing will be?

vlokshin• 15 years ago

Isn't the whole preach that it's free?

aresant7• 15 years ago

We'll always have a free version that's fully functional with no-ads for attendees (ad supported is how other free webinar systems work).

We'll have a paid version for people that need bigger meeting rooms, corporate features etc.

But we'd like every HN user in the world to be on a free version of MB when they're meeting with their distributed teams, clients, etc

jeromec2• 15 years ago

I don't know, to me the narration puts good emphasis on the loading difference. If the target is people who value their time -- as many business professionals do -- I think it's a good attention grabber.

aresant7• 15 years ago

As a meeting host I cant tell you how much of a pain it is when using one of the big box solutions that requires a download for attendees.

The first 5 mins of your conf call / meeting are sometimes just spent troubleshooting for guests.

Our goal was to fix that and illustrate just how simple & fast it can be :)

raheemm2• 15 years ago

I like the trash talk - gives personality, instead of boring, corporate-speak.

fourspace• 15 years ago

Why do you require that passwords only contain letters and numbers? This never makes sense to me.

edoloughlin• 15 years ago

And can't be longer than 12 characters? Seriously?

aresant7• 15 years ago

It's not a bug, it's a feature :)

When I pinged our CTO his tounge in cheek response: "we are software engineers. we like to irritate people."

This is the kind of fun stuff we get to learn in beta - will see about getting that fixed!

justinph• 15 years ago

Based on the URL/name, I am disappointed this isn't some new way to goof of during boring webinars.

I was expecting some kind of racing game in canvas or destroying elements in the DOM, something like that...

lostbit• 15 years ago

Maybe your competitor will be join.me. Do you know how it compares to them?

I created an account. It's a very neat interface. I'll try to use it in a meeting soon.

rmason• 15 years ago

Folks read the terms. Repeat read the terms. You are granting them the right in perpetuity to anything you broadcast. They can resell it without compensating you. You are waving any privacy for anything you do in a meeting.

Thanks, but no thanks.

mentat3• 15 years ago

Please specify which term you think means this. I just scanned through and didn't see anything.

mattdeboard2• 15 years ago

He's probably referring to 4(d) of the ToS.

"You automatically grant the Site and its affiliates, contractors, and partners, a world-wide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable license to use, modify, publicly display, reproduce and distribute the content in order for the Site to provide You the Service. If you object to any content on the Site, Your sole remedy is to cease using the Site."

andrewguenther• 15 years ago

Good catch, I was convinced for a second. -sigh-

aresant7• 15 years ago

This is in no way our intent, I've got a note out to the attorney to see how / why this language exists and how we can clarify.

Appreciate the note - this is the feedback we want to iron out for beta :)

asadsalm• 15 years ago

Useless password requirements

randall• 15 years ago

Chat! Please? I've done a few gotomeetings with people who were in a noisy environment and could only do text chats.

aresant7• 15 years ago

Going on the list - that was one of the top requests from beta release today - expect that in the next couple of weeks and thanks for trying it out!

Jaeger• 15 years ago

How about a Google Translate plug-in?

notajith• 15 years ago

I like this alot. Is it just me, or is the recording missing audio?

dmounce• 15 years ago

I'm just going to hit the bad parts, so forgive the apparent pessimism. :)

The signup process is miserable. There's no reason to have it broken into so many steps. And damnit, after that many steps, why do I have to confirm my account via email and click a "Oh, gee, thanks. Now continue to your real account." No confirmation at all. Take me straight to my account.

Do you really need my phone number for registration ? Not a real question. Answer: NO.

Password length restriction ? Seriously ? My password isn't even that secure and I had to trim it for your guys' site. That's absurd and there's no valid excuse, no matter how plausible.

Six steps to schedule a meeting ? Not to mention the processes of each individual step -- the time selector is severely irritating; why do I have to make three conscious decisions per hour I want to select ? (First, what I click. Second, the hour. [and there's a moment of wait, is this AM/PM where maybe I cancel the click, change the AM/PM, then back] And finally, choosing AM/PM if I haven't already done so.) Just make it one nice big long list. Maybe if you want, select the hour and minutes separately.

Basically what I feel is that the UI is trying to present ALL of the features you provide without a clear understanding of how they're broken down. In your video, you present the tremendously arrogant tone of "everything else sucks, and damnit, we kick their ass" -- which is awesome!- but then I get into the product and it feels boring, bloated. Feels like a some old strung-out dude wearing ripped skinnies and a deep v-neck.

Ok, actually, it's nothing like that. That was a lie -- just that last part I mean. Skinnies rock. You should all wear skinnies.

I'll keep an eye on the product because I'm interested. Just try to embrace consistently the attitude you put forward in the video. Make sure the product truly fits that because then you've got something pretty cool. :)

rzeligzon• 15 years ago

You crushed it with your video. The voice over is killer. Hilarious. One of the best videos on a startup I've seen so far. You made me signed up because of humor and the product.

Show HN: Fast, free online meetings - use code "hackernews" to play

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