DimDim -World’s first free web meeting service

DimDim is the world’s first free web meeting service based on the open source platform. DimDim is a browser-based web 2.0 service that allows anybody to share their desktop, show slides, as well as talk, listen, chat, and broadcast via web cam. DimDim ’s hosted service is available for free and can be easily used for small gatherings, to seminars with hundreds of attendees. With absolutely no software to download for attendees, DimDim gives everyone the opportunity to hold Web meetings and to customize and brand these meetings.

I have been following up on DimDim for more than one year. I have also got the alpha version of the open source DimDim running in my lab. Since then, till now a lot of visible changes have happened. One of the good ones has been their recent release of hosted public beta to the rest of the world. Good news because its been quite sometime since they have started work on it. In one recent correspondence with DD Ganguly I was told they are focusing in a big way on the upcoming release and will let the product speak for itself. I am impressed, not just with their entire approach but also with their determination to make it big. Since I was one of the early private beta users I too have been auto upgraded! Thanks DD...

DimDim can be very easily mooted as a replacement for WebEx and MS Live Meeting like applications which help by setting up web meetings and screen-casts on the web. DimDim focuses mostly on the richness and completeness of a web experience according to me (based on whatever little I was able to spend on the alpha release and now public beta). It looks very promising and has a lot of features which makes it stand out on its own way. Based on a flash based interface which makes it very platform and browser portable, it also includes nifty features like real time chat and discussion. The best and the really clinching victory over its counterparts is that they have decided to make it Open Source and the community version of DimDim is available on SourceForge.net DimDim plans to make money from the support and enterprise version of the same.

I had the opportunity to try Microsoft Live Meeting and frankly the experience has been harrowing at times! DimDim is a breeze compared to MS Live Meeting, though I wont be able to comment much on the open source edition since I could not upgrade to their latest release in my lab (they have hard coded port 80 which was not the case with earlier releases! can someone help me with that?)

Some typical daily uses I foresee for myself with DimDim is to share my desktop with my brother in Delhi to help him with his incessant queries about his laptop. But the uses are pretty much more obviously! :)

Quite sometime back I had emailed DD Ganguly and Sundar S about DimDim and their team. Sadly they never replied back. Hope they do reply to me as DimDim sure seems to be on its way up!

Make way MS Live and WebEx- DimDim is here to stay :)