Orgoo launches free video group-chat and lifecasting service
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Orgoo — an emerging web.2.0 firm that presented at the TechCrunch40 conference last year, have just announced a new service allows people to have instant 4-way video chats through the browser, and also enable a larger audience to view those cameras and participate in real-time chat. This service is similar to Yahoo Live, and Paltalk‘s PaltalkScene. However, the Orgoo executives claim it is one of the first fully-browser-based solution.
It is a curious release because on first thought this seems to have little to do with their core email product (except as Mark put it to replace their video-recording backend for the email service).
However, this product has good potential for more interesting solutions to be built on top. The browser-based only requirement may seem trivial but it removes a big potential barrier – fear of incompatibility.
I am now, for example, tempted to interview the next applicant at our company directly through this chat service – we could do that in skype as well, but I would normally never think of it out of the fear that the other person may not have the same software.
Some of the interesting applications that I think can come out of the technology is real-time video-based job application and interview boards (think Mulazamat on steroids) which would be incredibly disruptive in my view; also interesting would be to see this as something to disrupt traditional meeting place systems like Webex (which needs an overhaul in my view).
My take on this product is that Orgoo should try to offer this as a platform rather than as a service. Let other web-apps integrate with the Orgoo infrastructure to instantly add a 4-way video meeting widget to support the app’s core activity. The value proposition provided by Orgoo would be the greater amount of attention and relevance the video chats would bring to those web applications. In return, Orgoo could display text or other minimal ads to those audiences. As a platform, Orgoo would be able to see massive network-scale effects that other widget-based services are able to enjoy, which would then attract advertisers easily… p.s. remember that eMarketer is already predicting that video services could be poised for massive growth this year, so I can imagine more advertisers will try to come into the fold.
Think of what we could do if Ebay was able to offer “instant-video” connections with buyers… we could certainly put such a platform to good use within our product.
9:34 am
This sounds really good, video conferencing 100% in web browser. Look forward to trying this out. We sell a few different video conference platforms at Batipi, however, they require a software download. The software is fairly user friendly, however, you are correct that this can be a problem from time to time.
Dave
Webinar’s & Conferencing
http://www.batipi.com
12:40 pm
Orgoo is not one of the first fully browser based conferencing systems, the market is already saturated and very competitive. You have tools such as Adobe Connect (previously Macromedia Breeze), Megameeting, Userplane etc. aglon with ofcourse WebEx, MS Live, Citrix etc. The difference between all these and orgoo is that, these are full fledge collaboration suites where as orgoo is only a video conferencing product right now – so orgoo is more like yahoo! live, and not WebEx. The competition is practically fierce in this with Zoho, Vyew (my favorite) etc.
Even pure video conferencing is nothing new right now. In fact Orgoo is quite late in the market. There are numerous online webcam solutions online (including some that offer online interviewing!) using Flash communication server or RealMedia or Windows Media Series (in case of Windows media though it’s more of broadcasting then “chat”). Numerous companies are now also using open source RED5 rather than FCS because of licensing issues.
By the way, software download is not really a problem always. For example, WebEx is available for multiple platforms, so are Citrix’s products. Also you don’t really have to explicitly installed any product – it installs via an activeX or JavaApplet seamlessly (again, this is a standard product feature in this industry now).
Video solutions may be hot now because different companies have just started to display ads in the video content (YouTube started a few weeks ago) and I know of a few IP-TV/Live streaming solutions that are doing this as well. Even doubleclick is now providing ad solutions for video content. This was one of the HOT things in last year’s OMD (Online Marketing Dusseldorf – the largest online marketing fair in Europe) with quite a few video-ad solutions.
Just my 2 cents …