Orgoo Throws Hat into Video Chat Ring
Mark Hendrickson
20 comments »
Orgoo, the long-anticipated, all-in-one, browser-based communications suite that presented at TechCrunch40 last fall, is releasing a new video chat service to the public today. This comes ahead of a general release of its email, IM, and SMS tools, which remain in private beta.
Over the last seven months, Orgoo has been working on building a replacement to the Userplane video chat it has relied on. The new service is entirely browser-based and allows up to four people to chat via video together at a time (with an unlimited number of people who can join via text chat). For now, there will be a cap of 1,000 people who can broadcast simultaneously over Orgoo, although the company will increase that cap daily.
Orgoo is one of the first to provide this capability independently and all within the browser for private chat sessions. Yahoo Live, which we covered recently here, allows for five-person video chats but in a more public-broadcasting type of setting. ooVoo supports up to six people but requires a Windows-only download. Tokbox supports up to six people but only provides text chat when used with Meebo. And MeBeam supports up to 16 people but has a very primitive user interface. Paltalk has been at this the longest, and offers a 10-person video chat via PaltalkScene (a Windows-only download) and PaltalkExpress (a Web-based version in alpha for both Macs and Windows PCs).
When demoing Orgoo’s new service, there were some problems with audio echos and delays. However, I was assured that these issues would be worked out for today’s launch. If Orgoo’s video chat is able to function for several people as smoothly as Skype functions for two, then this will be quite an awesome service. Both businesses and casual users alike will find it very useful for connecting with people over long distances.
Orgoo video chats will soon be embeddable into other sites as well. The company is working with MySpace to provide its users with video chat capabilities while alleviating the obvious concerns about child predators.
Another cool feature is the ability to initiate one-on-one chats from within group chats. You can just select the person you want to chat directly with, and you’ll enter a dialogue only with them. Both group and one-on-one chats can be viewed fullscreen as well.
I just don’t see video chat catching on to the masses any time soon. Not until all computers come equipped with cams.
@ 1
stickam.com is pretty popular ..been chatting there for over a year.
Thanks for the great article Mark. Just to clarify, we have met with MySpace to discuss a number of things, however there is no official relationship.
We love to hear user feedback. Any suggestions or comments can be sent to feedback@orgoo.com.
Thanks,
Michael Kantor
CEO
Orgoo
Another baby-talk name “web 2.0″ company.
It is very buggy from using it just for a few minutes today.
videochatting… that’s pretty cool!
I think global corporations would use it a lot because video conferencing costs a lot (I use it at work and know the price).
A suggestion I would make: create a version of it that would match corporate standards of security and it will be attractive to the big guys with lotza money.
Orgoo is killer. While it might be a little tough to understand upfront what they are doing when you dig a little deeper you realize these guys are really on to something.
Might have to give this a try, been using oovoo for multi chatting and it seemed decent. MySpace and other groups could have lots of fun with this type of service.
Mebeam have just added jabber connectivity, and the ability
to playback video conferences for free, with unlimited storage.
The interface, is very bare, but its nice and light.
rk
I think orgoo is a perfect name for what this service is likely to usually be used for.
Projected 2010 usage stats (assuming Orgoo still exists):
Business/productivity: 10%
Chat: 40%
@10: 50%
Kept crashing for me , but i have tried oovoo which i do like,
but recently we have swapped to mebeam, unless something
really spectacular is releeased, we’re unlikely to change ,
mainly because how well it works, all the time.
There is also PalBee.com which supports up to 6 people and allows you to collaborate on white board and share photos/power points.
I think mebeam is the clear winner here.,
when it comes to speed, and natural video
motion and audio quality. IMHO a perfect
userinterface, because there really isnt one.
It records, plays back , does 16 people at once,
and instant availability without needing to login
or signup.
Many of these very small companies have not had to really scale yet. Once they get substantial usage, I’m sure they’ll suffer outages. There certainly seems to be plenty of competition, which means the barrier to entry is low. Good luck people!
aren’t we trying to make video calling as easy to use
as a telephone - so the mums and dads can get the
benefits of all this cool 2.0 technology.
I am 58 years old this year, and although, i am
nifty on a computer, my wife , is a newcomer,
and simply freezes up at the complexity of placing
a call. That is , until she got her hands on mebeam,
an absolute pleasure to use..
Hi, this Brian from TokBox. Just wanted to clarify that text chat is available with all TokBox video calls. That includes calls originating at Tokbox and Meebo.
We haven’t spent much time iterating on text chat recently, in favor of keeping up with demand for video calls.
For TokBox (and perhaps others), the number of simultaneous peeps for video calls is a human interaction question, not a technical challenge. It can be tricky to have a meaningful conversation with 20 people simultaneously.
As always, we welcome any feedback and suggestions from you guys. -BP
There was a social networking site called “theloop.com” in 2004-2005 that offered a similar service – yet it went off line after a few months.