MeBeam

Wow do you use wowdo ?

I am not sure if I am a rarity or not, but amongst all the fantastic online applications and social networking options available to me, I still shy away from using most of them for any extended time.

Probably some point after forgetting my registration details or finding not everyone joined the same service as me.

I like simplicity. For example,

I still use my mobile as a mobile telephone  - My mobile phone can make calls from anywhere without a chord attached. I could use the multimedia, networking, games etc, but why? I don’t really need them, but I need to lose the chord.

The rest are just add-ons.

What I do need is for my young kids to see their fathers face more often than time and geography allow.  I can’t express the elation seeing my kids respond  to a video message  I left on Wowdo video messaging.

Wowdo is a free online video messaging service and does not require user registration. Allowing me to create a new message for my kids immediately and they could access it freely. It is so simple, but it is worth explaining how Wowdo works.

You visit wowdo.com and you will notice it really has a single purpose – to record from your webcam. 

On the landing page you just get a video capture screen.  If your webcam is on, you will see your cameras view otherwise it is blank. It’s a nice size screen too.
You press record, and you are prompted to start recording after a momentary please wait message appears while your camera adjusts itself.

When you have recorded enough, you can copy a unique link to the location of that recording and paste it wherever you like (e.g. email, Skype).

You can record up to 4 minutes, this is too long for me anyway.

For those that have followers on Twitter, Wowdo allows an instant tweet option that will create a short message from your twitter account stating  there is a video message available. Your followers on Twitter can get it.

Certainly one of the simplest ideas to get a video message out on twitter.

Visit wowdo.com 

Post by guest author: Scot Andrews

3D or not to be ?

Ladies and Gentleman, firstly I'd like to take a moment to apologise for being away for such a long period of time,

I am sure by now, many of you may have given up on me churning out anything new and exciting ever again, - maybe the old boy has finally burned himself out, after one too many nights staying awake, and trying to capture that extra frame per second, or taking on the big boys with his David and Goliath, watched Rocky one too many times, attitude.

The truth of the matter is, the last year or so, every idea, every epiphany, every breakthrough, has been very short lived, simply because, unless the thing I am working on is either the best, the fastest, or the first, I quickly get bored.

There was a time, and a few of you do remember, when the quest was on, to build the worlds fastet video phone and many would argue, that we did achieve this dream, and countless months of testing, and tweaking with friends from all around the globe,made for a truly magical time for me and I hope a stimulating time for all those involved.

From all of this, the MeBeam, service was developed, and although it did rely on Flash, so 90% of all the cool things we developed, the year prior, was not included, it did provide however, at the time, the first, registration-less, instant video chat room service, and to this day, it has been used by countless millions.

There is still one more thing which I need to add to Mebeam, and that is Skype integration as promised on several occasions, however, it would really help, if the Skype company would stop re-releasing patches to their product, to counter-act any developments we may have made.

Now, to the main point of this post

I have, and I am almost 100% sure of this one; have come up with my escapade, and even though, my journey is going to leave the familiar path of video communications, there will be some overlap.

The next big journey for me, and for all of you, who want to come on this adventure with me, is the imminent and whimsical world of 3D

3D is going to be huge - If anyone has been to IMAX, then you know what I mean, - but most important, new technology is in the pipeline, allowing for 'auto-3d' , which means 3D without the need for special glasses.

For now, MeBeam is going to be released, in a 3D version, using either one way or both way 3D, using shutter glasses, or those who don't want to make the investment in shutter glasses, it will work in using cheap cellophane with a press of a button.

New web-cams are also emerging with 2 lens build in, which mimick the human visual system ( in other words your eyes ), and they are becoming extraordinarily inexpensive

To accomodate everyone, the new generation of software I am developing will handle, dual-lens web cams, ordinary web cams, using a special pseudo-3d mode, shutter glasses, or cardboard cellophane, or no-glasses mode, using a special technology called wobble-mode, as you can see from the icon at the start of this post.

In addition to this, the centerpiece of this project, will be a completely new site, which is something like a you-tube for all things 3D

I am yet to decide on the name for this site, but have a few ideas in mind, I welcome any suggestions, so leave me a note on Skype,.

Once again, thank you, to everyone, who has stuck by me, and our projects, I promise, the road ahead will be very interesting and very real :)

 

 

Multi party video for Skype

A few days ago, I made a post about a new service on MeBeam, which would open up the world of multi-party or multi-user video conferencing to Skype users.

Initially, my idea, or solution, was to provide a service like our operator feature, where you would add MeBeam to your skype contact list, and type in 'call username' for every person you wanted to invite to the conference, and MeBeam would send out the invitations on your behalf.

After thinking about this a bit more, the last few weeks, I came to the relisation, that this in itself, would not be very practical for two reasons.

(1) You would have to type in every persons username,
(2) You may have set up skype, so that you see your contacts by their nickname, as opposed to their real username.

From this challenge came innovation, and we have come up with something which I know your going to like.

Without the need to download anything, you can start a video conference with up to 16 of your skype friends, directly from the Skype user interface, with minimal effort.

Although, this service does not go online officially until tomorrow, I am going to post, the how-to now, for all those who have already added MeBeam as a contact to their skype list.

Assuming you have already added the contact MeBeam to your skype list, and your ready to start a multi person video call - click on user MeBeam in your contact list, and then click on the 'send contacts' menu item, as shown in this screen shot.

Next, you send the contacts you want to invited to the video conference to MeBeam, by clicking the names on the left hand column and clicking the 'Add' button - as shown in this screen shot.

Once you have added everyone, click the 'Send' button and wait for the status message to complete.

At this point MeBeam, will generate a unique room for you and your friends, and send the invitations out automatically.

The service is in beta, and may not be 100% stable, but, you should now all have 16 person video calls available from skype.

.


The service is now up and running again, so please feel free to try it out, and get back to me with your comments and suggestions.


So, if your using Linux, Mac, or Windows, and want video conferencing for up to 16 people, without the need to download or install any plugins or software, then click the following link.

Click here to add 'MeBeam video chat' to your contact list



If the link does not work, then add 'MeBeam.video' as a Skype contact

Skype video conferencing

A couple of months ago, I posted an entry about multi person video conferencing for Skype using MeBeam.

The solution was unique, in that it enabled anyone on Skype to establish a video conference with up to 16 other people directly from Skype, without the need to download any software. The service turned out to be a lot more popular than I had expected, and as a result, it was taken down only after a few days, until a more robust back-end could be designed.


The service is now up and running again, so please feel free to try it out, and get back to me with your comments and suggestions.


So, if your using Linux, Mac, or Windows, and want video conferencing for up to 16 people, without the need to download or install any plugins or software, then click the following link.

Click here to add 'MeBeam video chat' to your contact list



If the link does not work, then add 'MeBeam.video' as a Skype contact

MiniMe for facebook

A Facebook version of random video rooms, based on MiniMe is now available.

Click here to visit Facebook Video Chat