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.
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Just a quick question, I have added mebeam as a contact on Skype but it never shows online so can not send contacts to it. I have to start a conference call through skype and then set up a room and tell everyone in the conference. Am I doing something wrong?
Posted by: Darren | July 31, 2008 at 09:44 AM
I am having the same problem as Darren is. I added the Mebeam as a friend, but it never shows "Online". So I can't have a multi-party conference call. Is there something wrong on the Mebeam end, or am I doing something wrong?
Posted by: Ryan | August 08, 2008 at 03:43 AM
I added MeBeam to my Skype contacts, but it has never turned green for me to be able to "send contacts" info on my mac laptop. What am I doing wrong?
Posted by: Steven | August 08, 2008 at 06:03 AM
oi ppl boas
Posted by: armando | August 17, 2008 at 09:07 PM
skype video conferencing
Posted by: rpoggi | August 19, 2008 at 05:40 AM
hello
Posted by: fatih | August 20, 2008 at 08:53 AM
Whats the Cost of using MeBeam.com ?
Posted by: jhon Roberts | August 22, 2008 at 09:55 AM
thanks guys.. i really need this.. more power
Posted by: ebey | August 22, 2008 at 11:54 PM
hello girl open camera ?
Posted by: fatih | August 30, 2008 at 06:42 AM
salut
Posted by: dan69naj | August 30, 2008 at 07:14 AM
I can't use it, MeBeam always offline...
:(
Posted by: Defoeln | September 17, 2008 at 09:52 AM
Love to use it but I have the same problems others are having: If I add "MeBeam Video Chat" to my SKYPE contacts it remains at a "Pending" status. I can't use it until the ADD process is verified. Little help?
Posted by: DDZ | September 22, 2008 at 07:09 PM
Hi there, I'm particularly interested in using this service for my remote team at SAP. I'm trying to locate MeBeam via "search" within the Skype community/people find, however zero results are returned. Any help you can offer here would be great.
Thanks!
Michael
Posted by: Michael Labate | October 08, 2008 at 02:16 AM
Nevermind. I figured it out!
It appears 'MeBeam Video Chat' is offline, however.
Posted by: Michael Labate | October 08, 2008 at 02:41 AM
Does anyone have any idea when MeBeam will be "online" in Skype again?
Posted by: Michael Labate | October 08, 2008 at 03:36 AM
Hi Ashod,
Thanks for this innovation! Any chance of being online so we can initiate/try this? Thanks so much.
Posted by: Tech100 | October 09, 2008 at 02:43 AM
Anyone know if this ever got fixed? I'd really like to try it with friends.. Last I heard it still wasn't working.
Posted by: Bryan Peterson | November 09, 2008 at 06:44 AM
not working meabem in our com what can i do
Posted by: LOVELY41 | November 22, 2008 at 05:07 PM
not working meabem in our com what can i do
Posted by: LOVELY41 | November 22, 2008 at 05:08 PM
not working meabem in our com what can i do
Posted by: LOVELY41 | November 22, 2008 at 05:08 PM
Eagerly awaiting to be accepted as a contact through Skype & have already loaded up the plugin for Pidgin. THANK YOU, Thank you, thank you!
Posted by: glenn.d.hudson | November 26, 2008 at 04:46 PM
hey! is this still up and running?
if so; for some reason my skype cannot connect to mebeam (failure to send contacts)
is there anything i can do?
Posted by: N | December 20, 2008 at 05:35 PM
I have added MeBeam and followed all the steps for the multi party video for Skype but it doesn't work. Once I hit send contacts its loads for a while then just says 1 queued ... how do you solve this problem?
Posted by: Juan Andino | December 20, 2008 at 06:30 PM
i tried adding mebeam to my list on skype but it didn't come online and i can't send my contacts to mebeam how can i solve this issue ?
Posted by: Ed | January 04, 2009 at 04:04 PM
help. i really want this to work. but i have the same problems. mebeam is never online.
Posted by: k0b3dp | January 10, 2009 at 07:56 PM