Palbee homepage

In the fight for dominance in the video web conferencing realm, we have WebEx, the granddaddy who struggles to stay one step ahead of the young fighters such as GoToMeeting. But into the ring leaps Palbee, a scrappy upstart based out of Seoul, Korea who can throw a quick and unexpected left hook that could knock the socks off the competition.

Palbee is leaner than the big guys. And it is cheaper. Much cheaper. While still in beta, it is completely free. Sure, it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of the heavy hitters, however, what it lacks in bulk, it makes up for in simplicity. Palbee sought out to be easier to use, and it succeeds.

Set up a free account, log into Palbee, type the title of your meeting, hit start. Voila. You can get a little more complex – but not much more – by opting to record the meeting (click a button), invite other users to your meeting (click a button, type in their Palbee names), and schedule your meeting for another date and time (click a button, enter date and time).

Other quick specs:

• You can have up to 10 people in each meeting.
• There is a limit on meeting time – 1 hour.
• Palbee currently supports JPEGs, GIFs and PowerPoint files.
• Cross platform – runs with a Web browser and Flash.

Palbee Meeting

Now Hear This

Palbee delivers the one two punch with these features:

1. Their whiteboard feature - Every participant can gain access to markup tools including drawing and text functions to make notes on the image or PowerPoint file as it appears on everyone’s desktop. Currently, you have to take a screenshot to save those notations, but brainstorming and collaboration is easy to do.

2. Their conference room embed feature – While I’m not quite sure of the work application here, I was intrigued by the ability to lift some embed code of a Palbee meeting space and paste it into your Web site, blog or even MySpace page. This means that people can click on the Palbee widget and enter the same meeting room. Yes, this also means that if you paste the widget on multiple sites, those become multiple points of entry into the same conference room. So your visitors can engage not only in a live video web conference call or chat with you but also with one another at any time. Freaky!

In the Works

Some of the handy features that will be in a future version of Palbee include:

1. A premium level of services.
2. The ability to save the whiteboard edits.
3. Inviting conferencing guests who are not already registered users of Palbee (registration is free).

Palbee Widget

The company says that Palbee was not initially designed to fit a market need – it was created to fit an internal company need and then they realized it could serve a much wider market.

When I did the demo with the company as part of researching this post, the camera feature did not work for me. The software was not recognizing my Webcam built into my MacBook. There was also the expected delay – I was in Alaska and they were in Seoul, Korea!

If you like Beta products and don’t mind working out the kinks along with the company, Palbee is a handy little tool to meet your next basic Web conferencing needs.

SightSpeed (previously covered at GigaOm) is a great offering that does not require you to install expensive equipment to confer with your colleagues and team mates.  The application allows you to collaborate with up to 4 locations at a one time and is suited for both ad hoc and scheduled meetings.  If you want, you can share your desktop while in the midst of a video conference to enable collaboration on a website, word document, or any window on your desktop computer.

Sharing items is relatively easy with SightSpeed.  While in the call window, click Send File to broadcast the file to one or more of your meeting attendees.  Also, rather than having attendants worry about taking detailed notes during a call, allow them to focus their attention on you by viewing a recording of the call afterwards.  Additionally, files can be shared later in case someone new joins the team.

In case an attendee is not logged onto SightSpeed during a time where you want to reach them, the application will allow you to call them on an alternate phone number such as cell phone or home line.

While SightSpeed might not be for every organization, it can help a dispersed team feel less so.  It’s also possible to send a colleague a video message, which feels much more human than a voicemail or email.  During 2 test calls, I found that voice quality was very good.  Video was a little jerky at times, which is to be expected from any video conferencing application.

SightSpeed is compatiable with both Windows and Mac OS X and can use just about any webcam that works with these operating systems.  Of course, to use SightSpeed, you’ll need a broadband connection such as DSL or a cable modem.

Pricing starts at $190/year for a single seat license and $895/year if you want to get a 5-seat license.