Remember the days of actually having meetings face-to-face? Sitting around a table in suits discussing finance and such? Well, time’s have changed and now we do our collaboration online. I can collaborate with a colleague in Australia from my home in the UK thanks to a wealth of online collaboration tools.
MeetingBurner is another online meeting tool, currently in beta, with some pretty nice enhancements over what the competition currently offers. MeetingBurner advertises itself as being one of the easiest meeting platforms to just get involved with, and it’s certainly pretty simple therein. Not only will MeetingBurner reignite your love for screen-sharing, but it will also stream the host’s webcam to get a visual conferencing experience.
Wanna Meet Up?
MeetingBurner is, as it’s name suggests, all about meetings. Upon signup, one chooses a username which forms his invite link, used to share a meeting with others. Also generated will be a moderator and participant PIN, for use during call-ins. This PIN actually allows participants to call in, using a regular telephone, and dial the extension in order to participate in the conference call. MeetingBurner also offers a quick link to Skype, as the same results can be achieved there.
The dashboard of MeetingBurner.
MeetingBurner allows for meetings to be launched immediately, or be scheduled ahead of time. Choosing to initiate a meeting straight away kicks it off immediately, allowing you to push out your invites and get collaborating. However, scheduling a meeting allows you to setup all the details of the meeting ahead of time, with an invite link to send around your team. Conveniently, the meeting can be easily imported into iCal or Microsoft Outlook with full details (including the aforementioned invitation link and PINs) included.
What really surprised me was that MeetingBurner includes an option to test out your meeting ahead of time, to make sure everything works so you don’t run into problems on the day. This is a really great feature if this meeting is critical, and can’t have anything go wrong.
Start the Call
MeetingBurner transforms into a slick dashboard upon the launching of a meeting. Down the side is your host viewer (a live video stream of the host’s webcam), meeting information including call-in numbers and PINs, and list of participants with chat. Floated to the right is the main viewer, which optionally includes a stream of the host’s screen through a plug-in.
Meetings can be recorded through the click of a button and saved for viewing later. If you stop a recording, an email is sent with details on how to retrieve and share your recordings. These recordings can be simply emailed and watched back, embedded directly on a website, or exported to YouTube.
Full-screen mode can be great, especially on larger screens.
Meetings can also be easily taken full screen (possibly for use by multiple people), making MeetingBurner feel like a native application with a distraction-free conferencing experience.
Screen-sharing and Video
A big attraction of MeetingBurner is that is seamlessly lets you stream your whole screen or a portion of it to all the conference participants, with minimal lag (if your connection is strong enough). This is a great feature that works with a native app to capture your screen and stream it in MeetingBurner. Those with a multiple-screen setup will appreciate that MeetingBurner allows you to selectively choose them to display, or just centralise on one specific region of a given display.
MeetingBurner’s screen sharing is very simple, and lacks desirable options, however. For example, I’d love to have seen standard features like cursor highlighting that are popular in dedicated screen-recording software. That said, for a free conferencing tool, it’s not bad, either!
Sharing screens with MeetingBurner is relatively simple.
Final Thoughts
MeetingBurner is a very simple and effective tool that is not at all to apply to a range of different scenarios. Whether you’re working on a website and want to collaborate on your latest project with your graphic designer 2,000 miles away, or an accountant sharing the quarter’s financial results with investors, MeetingBurner is a great tool for any business to use, being super flexible and applicable to a plethora of situations.
The screen-sharing feature has some enhancements we’d like to see, but overall, it’s a robust and effective contribution to the whole package. Another great feature is the calling functionality that allows a participant to, through a regular phone or Skype, call in to a meeting in the same way a traditional conference call would be held. The provided PIN numbers also mean your call is secure and won’t face intrusion (including your rivals checking in on your top-secret brainstorming sessions!).
Getting In
MeetingBurner is in a strict beta and, without an invite, you won’t get in. However, should you manage to, MeetingBurner will offer you invites to get some of your coworkers in too, which is always nice.
Finally, we can look to the future for some idea of how MeetingBurner will become even more useful. An iPad browser is in the works, which will be especially useful, as is an “improved full screen mode”.
Have you been in MeetingBurner? Be sure to share your experiences in the comments.