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  • Date: Monday, August 11, 2008 Time: 9:03 am Category: Instructional Technology, Social Media, The Internet Tagged group work, online meetings, teaching Discussion: 3 Comments

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A few weeks ago I was reading on one of my favorite sites, Mashable (a blog about social media technology) about a company called Dimdim. [Here is the article: Dimdim Raises $6M for Open Source Web Meetings]

I thought this was a noteworthy, because while web meeting websites are out there, this one is open source.  You can sign up for free and use the hosted meetings feature for gatherings of up to three people or you can purchase a Pro account with more features.  The really interesting bit, however, is that since this is an open source application, it can actually be downloaded and hosted on its own with no restrictions other than what you place on it.

Here is what they say about themselves:

How is Dimdim unique?
Unique = Easy + Open + Free.
Dimdim is unique in 3 major ways. First, Dimdim is extremely easy to use. We freed Dimdim of complexity, gave it a very simple user interface, and designed it so the people you invite to your meeting do not have to install anything (even to broadcast audio or video!) A single click starts your meeting.

Next we made Dimdim truly open.
You can download our open source version, extend our product via its open APIs, and even choose hosted or onsite versions to suit your needs.

Finally we made Dimdim affordable. And by affordable we mean free. Our free version boasts a powerful feature set to allow anyone, anywhere to host meetings with up to 20 people.

We grow with you. Need more than 20 people in one room or multiple rooms? Our Professional version can scale to 100 people at a time (and costs less for an entire year than some other products cost for a single meeting!) Our Enterprise edition is limited only by the speed of your Internet connection and costs less than half what you used to pay your Ex-Web conferencing provider. Think unlimited meetings with unlimited attendees. Add it all up and no one offers what Dimdim does.

This changes things. We think that since Dimdim is simple, it “just works” with zero install, offers disruptive pricing, and is based on open source underpinnings, we are enabling the whole world to meet freely.
We believe that this changes things for the better and appeals to our mutual passion to improve the world. With Dimdim people and organizations around the world who could never afford (or figure out how) to get together can now meet freely.

Could this be a contender against something like Wimba or Adobe Acrobat Connect?  I don’t know, but it is worth knowing about regardless.  It may just come in handy if you need to put together a small quick meeting online.  Might make group projects for students easier!  Thoughts?