Comments on: Adding virtual guest participants to a physical meetup

Question: Adding virtual guest participants to a physical meetup

jeffmacintyre — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:04:28 -0800

Best way to add virtual guests to a physical meetup?

No, I'm not looking for a simple conf calling solution here; angling for something better and more leading edge.

I'm wondering whether there is some apt web app, videoconference or SIP solution for easily adding virtual guests to a physical meetup?

We don't have a location yet so it's still possible that we could get the technical infrastructure in place to make this happen, between phone lines, wifi, VOIP/SIP, etc. Surely this has been solved before by someone far more intrepid than myself.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:40:49 -0800

The demo is over a decade old - but you might be interested in Bill Buxton's Hydra project.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:10:16 -0800

We've included people on gatherings before using Skype and iChat. It's difficult for them to participate with the whole group (it's very easy to talk over the person on the screen, so what usually ends up happening is that people go over to the computer and interact with the far away person one on one).

By: cushie

cushie — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:00:33 -0800

I'm not sure of all your requirements, or if you're willing to pay (or subscribe), but Qwaq has a lot of the features you want. It allows you to virtually move between rooms/areas and also share work and collaborate (using files from other programs). It has full (directional) audio, and uses avatars in a virtual environment. Not sure if this is a social meetup, in which case Qwaq would probably be overkill, but it would work well for collaborative meetings.

By: theora55

theora55 — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:07:09 -0800

Elluminate has free 3 person meeting rooms, so it's easy to check out. We use it as virtual meeting space, and some staff have used it to virtually join a live meeting.