Adding virtual guest participants to a physical meetup

March 13, 2009 9:04 AM

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.

posted by jeffmacintyre to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

The demo is over a decade old - but you might be interested in Bill Buxton's Hydra project.
posted by rongorongo at 9:40 AM on March 13, 2009

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).
posted by ocherdraco at 11:10 AM on March 13, 2009

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.
posted by cushie at 12:00 PM on March 13, 2009

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.
posted by theora55 at 2:07 PM on March 13, 2009