As previously noted, I've been researching online meeting tools for Third Sector New England. There are lots of choices out there, but few of them are really suitable for small organizations that are oriented to dialogue among peers; they tend to be designed for making one-to-many instruction convenient for session organizers.
My colleague Arthur Prokosch and I were reviewing TSNE's options the other day, and I came up with something like the following summary:
Alas, we can't find an inexpensive option that is perfectly suited to our needs, and it's extremely difficult to find an inexpensive option that is a reasonably good fit. However, we are heading toward the latter strategy.
Two very interesting online meeting tools that fall into the "Inexpensive, Moderately satisfactory" category are Yugma and DimDim. But since they both have free versions for small online meetings, I can see how they would rate as "Free" options for many small nonprofits that don't need to host larger meetings. Likewise, many small nonprofits would not have the same detailed list of urgent requirements that TSNE has, so it's quite possible that these two would rate as "Extremely satisfactory" in many cases.
I'm especially intrigued by DimDim, which is being developed by a small firm that seems to share TSNE's fundamental orientation to peer dialogue. Many of the features that we want are not yet a reality, which means that it's a higher risk - but on the other hand, this seems to make the DimDim team more responsive to suggestions about features that are in development. I see a potential here for small nonprofits to flock to DimDim and Yugma, and take an active role in shaping a more community-oriented (and less traditionally pedagogical) approach to online meetings.
In the meantime, I will practice saying "Yugma" and "DimDim" with a straight face.
