DimDim Vs Wiziq : The free web meeting , conferencing and online classroom tools
DimDim Vs Wiziq : Web conferencing, Online meeting, Virtual classroom ….
As a presenter, I have used both the web conferencing tools on the offer - Wiziq and DimDim. I found that both the tools have quite amazing features apart from being free… well for most part! Here is a small comparison based on my experience with these tools and a bit of constructive criticism:
Wiziq:
Wiziq’s target audience is teachers (Virtual Classroom). But it can be easily used for online conferences and meetings just like webex or go2meeting. The tool itself has very academic look and features the most common web conferencing solution features. My favorites being the ability to record the sessions for self or for attendees and multiple whiteboards. My few trials with wiziq have been quite satisfactory, but there are some glaring inconveniences I had to face. First the positives:
Installation - Absolutely 0 installation on the client side.
Record sessions - The option to be able to record sessions is just great! Though I still need to figure out what happens if you record a session just for yourself and not for the attendees - will I be able to share it later? Anywas, not very important at the moment. I would love to have an option to download my own sessions some day as well.
Multiple Whiteboards - Another great feature. I dont have to rub again and again. Most teachers would probably agree that rubbing whiteboards isnt the most exciting part of their jobs.
Whiteboard tools - Whiteboard toolbars are pretty intuitive and consist of all the basic stuff needed. The Math toolbar is a great add on. But my favorite is the graph tool. YEAH! makes showing graphs, number lines and line diagrams so easy - its a treat. A few additions wouldnt hurt - a clear all tool, color filled 2-D shapes, different line thickness etc.
Premium Service - Premium service looks really cool: $5 a month for no-ads, 1 year storage, up to 500 users in a room (virtual sermons!), guaranteed 1 day support (huh! no 1800 number?), private chat and more.
Invitees need to register - I dont get it. My attendees didnt like it. If I have invited someone, it must be fairly easy for them to join in.
Presentation documents upload - I uploaded my content (not directly to the classromm, but inside my content), it took about a week to finally show up there, 4 days after the corresponding meeting was scheduled. Seeing that my presentation is still “in process”, on the day of the meeting, I tried to upload a document directly to the course session, it failed. Murphys law? May be… On that bad day of presentation, I had to move everyone from Wiziq to DimDim. I had no time to ask for support, although I did send an email after the fact.
The support is slow - It took about 5 days for me to finally get a standard response which says in nutshell - “we are aware and we are improving”.
Interface - I found the interface to be a bit not very intuitive and a few features actually missing. Like while in session, if I want to send a quick invitation to a colleague - I couldnt do it. Actually I havent really found a way to do this. In one of my presentations, I was quite embarassed when a colleague imed me to join in an ongoing session - “let me see this new tool you were raving about”. Guess what - anticlimax.
Features - Some simple features like private chat are only available as a part of premium service. Wiziq doesnt have desktop sharing as of now. I can see that a Virtual Classroom may not actually warrant a desktop sharing option, unless you are an IT teacher and want a particular application to be configured on a students desktop and he is unable to do it. I can see similar usages for teachers in other area as well - let me see how you solved this question and I will tell you where you went wrong.
Logo - I would really like to see a feature where my organizations logo (if any) can be put along with Wiziq’s logo. This is not branding, probably co-branding. But atleast the visitors would know they are in the right room when they wander in the first time.
DimDim:
Dimdim is more of a traditional web conferencing solution than a virtual classroom. Although it can be used for similar needs. It is an open source software in the sense that you can download DimDim and install it on your own server for free. They do provide a hosted solution, which is the object of discussion here. The DimDim is extremely professional and the GUI quite intuitive. The free version has almost all the features that a startup will need. Here is a brief on DimDim starting with the positives:
Interface: Extremely intuitive interface. Inviting and managing attendees from within a on-going session is a no-brainer : Click on link named “Invite” or “manage”.
Multiple Whiteboards: DimDim does allow multiple whiteboards. Although I didnt know it from the start, but then I wasnt looking properly. The whiteboard tools are again quite comprehensive. However I do miss the the Math tool bar and the graph tools (I am spoiled by Wiziq!). The geometry shape tools are quite good with options to fill colors, change line width etc but 3-D shapes are missing.
Desktop Sharing: DimDim gives the option of Desktop Sharing although I think there is an upper limit to the number of people you can show your desktop.
Other Features: Allows private and public chats in their free offering. Allows collaboration on whiteboard and presentations, which is neat, only it seems you cant stop a participant from not-collaborating (vandalizing)…
I was fortunate to talk to Sundar and was quite impressed with the enthusiasm, quick response and turn around time. This was when DimDim was still in alpha.
And now the negatives:
No session recordings - Doesnt have session recording which means I have to repeat the sessions for those who didn’t make it or who want a re-telecast. Recording is an important part of virtual classroom which is missing here.
Features - Although quite feature rich, some of essential features seem to be missing like - changing the presenter, allow or disallow collaboration to some attendees and downloading of presentation after a session (sometimes the presentation gets changed/edited).
Branding - For those who are not looking for exclusive branding, Dimdim should offer a way of putting just a banner of the organization somewhere.
Installation - Although DimDim did say on their website that its a 0 install - it doesnt seem to be truly zero install. It does install a browser plugin atleast for the mozilla browser that I use.
Buggy tools - The text tools looks a bit buggy, it wouldnt let me type more than 1 character (lost focus). I had to re-click inside the text box to continue.
More bugs - A few other annoying bugs that I was unfortunate to have come accross: I got booted off the system for some reason (browser crash), since I was the presenter every one also apparantly got booted off as well (as they informed me). Anyways, while I was unaware of the fact that they were also booted off, I tried to re-join the meeting, but couldnt join the meeting back because I kept receiving this message “user name already exists in the meeting”. This completely threw the whole presentation out of whack because I had to create another meeting and send requests (Some attendees thought it was a hastle). I have seen the same thing happen in webex support sessions I have had so I guess thats acceptable although its always annoying.
[Edit]: Steve from DimDim has just commented on this post and informed that a new version (4) of DimDim will allow for recording and downloading capabilities! Great news!
Conclusion:
I tended to like DimDim better than Wiziq. That doesnt mean that I have totally given up on Wiziq. Wiziq has a long way to go. Wiziq’s premium membership is quite impressive compared to the DimDim PRO and enterprise editions. The biggest turn off for me using Wiziq is that it makes the attendees register and the fact that it took 7 days for my 10mb document to finally show as uploaded.
Source:
DimDim Vs Wiziq : Web conferencing, Online meeting, Virtual classroom ….
As a presenter, I have used both the web conferencing tools on the offer - Wiziq and DimDim. I found that both the tools have quite amazing features apart from being free… well for most part! Here is a small comparison based on my experience with these tools and a bit of constructive criticism:
Wiziq:
Wiziq’s target audience is teachers (Virtual Classroom). But it can be easily used for online conferences and meetings just like webex or go2meeting. The tool itself has very academic look and features the most common web conferencing solution features. My favorites being the ability to record the sessions for self or for attendees and multiple whiteboards. My few trials with wiziq have been quite satisfactory, but there are some glaring inconveniences I had to face. First the positives:
Installation - Absolutely 0 installation on the client side.
Record sessions - The option to be able to record sessions is just great! Though I still need to figure out what happens if you record a session just for yourself and not for the attendees - will I be able to share it later? Anywas, not very important at the moment. I would love to have an option to download my own sessions some day as well.
Multiple Whiteboards - Another great feature. I dont have to rub again and again. Most teachers would probably agree that rubbing whiteboards isnt the most exciting part of their jobs.
Whiteboard tools - Whiteboard toolbars are pretty intuitive and consist of all the basic stuff needed. The Math toolbar is a great add on. But my favorite is the graph tool. YEAH! makes showing graphs, number lines and line diagrams so easy - its a treat. A few additions wouldnt hurt - a clear all tool, color filled 2-D shapes, different line thickness etc.
Premium Service - Premium service looks really cool: $5 a month for no-ads, 1 year storage, up to 500 users in a room (virtual sermons!), guaranteed 1 day support (huh! no 1800 number?), private chat and more.
Now a few negatives:
Invitees need to register - I dont get it. My attendees didnt like it. If I have invited someone, it must be fairly easy for them to join in.
Presentation documents upload - I uploaded my content (not directly to the classromm, but inside my content), it took about a week to finally show up there, 4 days after the corresponding meeting was scheduled. Seeing that my presentation is still “in process”, on the day of the meeting, I tried to upload a document directly to the course session, it failed. Murphys law? May be… On that bad day of presentation, I had to move everyone from Wiziq to DimDim. I had no time to ask for support, although I did send an email after the fact.
The support is slow - It took about 5 days for me to finally get a standard response which says in nutshell - “we are aware and we are improving”.
Interface - I found the interface to be a bit not very intuitive and a few features actually missing. Like while in session, if I want to send a quick invitation to a colleague - I couldnt do it. Actually I havent really found a way to do this. In one of my presentations, I was quite embarassed when a colleague imed me to join in an ongoing session - “let me see this new tool you were raving about”. Guess what - anticlimax.
Features - Some simple features like private chat are only available as a part of premium service. Wiziq doesnt have desktop sharing as of now. I can see that a Virtual Classroom may not actually warrant a desktop sharing option, unless you are an IT teacher and want a particular application to be configured on a students desktop and he is unable to do it. I can see similar usages for teachers in other area as well - let me see how you solved this question and I will tell you where you went wrong.
Logo - I would really like to see a feature where my organizations logo (if any) can be put along with Wiziq’s logo. This is not branding, probably co-branding. But atleast the visitors would know they are in the right room when they wander in the first time.
DimDim:
Dimdim is more of a traditional web conferencing solution than a virtual classroom. Although it can be used for similar needs. It is an open source software in the sense that you can download DimDim and install it on your own server for free. They do provide a hosted solution, which is the object of discussion here. The DimDim is extremely professional and the GUI quite intuitive. The free version has almost all the features that a startup will need. Here is a brief on DimDim starting with the positives:
Interface: Extremely intuitive interface. Inviting and managing attendees from within a on-going session is a no-brainer : Click on link named “Invite” or “manage”.
Multiple Whiteboards: DimDim does allow multiple whiteboards. Although I didnt know it from the start, but then I wasnt looking properly. The whiteboard tools are again quite comprehensive. However I do miss the the Math tool bar and the graph tools (I am spoiled by Wiziq!). The geometry shape tools are quite good with options to fill colors, change line width etc but 3-D shapes are missing.
Desktop Sharing: DimDim gives the option of Desktop Sharing although I think there is an upper limit to the number of people you can show your desktop.
Other Features: Allows private and public chats in their free offering. Allows collaboration on whiteboard and presentations, which is neat, only it seems you cant stop a participant from not-collaborating (vandalizing)…
I was fortunate to talk to Sundar and was quite impressed with the enthusiasm, quick response and turn around time. This was when DimDim was still in alpha.
And now the negatives:
No session recordings - Doesnt have session recording which means I have to repeat the sessions for those who didn’t make it or who want a re-telecast. Recording is an important part of virtual classroom which is missing here.
Features - Although quite feature rich, some of essential features seem to be missing like - changing the presenter, allow or disallow collaboration to some attendees and downloading of presentation after a session (sometimes the presentation gets changed/edited).
Branding - For those who are not looking for exclusive branding, Dimdim should offer a way of putting just a banner of the organization somewhere.
Installation - Although DimDim did say on their website that its a 0 install - it doesnt seem to be truly zero install. It does install a browser plugin atleast for the mozilla browser that I use.
Buggy tools - The text tools looks a bit buggy, it wouldnt let me type more than 1 character (lost focus). I had to re-click inside the text box to continue.
More bugs - A few other annoying bugs that I was unfortunate to have come accross: I got booted off the system for some reason (browser crash), since I was the presenter every one also apparantly got booted off as well (as they informed me). Anyways, while I was unaware of the fact that they were also booted off, I tried to re-join the meeting, but couldnt join the meeting back because I kept receiving this message “user name already exists in the meeting”. This completely threw the whole presentation out of whack because I had to create another meeting and send requests (Some attendees thought it was a hastle). I have seen the same thing happen in webex support sessions I have had so I guess thats acceptable although its always annoying.
[Edit]: Steve from DimDim has just commented on this post and informed that a new version (4) of DimDim will allow for recording and downloading capabilities! Great news!
Conclusion:
I tended to like DimDim better than Wiziq. That doesnt mean that I have totally given up on Wiziq. Wiziq has a long way to go. Wiziq’s premium membership is quite impressive compared to the DimDim PRO and enterprise editions. The biggest turn off for me using Wiziq is that it makes the attendees register and the fact that it took 7 days for my 10mb document to finally show as uploaded.
Source:
Code:
http://www.openalternatives.org/site/2008/07/dimdim-vs-wiziq-the-free-web-meeting-conferencing-and-online-classroom-tools/
