It’s here - Version 2.0! It’s been a tough road, but we think everyone will find Vyew 2.0 well worth the wait.

Over the weekend, we converted Version 1 (v1) files and meeting sessions to the new Version 2 (v2) platform. Users that have already been playing with the v2 pre-release may find some odd effects with the whiteboard drawing tools. Aside from that, the conversion should be quite smooth.

For those users that tried to access Vyew over the weekend, you likely encountered some odd behavior of the system. Our apologies for any inconvenience. At this point we are ironing out a few minor bugs, but otherwise v2 is stable and ready for use.

You can read about the new features in v2 here. A couple last-minute but very useful features not previewed in the pre-release include: 1) Post-it notes that can be embedded within pages and 2) Multiple shared pointers. Our Help and FAQ pages are 90% updated, and more will be added over time.

Enjoy, and please let us know what you think!

The Vyew Team

“Next-gen Web sites gain attention, visitors”. Read the article here.

Mac-land, rejoice! Screen capture and desktop sharing now works on Macs, and we’ve updated both Vyew 1.0 and Vyew 2.0. But there is a catch - you have to use Safari. For some reason, we cannot get Firefox to work with Java correctly. If you know the secret between FireFox, Java and Javascript, please let us know! We’ve tested this update on our dusty Macs and it works well. If you have any problems, please provide your feedback via the the Vyew website.

The Vyew Team

Access Control Settings
Each VyewBook has a Access Control Settings, which govern who can come into the VyewBook, and what type of user they are when they come in.  The three settings are: (1) Anyone can come in, (2) Only invitees or people with the password, (3) Nobody except the Owner.  If option (1) “Anyone” is selected, the owner can then set what the default User Type is for people who enter: (Viewer, Reviewer, Collaborator, Moderator).
Collaborator
A user type who is allowed to add content, delete, draw and mark-up a VyewBook.

Custom URL
A user who pays for a Custom URL, will recieve a custom link directly to their Lobby and VyewBooks. For example, instead of a URL like “vyew.com/room#/123456/myvyewbook”, they can tell users to go to a simpler URL such as “vyew.com/bob/myvyewbook”.
Lobby
A Lobby is a virtual meeting space where users can meet before going into a VyewBook Meeting. For example if the user owns a Custom URL, such as “vyew.com/bob”, then that link goes to Bob’s Lobby. Also, if a user tries to enter a VyewBook that is locked or password protected, they will be forwarded to the Lobby.

Meeting
A Meeting a virtual space in which users meet. It is another name for VyewBook. A Meeting takes place in a VyewBook. Some web collaboration systems use the term “meeting” or “room” synonymously.
Moderator
A user type who is allowed to change other users permissions/user types, as well as kick users out, draw, delete, and add content.

Owner
A user who owns the VyewBook. They have all possible permission rights to the VyewBook, including VyewBook settings. There can only be one Owner of a VyewBook.
Reviewer
A user type who is allowed to add content, draw and mark-up, but not delete.

Room
A Room is a term synonymous with “Meeting” or “VyewBook.” It is a virtual meeting place. Users meet in a room, which is a VyewBook.

Sync Mode
The state of a VyewBook. When it is in Sync Mode, then all navigating, scrolling and zooming are synchronized with all users in that VyewBook.

Viewer
A Viewer is type of user whose permissions only allow him/her to view the presentation. They cannot draw. They cannot navigate pages, unless the VyewBook is set to Un-Sync Mode.

VyewBook
VyewBook = Meeting Room = Work space
A “vyewbook” is a collection of pages created and saved together in Vyew for collaborating on during LIVE conferences and asynchronously over time, ANYTIME.

Un-Sync Mode (Sync Mode Off)
When a VyewBook is in Un-Sync Mode, zooming, scrolling and navigating pages by users, do not affect eachother. User A and User B can be in the same VyewBook, looking at different parts of it.

User Type
A user type is a status of a user which defines their permissions. For example, a user can be a Viewer, Reviewer, Collaborator or Moderator.

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Alice Osborn of WebConferencingZone highlights Vyew’s whiteboarding capabilities and otherwise provides a brief overview of Vyew. Read the whole write-up here.

We’ve had various comments about our green interface. Some call it “kermit” green. Until the recent Color Theme feature, you were stuck with the green, even if you hated it.

I just wanted to throw this out there… why we chose green. Originally the alpha product was blue and grey. The problem was, when you were doing screen captures and desktop sharing, the content you shared was frequently windows applications, which were also blue and grey.

This became confusing, because the Vyew interface blended right in with the Windows interface, and it was hard to tell the two apart. So we took the exact opposite route and chose a color that was farthest from the windows interface. Bright green. Thats pretty much it. It was a feature, not a fashion statement.

“Does the world need another web conferencing product? Maybe. Check out Vyew.”

Link to Article

Link to article

Due to customer demand, Vyew has expedited an early release of Desktop Sharing in real-time. The feature is an alpha release, try it out and let us know what you think.

Hi everyone,

We just wanted to thank you for trying out Vyew. Over the last few months, we’ve made a lot of changes that we think will improve your experience.

We also wanted to thank all of you for providing us with some really useful feedback. We want to hear it all, good and bad, so bring it on. The only way that we are going to continue to bring you a great product is to listen to what you have to say and act accordingly. We are working tirelessly to make sure that your experience with Vyew is better than what you expect.

Over the last couple of months, we’ve been tinkering around with some plug-ins for Vyew. These light features are in the Alpha stage of development (i.e. Pre-Beta) - just an FYI, they are buggy, and not totally user-friendly (think proof of concept). So, what are these cool plug-ins that we speak of? Check them out in your Vyew meeting room. To make life that much easier for you, we’ve listed the features, below:

• DiagramVyew - a flowcharting tool
• CalendarVyew - calendar tool that can be written on
• Image Loader - Loads an image from an outside server (JPG to SWF)
• and Checkers - a classic game that we all love (There’s no AI, so two are needed to play)
• If you want to find out more, check out the Forum.

We will be announcing Vyew 2.0 soon, which we feel will dramatically enhance your Vyew-ing experience. While we aren’t going to give away too much, we will say is that Vyew will look a little different and will also include some REALLY cool new features. We would love to tell you what we’ve got up our sleeve, but that would be like opening up your gifts before Christmas. Where’s the fun in that? : )

We have also heard through the grapevine (ie. Blog posts), that some view us as some sort of Web-Ex killer. While we are completely flattered to be compared to such a renowned product, it really isn’t our goal. Our goal is to become something different - something that goes beyond conferencing and collaboration. We’ll let you chew on that for a while.

Thanks again for your support.

The Vyew Team