Vyew 2.0

I bumped into Henry Hon, of Simulāt (one of those inventive companies that has characters in its name that I don't know how to extract from my keyboard), the folks behind Vyew, the graphical collaboration tool. He reminded me that I had not really looked at the new version, Vyew 2.0, although I had seen the kick-ass demo Simulāt did at the Office 2.0 conference recently.

The product has a bunch of new features:

[from Vyew.com - Help - Free Web Meeting and Collaboration Software]

What's New in Vyew 2.0 (v2)?

1. Multiple VyewBooks per User: Registered Users can now create, name and save multiple collaborative conference sessions, called 'VyewBooks'. VyewBooks are easy to organize (for example, by project or customer), can be switched during real-time sessions, and can be set to be "always-on" for users to edit over time.
2. Object Layering: Vyew 2.0 features a new layer-based architecture where user-created or uploaded objects (including pages from Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF files, images, and whiteboard annotations) are treated as individual object layers. Much like Microsoft PowerPoint, Vyew�s object layering gives users the ability to easily scale and move objects, bring them forward or send them backward, as well as copy and paste between pages and VyewBooks.
3. Object Filtering: Vyew 2.0 includes several object filtering options that give users the ability to track and selectively display uploaded files and whiteboard annotations by user and date/time. For example, VyewBook creators can share a presentation for commenting or editing, and easily go back and see who wrote what, when.
4. Desktop Sharing and Screen Capture now for Mac: Vyew 2.0 includes new desktop sharing and screen capture functions, with added availability for Mac users using Safari. Users can take static screenshots or stream live what�s showing on their PC.
5. Improved MS Office Document Importing: MS Office documents are now broken up into pages when imported, allowing the user to place only the pages they want into the Vyew workspace.
6. Page Navigator - Quickly navigate and re-order the pages in your VyewBook.
7. And More: Vyew 2.0 includes faster file importing and several usability enhancements.

I think Simulāt has a positioning problem with Vyew, because from what I hear people are thinking of it as a competitor to Webex and GoToMeeting. But Vyew is something else. It is not oriented toward broadcasting a presentation, and supporting telephone or chat interaction with a passive audience. Vyew is a powerful collaboration tool, for small groups working remotely but intensively together, for example, modeling the user interface for a software application. But the company should stop leading with the "free web conferencing" line if they want to dispell this confusion. "Free web collaboration" might work a lot better.

tags: vyew,/blip, vyew+2.0, simulāt, henry+hon, graphical+collaboration

Comments

[Marjolein Hoekstra]

I believe the name of the accent used in Hon's company name is "macron". According to the Extended Keyboard Codes section of the website Macintosh Accent Codes, you should be able to create it using Option A + char.

On Windows XP you can look up characters like these using the Character Map accessory. It will then become clear that the character value for A+macron is U0101. This is a hexadecimal value, which after some quick head math corresponds to 257 in the decimal system. Enter this number by pressing down the Alt-key and using the numeric keypad to generate the special character.

Unfortunately the Courier font that TypePad uses for the comment form doesn't allow character values beyond 255, so I can't insert an A+macron in this comment.