ConnectNow

It's been available for a little while but we've only just started using Adobe's ConnectNow service in anger very recently and I thought it was worth a blog post.

Essentially, it's a desktop sharing tool with some additional collaboration features around it but it's very slick and the best one I have personally used for quite some time - and considering I was commissioned to do a study of such tools for a large bank a year or so ago, I'd say it's doing well. One of the beauties of ConnectNow is that there's no installation required - the browser is the client - and another is that you don't need to have an account to use it. You need one to set a meeting up, but not if you've simply been invited - this makes ad hoc meetings that much easier, especially if you want to invite anyone outside of your organisation.

Additionally, it offers built-in video and audio conferencing facilities (I'm not sure about numbers here), shared chat and shared notes, and the standard control sharing - a good set of collaboration tools. What would be nice is a facility for recording the session - or at least the audio conference - but most such tools don't offer it and none do it particularly well.

Go have a play around with it - it's free - and see what you think.