Gather Town vs. Watchitoo StreamingPro

Gather is best used as a company hub and a place to get a sense of fellow staff members' activity. It lets staff express themselves with their own space. It's also great for impromptu or quick meetings. Gather does not replace more serious meeting tools like Zoom or Google Meet. It's had a difficult transition to its version 2 with missing features, but they are working on it and improving quickly. Some staff may not enjoy the video game look or having to show up in the app.

Incentivized

I think Watchitoo is a product that is great for many different use-cases for internal programming, one-on-one teaching, e-learning, live web chats, town halls, etc. The company is also very innovative in that updates are constantly being made to the platform and I've seen feedback immediately reflected in a new feature or button.

• alert for messages
• Being able to have several spaces for communication for free
• constant updates

Incentivized

• Simplicity of interface and basic features to get non-technical speakers to enable camera/adjust microphone and preview their feed.
• Complexity of potential programming and special settings that can yield a rather high production quality using external camera, studio switchboards, and any other fancy bells and whistles you want to integrate from other media/communication equipment.
• Customer service was always on point with their responses to technical questions and exhibited great diligence when assisting live programs. They were good about being open about other customer experiences and troubleshooting methods learned from others using the platform.

• Some people have trouble finding the controls the first time
• I use Gather Town during my training sessions with Zoom. A direct link to Gather Town woiuld be nice,
• Being able to integrate Gather Town IN zoom would be amazing.
• When people interact in a small group, a larger icone with their face would be nice

Incentivized

• The lower bandwidth environments often had trouble participating in Watchitoo StreamingPro so a custom "low bandwidh" theme was created. I feel like Watchitoo could offer more to more people if they catered to those with lower internet speeds and slower computers, or shoddy mobile service.
• The external media search functionality is great and can add a lot to a program, but it could be more user-friendly and a bit more configurable. I like to narrow my searches for specific content, colors, file types, shapes, sizes, formats, etc. Watchitoo peaked into the Internet, but I often had to search, find, download, save, upload instead of pulling directly into the program. NOTE: I am typically more particular in my media searches than others.
• Lastly, I'd say combining a ZUI (zoom user interface) would be a potentially interesting feature to add to Watchitoo. The idea in my mind is a multi-point feed show where folks are in relation to one another in the world. Somewhat how Google Earth toggles between points, but also like how Prezi presentation can have content spread out over a larger map area.

Overall, it's great to use. There is a slight learning curve for staff who are unfamiliar with video game mechanics (Moving around a virtual world, managing their view), but most learned very quickly. Meetings generally just work and are quick to connect; however, video quality is often lower than in other conferencing apps.

Incentivized

Pretty easy to use. This is the ONE criterion I go by when ai try a new app. Some participants had some problems using the app in the first few minutes but after this, they really enjoyed the tool. Compared with the other interactive app I used, the learning curve was very short. So overall, Gather Town is one of the app I got back to.

Incentivized

Adobe Connect is a tried, true and trusted platform given the Adobe name is widely recognized everywhere. Watchitoo offers a bit more of a start-up feel and are often much more responsive in term of customer service. Account managers were open to multiple modes of communication and constantly making themselves available, even to support ad hoc programs. Larger platforms would re-assign new account liaisons and technical support staff. Knowledge Management with respect to our use of the platform and previous troubles/lessons learned was much more fluid with Watchitoo

• Considerable money savings since it has a free tier option
• When required, a space for more than 100 people is contracted and we can canceled immediately.
• social events have been carried out virtually thanks to this tool

Incentivized

• Better customer service; it improved production quality and allow for a custom look-and-feel that was missing from other platforms in use.
• Enabled more participation; through the mobile features and easy connection procedure, users felt empowered using a simple program whereas other platforms were requiring special technician help.