Watchitoo Works!
Rating: 8 out of 10
January 24, 2015
SM
Vetted Review
Verified User
2 years of experience
Watchitoo StreamingPro was being used by the organization as a virtual collaboration environment to host regularly scheduled webchats that link together multiple, often international, locations with varying bandwidths and technical capabilities. The platform was being used under an enterprise license that was shared among headquarters and field offices. The business problems it addressed include "doing more with less" in terms of limiting budget to virtual platforms enabling speakers to join from home. This was also valuable for logistics as programs would be delayed due to arrival of speaker to studio. This allows for less chance of delay.
- 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.
Cons
- 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.
- 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.
- Adobe Connect,omNovia
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.