Watchitoo Works!
Pros
- 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.
Return on Investment
- 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.