Item: Join.me (discontinued)
Rating: 8
Author: Cindy Arco

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Join.me is used by various departments throughout my organization for video and web conferencing for meetings. We often need to have meetings to share information across company departments, functions, and geographic areas. Join.me allows those who need to host a meeting to share critical information with others virtually to do so quickly and easily, plus share presentation elements including documents/information and videos.

Pros and Cons

Ease of use - the Join.me product and platform are very easy to use, even if it is someone's first time.
Trial option - the company offers a free trial option, which is great if a company isn't sure how it would work for them - they can test it out without making an investment.
Help section - the company's help section is really useful and it's fairly easy to search if you need help figuring something out.

No password protection - you can't protect a meeting with a password that you only share with intended participants. Instead, participants have to "knock" to be let in - but that means someone has to be on the lookout for those requests.
Limits to the whiteboard - the whiteboard functionality is limited to tablets, which is a bummer if you have many participants on their work desktop computers or laptops.
Screen sharing - sometimes it won't work on particular browsers.

Return on Investment

Cost savings on travel - Join.me allows us to collaborate effectively virtually, instead of in-person, meaning we save money on travel costs associated with in-person meetings.
Allows efficiency - we can quickly set up a virtual meeting if something urgent pops up that needs to be addressed among employees across different company locations.

Usability

Join.me is very user-friendly - as a host, you may need to take a little time to understand all the functionalities available but it's difficult to figure out how to set up and run a meeting on the platform. The same is true for a user and/or meeting participant - it's quick and easy to join and interact with other users.

Support Rating

I have found that because of the ease of use, I haven't had to reach out for support directly. They offer quite a bit of useful information online already. I have never heard of anyone within my organization needing help from the company and not being able to get issues addressed quickly.

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Webex Calling

I have found that Cisco Webex and Join.me are very similar. I use Webex as well and do not think that there's any one particular function that would make me chose one over the other service.

Likelihood to Recommend

Join.me is a great video conferencing service for small to medium companies who need to host video and/or web meetings frequently but not with a ton of "bells and whistles" like tons of high-resolution video and graphics. On the other hand, if a company needs to do a lot of virtual meetings and communicating with a client or potential clients and wants to ensure they look as sharp and professional as possible, this might not fit the bill.

You'll want to Join(.me) in!

Overall Satisfaction with Join.me