Cross-Platform Collaboration With OpenHuddle.com
The problem with many modern-day collaboration applications is that they tend to centre their functionality around their home operating system. Instant messaging clients may let you chat and share files with groups of other users, but what happens if the messaging client that your Windows friends use doesn’t get along with the client your Mac and Linux friends favour? With the explosion of web-based applications popping up these days, it’s no surprise that a solution to this little problem has recently appeared in the form of OpenHuddle.com
Though still labeled as “Beta”, the basic functionality of OpenHuddle is already up and running at full steam, and users are starting to filter in to take a peek at what they’ve got going on. OpenHuddle’s homepage will explain the basics: the entire system functions through multi-functional web application areas called “Rooms” (or “Huddles”), which you can customize and create yourself.
Need a place where you can chat with twelve of your friends while doodling on a whiteboard to really illustrate (my trackpad art skills notwithstanding) your point? Not a problem, just add a whiteboard and chat widget to your Room’s layout space and you’re good to go. If you’re into more direct communication, OpenHuddle also has a fairly robust “Multi-User Video Conferencing” interface which does pretty much what you’d expect it to, except that, because it’s entirely web-based, it’s completely cross-platform compatible so you don’t have to worry about who’s on what. There’s also an audio-only chat option for Skype-like calls, and an instant-message-style text chat widget.
File sharing and collaboration is a necessary feature of these applications, and OpenHuddle acknowledges this by providing extensive file-type support for users. Need to get some comments on a presentation before you go up to perform? Upload your PowerPoint (.PPT) or Flash (.SWF) slideshow file and you’re ready to get comments from everyone in your room in seconds. Ditto for documents, photos, live web clips, and even your desktop! Need to teach someone exactly how to install something or perform certain actions in an application? Why tell them when you can show them with the equivalent of a screencast –- right inside their browser.
That’s all great in theory, of course, but how does it all actually work out in the real world? Well, it turns out that it performs quite speedily considering everything that’s going on within a single browser instance. The video chat was a little choppy in my experience (using the Macbook Pro’s built-in iSight camera and mic), and the text chat had some occasional delays in publishing a message, but not enough to be considered anything but an annoyance. The interface is indeed very customizable, though it may not be immediately clear how it works. The file and desktop sharing worked as advertised and, on a Mac, you’ll be asked to download a small Java applet which will allow you to specify whether you want to share your entire screen or just a section of it, which is actually very smart.
All of this functionality begs the question of how secure the whole enterprise is, and the answer is “not very”. The system seems more tailored to casual, friendly kinds of conversations between friends or family; it’s far too open and publicly-accessible to be of much use for business users hoping for a private meeting room, even though you can apply some basic access restrictions to your Room.
All in all, OpenHuddle has taken an important pioneering step for the web applications industry and it proves that this kind of cross-platform collaboration is indeed possible. Once they come out of beta and work out a few kinks in the system, I think that there will be a large market waiting for them. Head on over to OpenHuddle.com to check it out for yourself, and let us know how you think the service is coming along!
Great post! I think you really hit all the major points of what OpenHuddle is all about. I couldn’t have said it better myself…thanks!
My pleasure!