Join.me: Your New Favorite Screen Sharing Tool

Over the last few years we’ve covered many different screen sharing technologies.  Some were bloated with heavy installs and others had the perfect feature set but were over-priced for the average real estate agent. Today we have an option that may just bridge the gap perfectly. Introducing Join.me, a FREE and simple screen sharing tool that can support a variety of needs whether you’re holding  a virtual office meeting with peers, reviewing homes with an out-of-town buyer, or even going over contract details with a busy seller.

Really? So how is Join.me different?

My biggest complaint about online meeting software is that typically the install feels overly complicated and users need to keep track of ID’s and passwords.  Join.me simplifies all that by allowing meeting owners to easily share one thing–the meeting URL.  The people you invite are not asked for anything…no email, no username…they simply click the link you’ve shared.  As for compatibility, both PC’s and Mac’s are good to go. Join.me employs Flash player 10 found in any of the current browsers.

You’ll know the meeting software has launched when the Join.me navigation bar appears front and center on your monitor. (See graphic below.) Each Join.me meeting can hold up to 250 people and comes with an optional audio bridge accessed by clicking the phone icon once you’ve logged into a meeting. Once you’ve dialed the phone number and PIN provided, audio support will begin.

If you need to chat with your viewers, you’ll select the “Quote” button to send the message.  It will display a chat window that lets you communicate with all attendees or you can target a particular user by selecting them from the list. Keep in mind if you’re sharing your screen, all attendees can see what you’re typing.

A few other standout features include the ability to share files via your meeting and to let someone control your screen. The file sharing utility could be truly valuable using the scenario I mentioned early. Say you’re meeting with an out-of-town buyer and you’ve shared your screen and started to review homes.  You’ve gone through each of the properties from your initial selection and now the buyer has selected a subset to see next week. Now you quickly render a Buyers Tour and immediately share the file. Now your buyer instantly has the packet of homes and details, and can save it to their computer for review later.

As I mentioned, you can also give a meeting attendee the permission to control your screen.  This will allow the attendees to actually click links, scroll and perform other actions as if they were on your computer. Of course as the meeting creator, you control who can use this feature and most importantly you can stop sharing control at anytime! In the unlikely circumstance that one of your meeting attendees becomes unruly, just click the people icon and select the “X” next to their name. That will remove them from the meeting.

Ok, I’m convinced. Let’s go through the meeting setup:

• Step 1: Visit Join.me
• Step 2: To host a meeting click the big “Share” button. The meeting software quickly will launch the share tool to the top center of your screen.
• Step 3: Copy the meeting URL to your clipboard or choose to send by email.

At the end of your first meeting you’ll have the option of installing a very lightweight application that makes it super easy to start meetings in the future.

Going PRO: If you like what you see with Join.me and want to take it a step further check out their pro version. That will allow you to customize your URL, schedule and lock down meetings, and provides better user management tools. The pro version is priced at $29/month.