Screen sharing shoot out and why I am now using join.me

 In productivity

Working in the social media analytics space for the last 2+ years, one of the most important productivity tools has become the screen sharing program.

If you cannot be in the same room (or country) as a prospective client, then the next best thing is sharing your screen with them in real time so they can see what your piece of software can do, or what your PowerPoint slides are saying, as you present them.

There are a number of these services out there – the best known being GoToMeeting (by Citrix), and Webex (by Cisco).

I have used both of these in anger as part of a wider company account.  Now I’m running PeopleBrowsr in the UK, I need a cost effective way to share my screen.

Join.me is now my favourite tool for screen sharing, and the entry level price is free!  Just head to join.me and you can instantly set up a session for multiple people to view your screen from anywhere in the world.

For a small $29 per month to upgrade to the pro version (see a comparison of the options below), you can have your own join.me/url, as well as access to a range of global voice conference numbers.

Best of all, it is really easy to use, and having used all 4 services compared below, I can confidently say that join.me has become my preferred service.

If you need to share your screen quickly and easily to 1 or 100 people at once, I recommend join.me.

With Webex and GoToMeeting, it has always been a bit of a barrier to get clients who have never used a screen sharing service to get the service running, and on several occasions internal firewalls have completely thwarted these services working.

The thing I really like about join.me is that it is deliberately simple to set up and use – rather than having multiple settings and options, it has worked first time, every time to date.

How the services stack up

Join.me is free for the basic service and up to 250 participants. $29/month gets you a personal URL and unlimited global conference calling, scheduling etc

Webex $49/month VoIP only for this price and just 25 participants

GoToMeeting $49/month gets you just 15 participants with a VoIP/telephone conference

Glance $49.95/month 100 participants and a US conference number only

My experience with join.me is that it is simple to use, not just for the presenter, but also the participants.

I have no affiliation with join.me and I am currently on the 14 day Pro trial, but if the join.me team want to extend my trial or make me an offer on the pro service, I am more than happy to promote and recommend it to my readers and followers 🙂

About 

Based in London, The Actionable Futurist and former Global Managing Partner at IBM, Andrew Grill is a popular and sought-after presenter and comementator on issues around digital disruption, workplace of the future and new technologies such as blockchain. Andrew is a multiple TEDx and International Keynote Speaker.