Free Multi-person Skype Video Conferencing & Chat

Just in case you haven’t noticed, recently I’ve been on a total video conferencing tirade. During this time I have written about a relatively new service (to me anyway) called MeBeam, developed by Ashod Apakian.

MeBeam is a browser-based video conferencing service that uses Flash for video and audio conferencing right from within your browser. The beauty of this approach is that there is nothing download and nothing to install, it just works. One of the great things about MeBeam is that it isn’t just cheap, it’s free!

Ashod contacted me about a new feature he was working on: free multi-person Skype video conferencing. Naturally, I was intrigued. It turns out he has managed to integrate MeBeam with the Skype contact list so that you can easily organise an ad hoc video conference. This fulfills a much-needed functionality that is missing from Skype but comes as standard with alternatives such as SightSpeed.

So how does this work?

• Add MeBeam as a contact in Skype.
• Get your friends to add MeBeam as a contact.
• Right click your new MeBeam contact.
• In the dialog box, add the contacts who you want to participate in your video conference.
• They will all receive a new text message containing the meeting room URL.
• Go to the meeting room.

It really is that easy. I’ve personally tried it a couple of times and was particularly amazed at the quality of video. Give it a go.