If you're familiar with GoToMeeting and WebEx you're probably familiar with some of their pain points. Getting booted off of meetings for no apparent reason, long load times, and incompatibility are no unusual for conference attendees, and if you are a subscriber to one of these services you're probably aware of the seemingly high cost for what should be a relatively simple application. All in all, current solutions seem a bit like heavy-weight and expensive solutions of yesterday.

Lightweight and web-based

Dimdim is a new entrant to the online conferencing market and takes a different approach. Dimdim is natively web-based and seems to have more in common with Google and Twitter than heavy enterprise software. The Dimdim application is lightweight, fast, and uncluttered. For me its worked seamlessly on Macs and PCs and on any browser.

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Stable, no spontaneous bootings

I have yet to be booted randomly from a conference on Dimdim, an unfortunate occurrence which is all too common on WebEx. I've attended dozens of meetings on both Macs and PCs, in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome, and the software works as it should.

Free to cheap

You can use Dimdim without even paying, and if you upgrade to a premium subscription (allowing you to host larger conferences) Dimdim is still significantly cheaper than webEx and GoToMeeting. Here are the packages:

• Free: Up to 20 meeting attendees. Free of charge.
• Pro: Up to 50 meeting attendees. Custom branded meetings. API for integration. $25 / month. (member link: discounted Pro subscription coupon)
• Webinar: Up to 100 attendees. Host "events" for up to 1,000 attendees. $75 / month. (member link: discounted Webinar subscription coupon)

Desktop Sharing

Dimdim provides a plug-in which allows you to share your native desktop, similar to how WebEx and GoToMeeting do it. Nothing much to note here, the feature works similarly on all three services from our test.

4-way video and voice conferencing

Dimdim allows you to have 2-way or 4-way video conferencing, and voice conferencing. Video and voice quality is on-par with services like Skype, varying depending on your bandwidth.

All-in-all, you get the sense that the people who created Dimdim are no-nonsense people who focus on just what's important and not much else. Dimdim does just what you need a web conferencing service to do, and doesn't try to cram a lot more in there. And it's fast and cheap.

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