The Release We Wanted To Write
(but our lawyers wouldn’t let us)
In what has to be one of the worst kept secrets in history, we just told the world at large about some new, fast and easy screen-sharing product called join.me. I know. Hardly new news, right? Well, consider yourself among the proverbial early adopters. The join.me insiders.
But between us friends, this wasn’t really what we wanted to release. I’m not saying our parents are uptight. The LogMeIn’ers are actually pretty chill. But we like to stick to tradition. So for you insiders, here’s the REAL join.me release. Just do us a favor – don’t show the lawyers.
join.me: So ridiculously fast and simple that you’ll swear it’s not an online meeting product
Oh, and did we tell you it’s free?!
WOBURN, Mass. AND the INTERWEBS, October 21, 2010 – The good folks at LogMeIn are at it again. They’ve decided to give away a perfectly good product that others would have charged a fortune to use. And then they made it so fast and easy to use that the otherwise sane and measured folks in the media have characterized it as ‘ridiculously simple.’ Then, like all proud, loving parents, they reluctantly set it free to makes its own mark on the world.
The product? A quick screen sharing product called join.me so lightweight and, er, ‘ridiculously simple’ that its product marketers argued daily as to whether or not it should even be mentioned in the same breath as kludgy “web conferencing” or “online meeting” products.
When asked what it actually was and how it was intended to be used, a PR flack under the guise of LogMeIn VP of Collaboration, Kevin Bardos, said, “It’s about getting a second or third pair of eyes on that presentation. About getting your people together without getting your people together. It’s the last two words in an invitation to be collaboratively better.”
Asked just what the <expletive deleted> that means, the frazzled guy posing as Bardos responded, “Honestly? I’m just telling you what the creative dude down the hall told me. The reality is people will use it how they wanna use it. That’s kind of the point. Why don’t you just ask them? “
The less-than-well-kept launch comes three months after tens of thousands of people discovered a less-than-hidden beta site – and flooding the join.me inbox with feedback, some of it rather blunt. So what did they say?
“I like it, is it going to be free forever? Or is it only going to be free until its out of beta?”
Yup. Seriously, have you ever met our parents?
“I would request that scheduling be added so that I can send an invitation a week or so in advance.”
Check. We built that.
“Let users have a dedicated screen share number.”
Yup. Built that too.
“Please remove the feet from the homepage. Thanks.”
OK, this one caught us off guard. But we heard you – it’s gone.
Bardos elaborated, “I would have thought the stubbly bald dude in need of a manicure would have caused a bit more of an uproar. But apparently people hate feet…or 1970s rainbow toe socks…or some combination of the two. Either way, we heard you. We killed the socks and built out the rest of the stuff. Are we good? Everyone happy now?”
There’s been some chatter already about join.me this morning in GigaOM and then the New York Times Business Day Technology Blog.
What are you thoughts / feedback on join.me? Are you using the free or pro version? What are your favorite features? Let me know in the comments.
