4 ms·

Show HN: Club – new video conferencing software with fun and social features

bartoszkuzmicki 6y ago
We developed Club at my company to fulfil the need for a video conferencing software with fun features that can be used for team bonding activities. Think remote game nights, quizzes, escape rooms, just chilling with your colleagues, etc. All current software is made with business meetings in mind and lacks any specific features to elevate a fun team activity and make it more engaging for the users. In addition to the engagement features, Club is also a high quality video conferencing platform, on par with today’s video conferencing tools. This means you will have access to all the features you expect. You can try it for yourself and create your own room: https://withlocals.club/ https://withlocals.club/ You can invite others just by sharing the url after you joined the room. Or you can join my HN room where I will be available to answer any questions and give a short demo (in the coming 1-2 hours): https://withlocals.club/showhn https://withlocals.club/showhn Some of the features:. Fun & engagement: - Chat, including private - Likes, with flying hearts - Raise hand - Applause (with sound effect and confetti) - Crickets, to use to relieve an awkward silence in the room (together with an animation) - Drawing together on a whiteboard while being able to see each other - Writing notes together, while being able to see each other and see what everyone is typing - Polls - Quizzes with highscores - Fireside chat panel view, where selected members are shown bigger to simulate a panel discussion - Countdown timer - Custom backgrounds for the room, e.g. add a fireplace to the fireside chat - Group selfies so that everyone can remember that team bonding experience Social: - Breakout rooms - Share a website to e.g. play a multi-player game or show a Youtube video directly for best quality - Control someone else's Google Slides presentation (one person showing a presentation, another advancing slides) - Random person selector Technology: - 100% web based on both desktop and mobile with mobile being a first class citizen and having access to all features - Mobile friendly, with easy camera switching (front and back) for outdoor activities - Camera zooming if supported by hardware - Screenshare with audio and high framerate (to show videos or animations) - Very high sound quality for music performances - Blurring of own webcam background or replacing it with an image - Avatars for people who prefer not to show their video - Locking a room - Spotlighting one or more people - Big groups capable (50+ attendees) In addition to that, Club also has some unique moderation features (not enabled in the above demo rooms): - Mute all - Stop all video - Kick people from the meeting - Remote camera, microphone and speaker control by moderator (enabling/disabling and switching). - Slack integration that will post to a channel if someone joins the room to e.g. meet for a coffee break - Send one or more persons from the meeting to a specific URL - Create view/single links for integration with OBS or other live streaming software. This will separate video and audio of one person to be able to embed it in an OBS scene. - Webinar mode. One or more persons present, all others are watching, with the ability to Chat and raise hands with the presenters able to give rights to speak. Internally at our company we really like using Club for all our activities and we are planning to launch it commercially. But before we do, I wanted to gather some feedback. So any comments about Club will be greatly appreciated. I will be available to answer any questions in the comments. What I’m looking to answer for myself with this post are questions like these: In what situation would you consider using Club? Will it solve a problem for you? What could make the experience even better?
ryanr23 6y ago
I love the simplicity of it - just click the link and enter a room. Though I think it might help to let people know what the app does as they're entering. Just as I visited the homepage it asked for access to my camera and mic - not sure how comfortable people are going to be with that. Best of luck!
- bartoszkuzmicki 6y ago
  Thanks ryanr23. Yes, some explanation for why they get the popup might help.

We developed Club at my company to fulfil the need for a video conferencing software with fun features that can be used for team bonding activities. Think remote game nights, quizzes, escape rooms, just chilling with your colleagues, etc. All current software is made with business meetings in mind and lacks any specific features to elevate a fun team activity and make it more engaging for the users. In addition to the engagement features, Club is also a high quality video conferencing platform, on par with today’s video conferencing tools. This means you will have access to all the features you expect. You can try it for yourself and create your own room: https://withlocals.club/ https://withlocals.club/ You can invite others just by sharing the url after you joined the room. Or you can join my HN room where I will be available to answer any questions and give a short demo (in the coming 1-2 hours): https://withlocals.club/showhn https://withlocals.club/showhn Some of the features:. Fun & engagement: - Chat, including private - Likes, with flying hearts - Raise hand - Applause (with sound effect and confetti) - Crickets, to use to relieve an awkward silence in the room (together with an animation) - Drawing together on a whiteboard while being able to see each other - Writing notes together, while being able to see each other and see what everyone is typing - Polls - Quizzes with highscores - Fireside chat panel view, where selected members are shown bigger to simulate a panel discussion - Countdown timer - Custom backgrounds for the room, e.g. add a fireplace to the fireside chat - Group selfies so that everyone can remember that team bonding experience Social: - Breakout rooms - Share a website to e.g. play a multi-player game or show a Youtube video directly for best quality - Control someone else's Google Slides presentation (one person showing a presentation, another advancing slides) - Random person selector Technology: - 100% web based on both desktop and mobile with mobile being a first class citizen and having access to all features - Mobile friendly, with easy camera switching (front and back) for outdoor activities - Camera zooming if supported by hardware - Screenshare with audio and high framerate (to show videos or animations) - Very high sound quality for music performances - Blurring of own webcam background or replacing it with an image - Avatars for people who prefer not to show their video - Locking a room - Spotlighting one or more people - Big groups capable (50+ attendees) In addition to that, Club also has some unique moderation features (not enabled in the above demo rooms): - Mute all - Stop all video - Kick people from the meeting - Remote camera, microphone and speaker control by moderator (enabling/disabling and switching). - Slack integration that will post to a channel if someone joins the room to e.g. meet for a coffee break - Send one or more persons from the meeting to a specific URL - Create view/single links for integration with OBS or other live streaming software. This will separate video and audio of one person to be able to embed it in an OBS scene. - Webinar mode. One or more persons present, all others are watching, with the ability to Chat and raise hands with the presenters able to give rights to speak. Internally at our company we really like using Club for all our activities and we are planning to launch it commercially. But before we do, I wanted to gather some feedback. So any comments about Club will be greatly appreciated. I will be available to answer any questions in the comments. What I’m looking to answer for myself with this post are questions like these: In what situation would you consider using Club? Will it solve a problem for you? What could make the experience even better?

ryanr23 6y ago

I love the simplicity of it - just click the link and enter a room. Though I think it might help to let people know what the app does as they're entering. Just as I visited the homepage it asked for access to my camera and mic - not sure how comfortable people are going to be with that. Best of luck!

bartoszkuzmicki 6y ago
Thanks ryanr23. Yes, some explanation for why they get the popup might help.