New ways to invite people to join a call

Our quest at TokBox is to be the simplest group video conferencing service on the web. So, over the course of the last few weeks we have been spent a lot of time talking to TokBox users, both new and old, to find out what we could do to make things simpler.  We have already launched some of the things that they suggested and over the course of the next month or so we will be rolling out more.

Today we launched one of the first major changes, which we hope will make it easier to invite people to your call, particularly a group of people. Now, when you start a call by clicking on the “Start a video chat” button, you will see one of two invite screens.

The first screen (click to enlarge the image below) is what you will see if you have added contacts to your TokBox contact list (which we recommend you do).  Simply click on people in your contact list and they will be added to the call.  If there is someone else you want to invite, but they are not in your contact list, you can simply type in their email address.  Click “Invite contacts” and if they are an IM contact it will call them immediately and if they are only an email contact we will send them an email with the link for your call and any message you have added. You can still copy the call URL and send it round, or even post it directly to Twitter and Facebook too by clicking on those icons in the invite screen.

If you don’t have any contacts in your TokBox contact list, you will see a different screen (below).  This simply allows you to add email addresses and once you click “Invite Contacts” we will send them an email with your call URL and any message you have added. As simple as that.

We’re still testing these changes, so not everyone will see them, but if you do see them, we’d love to hear what you think so that we can continue to test and improve.  Send us an email to feedback@tokbox.com or join us this Friday at 11am PST in a Broadcast Video Chat to ask your questions and give us your point of view.  Simply click on this call URL http://www.tokbox.com/Micky/Discuss-changes-to-TokBox

We look forward to chatting with you then.

Micky and the TokBox Team