YuuGuu is a little different than the options outlined above, because it allows you to share your screen via instant messenger (IM). It also supports all of the major IM platforms such as Yahoo, MSN, AIM, GTalk and more. It also doesn’t require anyone (you or the people you share your screen with) to download and install anything, which should save lots of time and could avoid many headaches.

When you launch YuuGuu, it looks just like any other universal IM client, with all your friends listed from different services. However, the nice thing about YuuGuu is that you can share your screen with anyone by just clicking their name and selecting the “Show” option.

They will see something like this on their end:

That’s all there is to it. They click the link to view whatever you’re sharing on your desktop. Nothing to download or install and no emails invitations, no special session code to enter and no accounts to create. Just click and share.

This is what you will see on your end. Notice the pause button which lets you freeze the screensharing if you need to step away, or change something on your desktop and don’t want others to see what you’re doing. There’s also a free dial-in phone number for all sessions, with a unique conference code.

You can add other viewers to the session by clicking the “Add” button. The free version allows you to host up to five viewers at a time. You also have unlimited usage with other YuuGuu members, and up to 100 minutes per month with non-YuuGuu members. Every session includes the free telephone conference room. There are a few premium plans to choose from which allow unlimited usage with people outside of YuuGuu as well as support for teams and corporate environments. The free version is a good way to get your feet wet and see how you like it.

There’s also a feature called “Web Share,” which works the same way but it allows you to invite others who are not in your IM contact list. It generates a unique URL for your screen sharing session that anyone can view as long as they have the special PIN code.

Besides being able to conduct telephone conference calls during your online presentations with the dial-in phone number, you can also take advantage of YuuGuu’s Skype integration. This allows you to avoid long distance charges (in most cases) or save a great deal of expense with Skype’s reduced long distance rates.

I like the concept of conducting screen sharing sessions and presentations via IM; it makes the process so much easier. I also like not forcing anyone to download and install software and that you can also invite those that are not on your IM contact list.

I would like to see the option to see your contacts from other platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. I’d also like to see the ability to create groups so that you can quickly launch sessions for a group of people with a single click.

What do you think of using your IM contact list to initiate online presentations? What other tools do you use for sharing your screen?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Report: The Real-Time Enterprise

There’s no shortage of web-based applications for authoring and publishing presentations (Google Docs, Slideshare) or screen-sharing (Yuuguu) in real time, but Wolverine has chosen to orient its Black Tonic app around a handful of basic principles that differentiate it from existing services:

• Instant “experience sharing,” synchronizing browsers for all those watching a presentation.
• Placing control in the hands of the presenter alone.
• Stripping back the interface to give prominence to the slides’ content, rather than the app itself.

After signing up, presenters’ accounts are provisioned with a custom subdomain, and they can begin to upload their slides as a series of GIF, JPEG or PNG images. Once uploaded, presenters can invite viewers to their presentation simply by issuing them with the unique URL automatically generated by the application; for example, http://webworkerdaily.blacktonic.com/izu2ar9.

The synchronized presentation sessions — powered by the company’s innovative XS technology — work great and require minimal explanation to viewers; they just click and watch. However, despite my fondness for simplicity in application and service design, the stripped-back, minimalist features of Black Tonic’s suggest a great, albeit unfinished service.

Critically, Black Tonic is missing a mechanism to directly import Keynote or Powerpoint slides, or even batch upload slide images; this raises the barrier to entry for new users. Though the XS-powered synchronization works very well, presentations need an additional medium to provide context — such as a conference call or real-time chat. Providing built-in features to set up, for example, a Skype conference call, though reducing simplicity, would provide value to users and even a route to future revenues.

Less crucially, it’s unclear if the generated URLs are permalinks. If so, should a downloadable collection of slides be available alongside privacy controls? And why not also shorten those URLs by default for further flexibility — http://bt.nc/zu2ar9, for example.

Black Tonic shows great promise and it’s worth experimenting with. I suspect that the creators — David Price and Phillipe Blanc — will be adding features rapidly as they learn how users are responding, so do register and give your feedback!

Tried Back Tonic? Let us know what you think of it below.

Related GigaOM Pro Research:

“Report: The Real-Time Enterprise“

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Earlier today, I had a Skype call with James. Initiating a screen-sharing session during the call was as simple as pressing the “share” button and selecting whether to share the whole screen, or just a portion of it. It worked very well; James was able to see every detail on my screen with minimal lag, even though I am in the UK and he’s in Houston. Here’s a screenshot of my desktop he took during the call:

This new version of Skype provides a very easy (and free) way to share a screen with a colleague for collaboration or tech support. Check out James’ post for more detail.

Note: You might need to go to the Skype web site to grab the latest version; clicking “Check for Updates…” didn’t work for me.

Have you tried Skype screen sharing for collaboration? Let us know how it went in the comments.

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Imran: Could you outline the new features announced in the latest edition of Yuuguu?

Anish: This new edition was all about making it really easy for Skype users to instantly screenshare and collaborate in real time with anyone, on any major IM network, not just Skype.

So our unified instant messaging platform has now been extended to include Skype. This means a Skype user can now chat with colleagues on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk and ICQ, all from one client. You can chat one-on-one, or in groups — even across different IM networks.

On top of that, we allow Skype users to instantly screenshare and collaborate in real time with any of those contacts on any IM network. All it takes is one click, and you can have one or more of your contacts join you in viewing your screen in real time, and even share control of your keyboard and mouse to work together. The really cool thing here is that your contacts have nothing to download or install!

We also added the capability for Skype users to easily host web conferences. So if you want to arrange a session to talk your clients through a pitch or give a training webinar, you can now do that with just one click as well.

Imran: Can you tell us a little about the motivation you had for creating Yuuguu and why it’s a valuable tool for web workers?

Anish: We built Yuuguu to solve our own problem. As a company, we all wanted to work from home, rather than all sit in an office. What we found was that it was very difficult to recreate the ad-hoc interactions that happen naturally when you’re all sitting together — things like tapping your neighbor on the shoulder and asking for help, then huddling around your screen to work something out together. It was this that we set out to recreate over the web. Our vision is to make working together remotely as easy as working side-by-side.

Imran: There are a lot of screensharing products available. What’s unique about Yuuguu?

Anish: The key thing is our focus on instant, ad-hoc interactions between people who are remote from each other. We focus a lot on presence, instant messaging, and on allowing our users to leverage their existing contacts lists for real-time collaboration, without those contacts having to download or install anything. Other services focus more on pre-planned webinar-type sessions, which is a completely different problem to the one that we focus on.

Imran: Other than using your existing buddy lists, is Yuuguu also a replacement for regular IM clients?

Anish: Definitely — we developed the technology around our IM platform to make it easier to use in business environments. So while it is as easy to use as a consumer IM service, Yuuguu is an enterprise-grade IM platform. We are big believers in the importance of unified IM as a way to allow collaboration between teams and across organizations.

Imran: Can you tell us more about the future direction of the product and perhaps even the company?

Anish: You can probably guess from what I’ve been saying that we will be extending the IM and real-time communication services we interact with. We also think that the extension of collaboration onto mobile devices is going to be big, so there are some very cool things we are doing there as well…Watch this space!

Have you tried Yuuguu’s new Skype support? Let us know what you think of it in the comments.

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The latest to join the fray is Mikogo, a cross-platform (Windows & OS X) screensharing solution that’s just launched a new Mac edition with a “remote support” feature, which takes the product from a straightforward web conferencing application to a broader service, offering live support and desktop sharing for remote clients and customers.

As well as conferencing and remote support, Mikogo suggest that screensharing is useful for product demonstrations, webcasts and teaching applications. The technology allows for 10 participants in a session, more than enough for all of these scenarios.

Other features include:

• The ability to remotely take control of a user’s mouse and keyboard
• Presentation control can be transferred between participants
• Participants can use customized pointers to draw attention to on-screen elements.
• A PSTN-based voice-conferencing service (like Yuuguu, Mikogo is free to use, but is seeking to monetize through other channels, such as telephony).
• 256-bit encryption between all parties.

The trial edition of the service appears to work well — even between Windows and OS X installations — but, like Yuuguu, the interaction design and user experience could do with some polish. I’m surprised that the simplicity of screensharing demonstrated by the likes of Apple’s iChat isn’t more widely emulated. Mikogo isn’t difficult to use, but it could certainly be clearer and easier with some smart design work.

What screensharing apps do you use and why?

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Earlier today the company rounded out its ‘Yuuguu Inside’ strategy by extending its integration of Google Talk buddies to users from AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo’s instant messaging networks, bringing cross-platform and cross-network support to the company’s ‘Yuuniverse’.

With a reach extending into hundreds of millions now, its easier than ever for users of the service to invite participants to a Yuuguu session, though it remains to be seen if removing previous barriers actually makes a difference in adoption of screensharing over face-to-face meetings.

Regardless, Yuuguu remains a useful free tool for web workers and one that now extends a little further.

UPDATE: Yuuguu CEO Anish Kapoor assures me that a bug in the acceptance of .Mac-based AIM screennames will shortly be resolved.

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