Pros & Cons
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- Free.
- Attractive, clean Web interface.
- Public feed to send your video message to the world, Twitter-style.
- Simple videoconferencing with unlimited participants.
- Video e-mail doesn't require recipients to sign in.
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- No connection with the public telephone network.
- Voice and video don't sync up in conferencing.
TokBox Specs
| Free: | Yes |
| OS Compatibility: | Mac OS |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows Vista |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows XP |
| Type: | Personal |
Video chatting, video e-mail, videoconferencing—free Web-based service TokBox does just about any kind of personal video communication you can imagine. The service has even added a public feed that lets users create a
Sign-up is fast, easy, and less invasive than with many Web services. Assuming you have a reasonably modern computer, decent throughput, and a webcam (we recommend the
Once you've signed up, you can immediately start making video calls, sending video e-mail, and viewing the public feed of all TokBox users' public video posts. You also get a URL to send people: If the recipient clicks on it her browser launches, goes to a TokBox page, and calls you. If she has a webcam, you can video chat, but the service also supports voice-only chat, or combinations of voice-only and voice and video. If you want to customize your profile a bit, you can add a picture.
The TokBox interface resembles a computer desktop space. Windows you can move contain video e-mails, chat boxes, and the buddy list. Clicking on the X in the corner of each window closes it. But, unlike Meebo, TokBox doesn't let you detach these windows from the browser so that they can float independently on your desktop. This would be useful for organizing windows on your actual OS desktop, the way you can with an IM client. The TokBox developers update the service often, and I'm hopeful we'll see this capability in an upcoming release.
By default, your Friend list lives on the right side of your screen, though you can move it around like any other window. Each entry shows the contact's picture and a tiny speech bubble that's green if the contact is available, gray if not. When you click on a name, you'll get a drop-down list from which you can choose to video-call, video e-mail, or IM the contact.—
Communicating with TokBox
You can make a call by simply dragging a name from your Friend list to the call window, which has two side-by-side panes: One shows your image and the other shows that of the person you're calling. When I started making my first call, the little Adobe Flash Player dialog popped up, asking if I wanted to allow access to my camera and microphone. This happens every time you video-communicate, unless you go deep into your Flash settings and tell it to skip the confirmation.
The video quality on my test calls was in the upper midrange of what you'll experience in video chat from providers like
You've Got Video E-Mail!
The video e-mail feature is a good way to make personal contact someone who's not available to talk. The great thing about the TokBox take on video e-mail is that, unlike some providers, TokBox lets your recipients both view and reply to your message without signing up for an account. They simply click the link in an automatically generated e-mail, and the browser launches with your video message. The time limit of 15 minutes should be enough for any message. In fact, it might be overly generous, as a few minutes is more than enough—think about those endless voice mails you sometimes get from your mother.
When a recipient views your message, you can get an e-mail alert, if you want (you will by default). You can also choose to receive e-mail notifications for calls you've missed, reminders about old videos you haven't watched, service updates, and when friends you've invited to join the service do so.
Videoconferencing Without Limits
If the video e-mail feature is decent, TokBox's videoconferencing is truly remarkable—specifically, the fact that the service lets you conference with an unlimited number of participants, free. By comparison,
Most impressively, you can conference without the participants having to download and install any client software. Video quality and voice quality are similar to what you get with video calling, described above, though of course adding more participants will tax your Internet connection bandwidth and can result in less-smooth video.
As is often the case with products that are extremely easy to use, TokBox sacrifices controls in favor of simplicity. For example, the conference initiator can't dismiss participants, and you'll find none of the chat or file-sharing features of more business-oriented, paid services like SightSpeed and Dimdim. Also, as long as one person is still in the videoconference, it remains live—not even the originator can force it to end. Anyone can send the conference link to add more participants.—
Social Networking and Mashups
Want to add people to your TokBox? You have plenty of options. You can, as noted earlier, send your calling URL to anyone, and a Search box lets you find users who haven't unchecked the "Allow users to search me" option (checked by default) in their Account settings. The Find Friends option scours your AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, AIM, and MSN (aka Windows Live) address books for contacts who've already joined TokBox.
Meet New People—an option reminiscent of Skype's SkypeMe mode—lets you check a box saying you're available for others to call, and then, who knows? Maybe the love of your life will ring you. You can also browse the list of other users who have chosen this option—but you can't see that till you've opened yourself up to being called by strangers. Fair's fair, I guess. For some reason, no one answered my calls when I tried this feature—maybe I need to change my thumbnail image?
Finally, TokBox users can view the service's Twitter-like public video feed. This is just a list of posts by any TokBox member who cares to contribute. The latest posts appear on top, and thumbnails in each let you watch a post. As with Twitter, you can also optionally make a feed that's accessible only to your Friends. One way in which the comparison to Twitter isn't apt: The time limit for videos is 15 minutes, here, too. That's a pretty long update.
TokBox seems like an ideal candidate for mashups with social-networking services, and, not surprisingly, it offers Facebook integration. Instead of a full-blown Facebook app, however, it's actually a Firefox add-on for Facebook. This add-on lets you add video calls to Facebook chat. Unlike most TokBox features, this one actually requires you to sign in to an account. The feature works like this: When you want to chat with someone who's online in Facebook, you click on the person's name, and in your chat box you'll then see a TokBox icon at the top of the chat window. Clicking on it enters a URL in the chat area. By clicking on the URL, the recipient gets a TokBox video-chat window within the Facebook page.
The TokBox MySpace widget is simpler, and resembles widgets you can put on most blog services by using TokBox's Embed option. It places a live video feed of your webcam on your page if you've enabled it. For visitors to the blog or MySpace two side-by-side panes appear in the widget, one for your image and one for the viewer's. From this widget they can make a video call to you or leave you a video e-mail.
Another TokBox option is to download the service's software client based on the Adobe AIR runtime. It installs pretty much like any AIR app—don't worry if you don't have the AIR runtime on your system first; the process will prompt you to install it. The only difference from the desktop version is that the Friend list and the video-chat window appear outside the browser, and the client is always on, as you'll see from the icon in your system tray or, if you use a Mac, in your Dock. From the AIR app, you can access video chat and IM, but not video e-mail, feeds, or conferencing.
There are a couple of areas where TokBox falls short of Skype and SightSpeed. It doesn't connect with the public telephone network, and the help it provides is very sparse—really just a few FAQ answers. It could also benefit from more videoconferencing controls and improved syncing between video and audio. TokBox has one big advantage over the better-known videoconferencing services, however: : It can do everything over the Web without an install. In addition, the service delivers good-sounding, good-looking videoconferencing for an unlimited number of participants (as well as video e-mail, a public feed, and social mashups). All this means that TokBox is off to a mighty impressive start.
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Final Thoughts
TokBox
TokBox is a one-stop shop for all your video communication needs. Its desktop-like Web interface is attractive and clear, and the desktop client, based on Adobe AIR, lets you be available to your fellow video chatters without being on the site.