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API Customer Success Story: TechChange

By on July 29, 2013 in Screenleap

We love to hear all the amazing ways that companies and organizations are making use of the Screenleap API. We highlight TechChange today in the first of our API Success Story series.

techchangeTechChange is a Washington, DC-based organization that provides technology training to humanitarian aid and international development workers. Their interactive e-learning platform has been used by more than 600 students from more than 70 countries. Through their courses, students have learned how to use technology to foster collaboration, transform conflicts, fight diseases, monitor elections, distribute food, and more. Their story has been featured in The Economist.

We got the opportunity to catch up with TechChange’s CTO, William Chester, to discuss the company and how they are using Screenleap to extend the real-time capabilities of their online learning platform.

Can you tell us a little about yourself and your role at TechChange?

As CTO of TechChange, I am responsible for development of the online learning platform. I took a somewhat circuitous route to this position. I’ve always been fascinated by computers and technology: I had the good fortune of having an older brother who would take apart all the electronics we had at home. I’d need to put it back together again in order to use it and I learned a lot about how things worked in the process. After studying International Relations and Chinese as an undergrad, I spent two years working at a foundation in China. I then moved back to DC and joined the TechChange team, where I draw on both my background in technology and my experience in international development.

Why did TechChange decide to build its own e-learning platform?

We researched the existing online learning platforms, but didn’t find any that met our needs. We saw an opportunity to create an online learning platform that was more engaging, social, and interactive, so we decided to build it. Our current platform puts a strong emphasis on live engagement with subject matter experts, practitioners, and other course participants.

How did you learn about Screenleap?

We initially used an alternative solution for screen sharing but found their Flash-based technology and lack of deep integration and customization a major frustration for our experts and participants. We began an exhaustive search for an alternative and found Screenleap. We were immediately drawn to Screenleap’s API integration and HTML5 technology stack.

Why did you decide to integrate with the Screenleap API?

Our former screen sharing solution required no less than six steps for a presenter to launch a screen share. This was often cumbersome, confusing, and frustrating. Even when it did work, it relied on Flash, which we found to be buggy, resource intensive, and generally unreliable. We use Screenleap’s API to implement a one-step solution that integrates seamlessly with our existing architecture. Using the powerful API, we have much greater control of our screen shares. The fact that Screenleap is built on HTML5 technologies and does not rely on Flash has greatly increased the flexibility and reliability of our system.

In addition, Screenleap’s support has been outstanding from the very beginning. We’ve always received prompt, detailed, and informative responses to all of our inquiries. For all of these reasons we are thrilled to be using the Screenleap API in our platform.

What are you doing with your Screenleap integration? What problems are you solving with the API?

Incorporating global guest expert presentations into our courses is integral to our learning model. Because we draw on participants and experts from all over the world, we need a flexible solution that allows presenters to engage with our diverse user base in real-time. In a typical course we will invite 5-15 speakers to present to our participants about specific topics we’re covering in a course. Participants can follow along and ask questions via text chat or audio/video.

The power of Screenleap is allowing technology experts to seamlessly demo their projects, tools, and platforms for a global audience. We also set up virtual office hours where course participants can drop by and view interactive demos from TechChange staff about how to use the latest tech tools for development. The ability to demonstrate these tools and approaches using Screenleap has been an invaluable addition to our platform and the learning outcomes of our participants.

Doing something interesting with the API? Share your story with us and get profiled on our site.

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Screenleap Screenshots: The Fastest Way To Take, Mark Up, And Share Screenshots

By on March 21, 2013 in Screenleap

We launched our all-in-one browser extension last month that allows you to take screenshots and to screen share your browser window from one tool. This month, we would like to delve deeper into the screenshots feature.

Screenshots is the easiest way to take screenshots of web pages, mark them up, and share them with others. Even though we are big fans of screen sharing, we realize that it might not always be the best way to share the contents of your screen. For interactions where immediate feedback is not necessary, you can now use Screenshots to easily take screenshots and share them with others.

Take And Share Screenshots With Fewer Steps

At Screenleap, we love to remove unnecessary steps from processes. Having tackled screen sharing, we also wanted to streamline the process of taking and sharing screenshots. Despite being something that people do frequently, taking and sharing screenshots today still requires far too many steps:

  1. Take a screenshot using a utility found on your computer.
  2. Save the screenshot to your hard drive.
  3. Find the screenshot on your computer.
  4. Open the screenshot in a image-editing tool.
  5. Mark up the screenshot.
  6. Save the screenshot back to your hard drive.
  7. Attach the screenshot to an email.
  8. Send the email to the other person.

That’s a lot of steps—especially if you have to do it more than once. Using Screenshots, you can do the above in fewer steps using a single tool:

  1. Take a screenshot.
  2. Mark it up using the built-in editor.
  3. Share it via email, Facebook, Twitter, or to your Screenleap public/group feed.

Markl Up Screenshot

Share Publicly Or With A Group

A feature of Screenshots that distinguishes it from other screen capture tools is our support for public and group sharing. When you take screenshots, they are automatically saved to your personal feed, which only you can access.

You can publish the screenshots that you want to share to a public feed that anyone can access or to a group feed that only people you invite can access. You can use group feeds to share information with your team, perform group research, get design feedback, and to report bugs.

Install Screenshots

Screenshots is available as a browser extension on Chrome and Firefox. We will be releasing a Safari version as soon as a Safari bug is fixed by Apple. You can install the extension by going to the Screenshots installation page. Once installed, you will be able to quickly take and share screenshots of web pages without leaving your browser. There’s no need to remember keyboard shortcuts or launch a separate screen capture app.

We would love to hear how you are making use of Screenshots and how we can make it work better for you so please share them with us!

Happy Screenleaping!
The Screenleap Team

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Add Screen Sharing To Your Site With the Screenleap API

By on September 19, 2012 in Screenleap

At Screenleap, we pride ourselves on making it free and easy to share your screen in seconds. No installation is required to view, so your viewers are literally a single click away from seeing your screen. And with the release of our Gmail extension this summer, you can start a screen share without leaving your inbox.

Introducing the Screen Sharing API

We’re excited to announce that you can now add screen sharing to your own applications using our new screen-sharing-as-a-service API. True to our mission of making screen-sharing easy and affordable for everyone, the API is competitively priced. We offer all developers 5 free hours of screen sharing each month, and charge just 1¢/min after that — that’s less than $1 per hour, no matter how many viewers you have.

Getting up and running with Screenleap is a breeze. The API Overview will walk you through the process of creating your own account and adding screen sharing to your site. You can have a basic implementation running in a matter of minutes. Screenleap’s API can be white-labeled and we will be releasing additional customization options soon.

Check out some cool usage of the Screenleap API from our pilot:

Procore‘s cloud-based construction project management software is used on thousands of projects around the globe. Procore provides seamless collaboration among large, diverse teams, from office managers to architects to on-site construction managers, and everyone in between. The Screenleap API facilitates even faster collaboration by effectively integrating screen sharing into Procore’s cloud-based construction software application. Procore takes pride in listening to its clients: they asked for faster collaboration and that is exactly what the Screenleap API integration achieves.

Using the Screenleap API will give us a significant competitive advantage.

LiveNinja is an online platform that enables experts – in just about anything – to offer consultation through live video chat. Often, the most effective way to teach others is to demonstrate with tools from your own computer. With the Screenleap API, LiveNinja was able to quickly integrate screen sharing into their site, so their ninjas will soon be able to bring their consulting to a whole new level.

The screenleap implementation works exceptionally well!

Medi-Tec creates medical software solutions, and they pride themselves on quality customer support. They integrated screen sharing through the Screenleap API in order to better support customers. They can now instantly demonstrate solutions or have customers demonstrate support issues, all through their existing website.

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