

Hands On With The New And Improved Screenhero (YC W13) - jsherwani
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/26/screenhero-demo-redesign-video/

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davidjgraph
Being following for a while, looks very interesting. Key thing is what the
pricing structure is will be. We've had the Enterprise Teamviewer for some
time, I like it, but I'm very open to finding an alternative, for various
reasons.

I need to test this out, also. I'm wondering how it compares against having
real-time collaboration natively in web applications. From the video it looks
like other cursors are disabled while text editing is in progress, i.e. one at
a time editing. Although, it's not the same as everyone being able to edit
concurrently, having people edit at the same time as you is pretty off-
putting, this looks like it might actually be a better solution in that
regard.

The advantage is, of course, is if it works OK it's a generic solution to
giving all web applications real-time collaboration.

At a technical level I wonder whether it'll be able to properly detect when to
disable the other cursors correctly for applications more complex than text
editing, maybe an API is needed to signal the correct behaviour where the
sharing couldn't realistically work it out for itself.

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dgoodman
The nice thing about having a native client is that we (Screenhero) have full
control over latency (well, outside of network issues of course!) and
responsiveness, as well as those deep hooks into the hardware to make the
multi-mouse magic happen. Our goal is to make /any/ app collaborative, without
requiring developers hook into our API. I am curious what kind of apps you
have in mind that might need to give hints to Screenhero? Give it a try, we
think you'll find our active-cursor algorithm quite good—and if you don't, we
want to hear your feedback!

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jvrossb
Huge huge fan of Screenhero. We use it all the time to help our devs debug
issues. When trying to help someone fix a bug in their code remotely nothing
compares.

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taterbase
We've been loving screenhero. When pair programming many of us can use vim and
tmux but for those developers who use an GUI editor nothing beats sharing the
screen this way.

We've even taken to using it when sitting side by side with laptops to reduce
craning your neck or backseat coding.

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dgoodman
We use it inside the Screenhero office quite a lot too—Aside from eating our
own dogfood, it lets us point without physically jabbing our fingers at the
screen, which is actually pretty powerful!

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jedireza
Screenhero has been a fantastic tool for me to help my parents with their
computers. Simple. Useful. Currently free. I hope there is a pricing structure
that would allow me to pay for it and still be able to help my parents without
requiring them to pay for copies also.

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Jemm
In the video they said they were looking at a monthly subscription model which
would be a deal killer for me.

This trend of getting users on subscription sucks.

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dgoodman
Jemm, speaking for Screenhero, we take your concerns seriously (many certainly
share them), so don't freak out just yet! We're trying to think of the right
pricing scheme that doesn't scare off our individual users, and we are
certainly open to feedback and suggestions on this front.

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taterbase
Does Screenhero perform a peer to peer connection or is there a relay server
in the middle the whole time? I imagine a relay server would necessitate a
subscription to keep the lights on.

~~~
dgoodman
We use a peer-to-peer connection for the streaming video, but most of the rest
is mediated by our servers. And future fancy features will require additional
server resources, including video transcoding. So you are right, this is
exactly why we are pursuing a subscription model.

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ttrashh
We use this working remotely but we use it just as much sitting side by side
in the office. Love this app.

