CrossLoop is a new start-up that lets two people meet online to share their computer screens.
It is handy for those of us who have parents needing instruction on their computers - it lets us help them easily from afar. It’s also a useful tool for training people, for example in how to use software.
Its magic is in its simplicity. Other services do this. Microsoft, for example, offers a service with XP Pro, and there are a couple of geek-popular sites that allow this. But Crossloop makes things easy for the rest of us: First, it is free. Second, anyone can use it, because it figures out how to automatically tunnel through firewalls and other software obstacles.
More than ten thousand people have downloaded the Monterey, Calif. company’s software since it launched this month, says VP of biz development, Mrinal Desai.
Desai took VentureBeat through the demo. I go to Crossloop.com, download the software, and then I get a box on my screen (see image at left). I select the “join” tab, which means I’ll be joining Mrinal on his desktop. I type in the code he gives me (he has to be on the phone to give me the code, which is security step #1), and then he is prompted with question about whether he really wants to let me access his desktop (security step ##2). He accepts, and then I’m on his desktop.
The first thing I did was to go to his email, and threaten to open up the file about his company’s traffic numbers (see screenshot at bottom). He begged me to stop. Then I noticed he was flying out to New York to demo to the WSJ’s Walt Mossberg. Ha! We’ve scooped Mossberg once again. In other words, access to such senstive information means this tool should be used with caution.
Mrinal, in this example, clicked on the “host” tab, because he hosted me. He already had the software downloaded. The “host” tab automatically generated the 12 random digit code. It does so each time the a connection is initiated (security step #3). See image here for what the host status box looks like.
Crossloop wants to make money by adding features down the line. File transfers are an obvious starting point. The trick will be how Crosslink will emerge from “feature” status into a full-fledged company.
The company has raised $650,000 in a seed round. Investors include Jay Lorenzen, a serial entrepreneur and former chief executive of Shop.com. Chief executive is Thomas Rolander, first employee at Digital Research and author of the multi-tasking operating system.
9 Comments
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Startups.in/India said:
“…lets two people meet online to share their computer screens.” !!!
I don’t think Mr. Desai was able to see your desktop, right? So, you are not “sharing” it with him really. Please, correct me if I’m wrong. Also, how well does it work if one of the participants is behind a VPN or not using a dedicated IP?
Definitely a useful application but as you’ve said there already are scores of applications out in the market including the more advanced dimdim and sharemypc, xvnc etc., that lets the host/participants do a lot more. Question would be how sustainable is their business in the long term?
People would definitely use these as long as they are kept free but once they require the users to pay, I’d think most of the users would simply migrate (in droves) to another open source/free application. I think this is a challenge for most of the companies today.
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Matt Marshall said:
That’s right. To share with him, I’d give him my access code, and hit the host tab, so it is one at a time.
I agree, it will be a challenge to make this a stand alone business.
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Joe Wein said:
STARTUPS.IN/India asked:
“Also, how well does it work if one of the participants is behind a VPN or not using a dedicated IP?”That is the major differences to many of the other products you mention as potential competitors - CrossLoop takes care of this transparently. This program is safe to use with anyone you know who owns a computer with some type of broadband connection (DSL, cable, T1), regardless of their technical knowledge.
The vast majority of our customers are behind routers that dynamically translate their local IP address to a global address, which in many cases changes from session to session. It’s not a problem for the user, who doesn’t need to know or understand any of that as we take care of it.
Download and click, that’s all there is to it. You’re welcome to try it out for yourself!
Right now customers from India are our seventh largest group of customers by country (and climbing).
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Startups.in/India said:
Thanks for responding, Joe. I’ll definitely test it out but I noticed it interesting that you mentioned only about users with broadband. Does it mean there is a noticeable performance hit if the users are on dial-up connections which is not uncommon in India? Again, most of the broadband users in India do not have a public IP address and from what you are saying crossloop handles this (and also connections behind firewalls and on VPNs) transparently and very well. That is good to know.
BTW, I understand it is currently not cross-platform compatible(Windows, Unix, Mac etc). I hope it’s in the works along with multi user collab feature.
My closing question :) - Why isn’t there a hosted version? Why force the users to download ?
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Jason Schramm said:
The second link to Crossloop actually goes to Crosslink.net, so you may want to fix that.
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Jack Chawla said:
Looks like their is no business model here. As soon as you start charging, you are competiing with MeetMeNow from WebEx, GoToMeeting, PCNow from WebEx, LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, etc.
Is the company planning to make money via advertisments?
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Stii said:
Crossloop is brilliant! Its by far the easiest to use and the uses are priceless! I love it guys. You are doing a GREAT job!
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Yvonne said:
First of all. I tried it on severall PCs. It worked only on 25% even when they were in the same network. It didn’t work under Windows Vista at all.
Then I don’t get the business model - as Jack wrote: It’s two years to late - there are severall companies doing the same. Also a VNC based tool has to respect the GPL.
To say some good things: The user interface is very simple - but at the moment there are no features at all…
Don’t think this is the next YouTube ;-)
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Ramkumar said:
Cross Loop is really an Interesting Appliction for the one of the important reason.
1. Easy to Download.
2. Simple to Install
3. Interesting to Understand.
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