If you think screen sharing has already been mastered by the likes of WebEx and GoToMeeting, you probably haven’t tried Screenhero yet. ScreenHero, which launched earlier this year out of Y Combinator, is an app that turns any Mac or PC into a completely collaborative environment — a place where two people can not just share a screen, but also work together on it with their own mouse cursors in real-time.
It’s a great concept, especially for software engineers and designers — indeed, ScreenHero co-founder and CEO J Sherwani says that they have been the earliest adopters of the app in its beta form. But ScreenHero has debuted new updated version of its app for Mac (a new Windows version is on the way) that could help push its popularity further into the mainstream.
Sherwani stopped by TechCrunch HQ this week to give us a firsthand look at the updated Screenhero, and you can see that in the video embedded above.
The biggest overall difference in the new Screenhero is that it’s much more responsive — that’s because its been rebuilt to use H264 rather than its original VP8. The app also now includes voice chat, which was a highly-requested feature (it helps to be able to talk to someone that you’re sharing a mouse with, and now people won’t have to set up a separate call to do so.) The UI has gotten a facelift, as well.
Right now, Screenhero is still free since it’s in beta mode. Eventually, Sherwani says it will offer professional pricing plans for a yet-to-be determined cost.
In general, Screenhero is an app that seems to fit more with the modern way of working than legacy screen sharing apps. By default, Screenhero lets both people take control of the display — it’s built to facilitate a real conversation between equals, not a lecture from on high. It’s a solid philosophy that should appeal to how people want to do business today. It will be exciting to see how Screenhero grows from here.