You're going to absolutely LOVE this!

In these terrible days of COVID-19, so many are doing their best to stay connected through video. We all know of businesses who are no longer able to operate because of stay-at-home orders. And the huge Zoom security issues are, rightfully so, freaking people out. I have friends who are looking for alternate solutions. ("Teaching a yoga class through WeChat on a mobile phone is awful. Help!") There, there my friend... it will be OK (pats her comfortingly on her back).

BEHOLD valME.io Meet!

Community owners and moderators with sponsor accounts have a new add-on: video conferencing! We've integrated Jitsi's amazing solution and are rather pleased with the results. With a sponsor account, you'll now be able to add a post that includes a video conference. Here's how it works:

1. Using your hard-earned karma which you've moved to your transaction pocket (or grab some here), purchase a sponsor account for any community you own or have moderation privileges to use sponsor account features. (Each owner/moderator must have individual sponsor accounts to setup their own video conferences.)

   

2. Submit a new post as you normally would (with or without a link).

   

3. Add your title, text, images, videos, etc. (or just leave the description blank).

   

4. Choose the community with the sponsor account. Choose yes to add a video meeting.
5. Did you notice the image of a video conference automatically added to your post's content? Although it's not necessary, feel free to resize or move it as you'd like. (Users can always go fullscreen anyway and ignore your settings.) However, don't remove it - the image will be replaced with the video at the scheduled date/time.
6. Complete the meeting information, including the valME.io users to invite. Hint: if you want to see how the actual video call will look, schedule the meeting for right now. On the next page, the video conference will start automatically (for you only). You can then click Edit and change the scheduled date and time.

   

7. Confirm your submission. The users will get an automatic valME message from you with the meeting details. (If they want those messages to come to their e-mail accounts, they can select "Message notification by email (excluding user tags/mentions)?" via their user profile Settings page.)

   

8. If you're planning to invite users who haven't yet participated in a valME Meet video conference, we'd suggest showing them this post (they might want to start at step #7).
9. When it's time for the meeting, just go to the post (make sure you're logged in). If you get disconnected by mistake (e.g., end the call, close the page), just go back to the post (or refresh the page) and you'll be automatically reconnected.
10. If you're planning to join the video call with your mobile, the post's page on your phone browser will prompt you to use the Jitsi web app. (Ideally, you'll want to download it first: https://jitsi.org/downloads/). Once the app is downloaded, just select "Continue to the app." The video will open automatically. (It shouldn't be necessary to set the app's Server URL as meet.valme.io but we'll mention it just in case.)

    

11. After the meeting is over, don't forget to encourage your participants to leave comments on the post and, of course, upvote (or tip) :) After all, that's how we work.

May it help make your lives a bit less stressful. And if you'd like to reduce your current website hosting costs by converting to valME.io, message me directly. I'd be happy to discuss. Enjoy!