CU-SeeMe

CU-SeeMe is an internet video-conferencing client written by students at Cornell University. It was first developed for the Macintosh in 1992 and later for the Windows platform in 1994. Originally it was video-only with audio added in 1994 for the Macintosh and 1995 for Windows. CU-SeeMe's audio came from Maven, an audio only client developed at the University of Illinois.

Related Topics:
Video-conferencing - Cornell University - Macintosh - Windows - University of Illinois

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The commercial licensing rights were bought by White Pine Software in December 1998 and the product was then released a commercial product. Unfortunately, White Pine Software ignored the original hobby market of CU-SeeMe users and attempted to compete against hardware assisted video-conferencing companies. They were too early for acceptance as audio/video quality was an issue at the time (excessive latency) and thus the product was only useful to hobbyists.

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White Pine Software was subsequently bought by First Virtual Communications and at some point the client was renamed simply CU and was made part of a fee-based video chat service called CUworld. The client evolved further, was renamed "Click To Meet" and became the major offering of First Virtual.

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First Virtual filed for bankruptcy on January 20, 2005 and the assets were acquired by RADvision on March 15, 2005. RADvision continues to offer the product through clicktomeet.com.

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There is still a small but active community of users who continue to use cu-seeme. Although there had been no releases of software from the various incarnations of White Pine since around 2000, there are freeware alternatives available for both Windows and Macintosh platforms. A search of the web will quickly locate the CU-SeeMe "reflectors" that are still operational.

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