So long, Kaptivo. Make way for ShareTheBoard!

Lately, we’ve seen a lot of changes happening in the world of online collaboration, haven’t we? From the demise of Jamboard to the closure of InVision, the list of fallen comrades seems to keep growing. And now, we mourn the loss of yet another product: Kaptivo. With Kaptivo’s decommissioning at the end of February, its current users are left scrambling to find promising alternatives.

But fret not, because we’ve got your back! In this blog article, we’ll take a quick look at Kaptivo’s features, its role in the online collaboration market, and introduce you to ShareTheBoard, an app that might just be what you need to fill the hole Kaptivo left behind.

And in case you’re wondering, we also have a separate article covering how you can use ShareTheBoard to reanimate Kaptivo. 

For those unfamiliar with Kaptivo, allow us to paint a picture. It was an accessory that could transform an ordinary dry-erase whiteboard into an online collaboration system. To be more precise, it worked as a cloud-connected camera that you could mount above your whiteboard, capturing every stroke of your favorite marker.

Kaptivo found its niche in various settings. It came in handy for educators when they needed to share their classroom content with remote students and was equally useful in hybrid business meetings where team members wanted to collaborate visually on a whiteboard. Its unique approach to online collaboration and distinctive features made Kaptivo stand out from its competition:

• Real-time Image Processing: Kaptivo’s technology seamlessly captured everything written on the whiteboard, removing distortions such as shadows, reflections, and people, delivering crisp and clear images in real-time.
• Content Conversion: Users could convert handwritten text into digital format and share it easily, making collaboration smoother and more efficient.
• History Feature: Tracking the evolution of ideas during meetings was made possible with Kaptivo’s history feature, providing insights into how the whiteboard content evolved over time, simultaneously capturing the person’s thinking process.
• Download and Share: Kaptivo allowed users to download whiteboard content as PDFs, creating multi page presentations for easy sharing as business meeting notes for teams and class scripts for students.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. Kaptivo’s journey reached its end with a final decommissioning of its cloud service on February 29, 2024, following the sale of its intellectual property to Poly Communications. Users received advance notice, prompting them to seek out alternative solutions.

With Kaptivo’s departure into the past, it’s time to focus on the future. Our recommended alternative is, of course, ShareTheBoard. To put it simply, it does everything Kaptivo did and then some, including a few new tricks that just might blow you away.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

First, the similar (but better) functionality

Like Kaptivo, ShareTheBoard transforms your written ideas from your physical whiteboard into digital content, ensuring every word or drawing is legible and saved.

• Real-time image processing: ShareTheBoard can not only deliver crisp, clear, and unobstructed board content the way Kaptivo used to, it also gives you the option of presenting that content overlaid over real-time video. This is critical when you want to deliver that “like-in-person” experience for your remote viewers.
• Content conversion: Check! Anything written on the board can be saved in a variety of digital formats. ShareTheBoard goes one step further, however, and can even interpret that content (read on for more).
• History feature: Double check! ShareTheBoard not only captures your presentation for later review, it intelligently reduces redundant frames, serves them up in an interactive replay, and offers the ability to share securely within your organization.
• Download and share: If a fully interactive replay is not your style, you can download individual frames, or an automatically identified collection of key frames in any number of formats. You can even export saved content into third-party apps.

And, now, for the REALLY IMPRESSIVE bit

ShareTheBoard goes far beyond simply improving upon what Kaptivo used to do. The goal here is not only to allow you to share your whiteboard but to completely bring it into your workflow – even if it’s primarily digital.

• Intelligent Transcription: Let’s start with a good one: ShareTheBoard can actually transcribe your scribbles into digital form. Simply write on that board and all of your text, tables, flowcharts, code, etc. become digital assets. Best of all, they’re captured in the correct (and fully editable) format.
• Instant analysis: Digital transcription not enough? How about instant analysis: ShareTheBoard can actually interpret the contents of your board. This means you can draw conclusions faster, create more meaningful follow-ups, or even additional materials from the contents of your board.
• Use any surface, anywhere: Prefer a blackboard? Flipchart? Piece of paper? No problem – ShareTheBoard works with all of them. Travel? No problem. As a software solution, ShareTheBoard requires no specialized hardware or installation. Your laptop is all you need to get started.
• Tech agnostic: Already invested in a fancy camera? Bring it! Only have a laptop? Also fine. ShareTheBoard will work with any tech you own. Windows? Mac? ChromeOS? All are welcome.
• Ambitious roadmap: Perhaps best of all, ShareTheBoard has its brightest days still ahead. New integrations, new features, new additions – all are on the horizon.

As you may have noticed, we want to make the introduction to ShareTheBoard laughably easy. In fact, you may be able to use your old Kaptivo with ShareTheBoard (or, more accurately, use ShareTheBoard to bring your Kaptivo to life!). Ultimately though, to quickly test out STB, all you need is a browser and any camera connected to a computer. The app is meant to run on laptops and desktops and you can easily access it by following these simple steps:

1. Sign up for your own, free trial account and start a new session.
2. Point your selected camera at the surface you’d like to share. The app will find the surface automatically but you can always adjust the selection manually.
3. Share the session URL with anyone you’d like to share your board with. That will give them a live feed of your board and make it possible to interact with it.

And if you’d like to try the content overlay effect, open your video conferencing solution of choice (Zoom, Meet, etc.) and share the screen to show the tab running ShareTheBoard.

We’ve created ShareTheBoard to be user-friendly, making sure that you won’t need to spend hours learning the app before you can even get started. But, of course, if you want to explore a bit more of STB’s functionalities, we have dedicated how-to videos that are meant to guide you every step of the way.

And, hey, the 7-day free trial allows you to play with ShareTheBoard’s features risk-free, before you make any definitive decisions. Give it a try, and witness the benefits first hand! Better still, reach out to us and we’ll share a free, completely personalized demonstration and answer all of your questions.

In conclusion, as we bid farewell to Kaptivo, we want to encourage you to embrace the innovative spirit of ShareTheBoard.

With ShareTheBoard’s intuitive interface and robust features, the transition from traditional whiteboards to digital sharing is as easy as 1-2-3. So, try STB today and enjoy true hybrid collaboration!