Earlier this year, Rypple opened an office in San Francisco. We’ve used iChat and Skype to keep in touch with our colleagues. After seeing some of the telepresence designed by other startups, we decided to build our own.

We’ve found the video portals to dramatically help team communication, and highly recommend teams working remotely consider a similar setup. We did quite a bit of research before building our video portal, and I want to share some of the things we did.

Hardware

As a predominantly Mac office, we decided to base the Portal around the Mac mini. We also got a Sony 40″ 1080p TV, Apple Keyboard, Magic Mouse, Logitech C910 HD Webcam and Polycom Communicator.

We wanted a sturdy, movable mounting system for the Portals, and found the Ergotron Neo-Flex Mobile MediaCenter to be the best solution. It’s allows the TV to move up and down 20 inches, tilt 20 degrees, and rotate 90 degrees. It’s one of the most well-built stands I’ve seen, and surprisingly moves very easily.

Software

We’ve installed Skype 5 Beta, iChat and Google Talk on all the portals. We set Skype to auto accept incoming calls, and used the Chax Plugin for iChat to support auto accept.

The screen is split between a video chat, and the Rypple feed all the time. All the Thanks posted to Rypple appears on the screen, allowing people passing by to see what’s going on, and who’s been recently recognized. (If your company wants to display their personal Rypple feed on a TV, get in touch with one of our Community Coaches for instructions on how to setup)

Setup Instructions

1. Purchase all the hardware (don’t forget cables – HDMI and USB extenders for the speakerphone and webcam). Wait patiently for all the hardware to arrive.
2. Assemble the stand. This step is a lot of work, probably best for two people to work together on this one.

3. Mount the TV, also a two person job.
4. Run all the wires, make sure to cable tie everything!
5. Setup the Mac Mini. Install Skype, Google Talk, and create accounts.

Final Thoughts

In the feedback I’ve got from my colleagues, everyone’s really been liking the portals so far. It offers more visibility into what the San Francisco team is working on, and helps with communication. We’ve put three of these portals in our Toronto office, and one in San Francisco. In Toronto, we have one in the Conference room, one in the Developer office, and one in the Marketing room. We really think the addition of video to our conference will help with the openness and depth of our meetings.

Please post a comment if you’ve got any questions or suggestions for us!