Of course, before you push your video out to Twitter, you can review your recording and add a description. Sending videos to Twitter is optional, though for a lot of users, this will be the main reason to use Screenr. The integration with Twitter also goes one step further, as you can re-tweet a screencast right from within the application and when you leave a comment, you can also choose to send it to Twitter as an @reply to the author.

Once the recording is finished, you can watch your video on the Screenr site or embed it in a blog post. You can also upload it directly to YouTube, or download it to your desktop for further editing. By default, all the videos on Screenr are public and there are no privacy settings.

The video quality is very high and thanks to the fact that the embedded player comes with an HD mode, these videos also look very good in full-screen mode.

We should also note that Screenr offers a very nice mobile interface for the iPhone, so even Twitter users on a mobile client will be able to watch your videos.

Of course, Screenr goes up against a number of established online tools like ScreenToaster and Jing, one of the most popular desktop tools for taking screenshots and creating screencasts (Update: as our commenters point out below, Screenjelly is also quite similar to Screenr). All of these tools offer a similar range of features, though Screenr stands out because of how incredibly easy it is to record a screencast and share it with your friends on Twitter.

GoView's advantage over its competitors is the sheer simplicity of the service: you press record and that's what it does. After you stop the recording, you are taken to GoView's website, where you can add a title and description to your video. You can also password protect your video and see a preview.

However, unlike other tools like ScreenToaster, or Techsmith's Jing and Camtasia Studio, GoView feels somewhat limited. As far as we can see, you can't even set a keyboard shortcut to start your recordings, and you can't specify a specific area of your screen for your recordings - your only option is to record the whole screen.

GoView does, however, allow you to cut out sections of your recordings later on and let you add titles to your video later on. Sadly, it doesn't allow you to overdub your voice-over recordings after your original recording.

However, just like most other screencasting tools, GoView also gives you the option to download a video file with your presentation, which means that you could edit it in your favorite video editor after the fact.

GoView is free and has Citrix's brand name and infrastructure behind it, but products like Screentoaster or Jing also give you free hosting for your videos and more powerful recording features. In its current iteration, GoView's web service was also often very slow, but that might be due to the high demand just after today's launch. Overall, GoView is a useful product, but it doesn't do anything that others don't do already.

Finally: ScreenToaster Records Audio

One of the major drawbacks of the first version was ScreenToaster's inability to simultaneously record video and audio. To add your soundtrack, you had to go back later and record your voice-over separately. The new version of ScreenToaster has done away with this limitation, while also adding the ability to embed your webcam into your videos.

In addition, the new version now lets you slow down and accelerate your videos, which is great for speed painting videos, for example. You do, however, have to decide on the speed of your video when you start the recording and you can't change it later on.

Next: YouTube Uploads, Flash and AVI Downloads

The developers promise that you will be able to export your videos directly to YouTube very soon (you need to pay for the Pro version of Jing to do this). Once this has been enabled, you will also be able to download your screencasts as Flash and AVI videos. It is not clear if these will be premium features, or if they will be available to all users.

Verdict

With this new version, ScreenToaster is clearly taking on Jing, which just released its paid 'Pro' version last week. Jing, however, is a bit more flexible and offers more than just screencasting.

ScreenToaster, of course, can't rival professional tools like Camtasia or ScreenFlow, but if you are looking for an easy to use screencasting tool to record a quick demo or tutorial, ScreenToaster is definitely a contender for being one of the best and easiest to use tools available.