Skip the plane trip: Web conferencing boom
Online conferencing can slash your travel budget and even goose sales – if you pick the right service. Has your business taken its conferencing virtual? Tell us about it.
From ilona, Jacksonville, FL Where’s the help in evaluation? While the article does a very good job of suggesting conferencing providers, often times there are far more cost effective alternatives to the big conferencing players.
Some critical questions to ask when evaluating a conferencing service provider are:
1. Will I be bound by a long-term contract, or do I have the flexibility to pay as I go?
2. Are there port limitations (i.e. is my call limited to a certain number of participants on each call)?
3. Do I have to make a reservation for each conference call? If so, will I be charged for a minimum number of participants?
4. Is there a cancellation charge, in the event I have to reschedule last minute?
5. Do you own your conferencing equipment and what is your disaster recovery plan in the event of bridge failure?
6. Am I charged anything additional than the per seat or per minute price? Always look for the hidden fees!
Try conferencing for free at RollCall Business Conferencing (www.800rollcall.com). RollCall Business Conferencing offers a great alternative with no contracts, no commitments, and no hidden fees. There’s a special promo on the home page – RollCall’s free trial account and there are also some great tips and articles on this topic at OfficeArrow (www.officearrow.com).
From Alan, Lakewood CO Tried all the Big names, most of them don't offer integrated voice, that is a GREAT feature. DimDim does! I think this article should have mentioned them more! With the big guys, there are also software downloads. What really draws customers is a web page based conference such as DimDim, Persony and a GREAT one called Spreed! I love Spreed, it's one of my favorites and I HIGHLY recommend it! The only problem with Spreed is that it's in Germany, so there's a latency issue with VoIP integration, but it offers a lot if someone would use their software and offer their service in the US.
From Shawn Stenmark, Phoenix, AZ Web conferencing is a great tool. Seems like Citrix GoToMeeting paid for this article though.
From Keith E. Locke AS a Conferencing services provider, we certainly endorse the movement toward the more virtual world of Conferencing. However, we have found that there remains strong reason for "assistance" in both audio and web conferencing, especially for users who wish to present a very professional image, wish to efficiently manage a Conference, and/or wish to maximize the chances of everything working right. Fully automatic systems enable daily users the opportunity to conduct their routine business quite routinely; as users and organizations have other and "high touch" interests, support services and higher levels of functionality are frequently necessary for overall best performance. Sometimes the "helping hand" makes all the difference in successful Conferencing!
From Sylvester Caraway, Brisbane, Queensland Our companies our JPL Media and GigTV in Australia and we've progressed the communications and interactions of several organizations, government, education and businesses in this region with the use of online webcasting, streaming and more. With the low cost and global reach, this broadcasting platform becomes the most viable communication system ever built. It will never replace television broadcasting, but can be used a great alternative to expensive travel.
From Joanna Messing I was reading some of the comments left by other people and I'm going to back up Beth on this issue. I have used GoToMeeting and it even states on their website that they do charge for long distance calls. I now use Yugma and honestly it's almost the same as GoToMeeting as far as teleconferencing goes. They both charge long distance except I like Yugma better as an overall service.
With Yugma you can have a free account or a paid account. Even if you have a paid account it is still significantly lower in cost then GoToMeeting. For a Pro 20 service type which allows me to have 20 attendees in a meeting Yugma charges $14.95 a month, but at GoToMeeting I would have to pay more then three times that amount for the same number of attendees to join my meetings. I would strongly suggest using Yugma.
From Beth Weiss, Indianapolis IN Wow! "GoToMeeting doesn't charge for long distance" That sounds great.
The problem is I just went to their website and it says:
"Our phone conferencing service provides a phone number and a meeting ID that can be dialed by all meeting participants. Participants are then charged their standard long-distance rate for calling this number, just as if they made a regular long-distance call."
Isn't this a hidden fee?
From Dr. Kathleene Derrig-Palumbo My business is MyTherapyNet.com and we brought online conferencing to mental health providers, taking into consideration the specific legal and ethical requirements of their profession. Over the last eight years we worked with regulators, educators, mental health associations and practitioners to help them understand the benefits of meeting online with their clients. Groups that especially benefit are those living in rural areas, people with shame-based issues, people who are too busy to go for office visits and people who have a stigma about going to see a therapist in person. We have found that the clients who use online therapy get to their root issues quicker than they would in person, and they truly benefit from the ease of access and the sense of anonymity that meeting online with a therapist provides.
From Alex Heiphetz, State College, PA Great article. I would add one point though: there are plenty of good examples of using virtual worlds technology (i.e. Second Life, OpenSim). Companies that use them (and there are F100/F500 among those) report success exceeding what could be achieved with web conferencing, especially in training, user support, collaboration, recruiting.
Some of the best Web Conferencing tools are actually not the top name brands. VIA3 from http://www.viack.com lead the list of top vendor recommendations in the Web Conferencing Space (Full report at http://www.webconferencingcouncil.com) – Best vendor recommendations here;