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Web Conferencing


Cheap Web Conferencing

Are you looking for a way to reduce company expenses on offsite meetings? Want to utilize the company’s meeting budget on production instead? Then why not choose cheap web conferencing?

Web conferencing provides an alternative means to conducting important corporate meetings and training seminars. And with more and more businesses wanting to reduce the cost of travel, low cost web conferencing is fast becoming the means to conducting meetings with employees, customers, clients, and partners.

Web conferencing is a time saving, cost effective tool for use in several aspects of business. Whether it is for training, sales presentations, distance learning, or quarterly meetings, web conferencing is good means to reducing corporate costs. Cheap web conferencing allows businesses to meet with key personnel in their many departments situated in different parts of the country or the world without having the leave the relative comfort of the office. Instead of flying to a hotel in a city where the company headquarters are, you can just sit in front of your computer at your desk and attend a virtual meeting via the Internet.

The term “web conferencing” refers to a form of discussion that is conducted online providing you with a way to meet with the staff, discuss new projects, make sales presentations, and exchange real-time communication with business partners, resulting in increased productivity and faster decision-making. Utilizing various media in order to improve communications, web conferencing applications let you take advantage of the benefits of audio, video, and interactive polling and graphical options in order to present information in an organized way that is conducive to learning.

Participants communicate with each other through their computers via one or all of the following: Web Conference

  • Posted text messages (forums, message boards, or bulletins)
  • Instant messages (real-time chat)
  • Video feeds
  • Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
  • File sharing, desktop collaboration, co-browsing, etc.

Because the meeting is virtual, meaning that it is entirely conducted on the web via computer, there is no longer any need to leave the office in order to attend it. Inexpensive web conferencing is quickly replacing face-to-face meetings and businesses are beginning to follow this trend in an effort to reduce travel costs.

Web web conferencing exhibits its advantages not only in meetings but in other aspects of the business as well.

The training of employees for instance can be made easier with the use of low cost web conferencing. Reaching out to colleagues, customers, and clients has been made simpler with the introduction of cheap web conferencing into the market. Using its application or desktop sharing feature, web conferencing allow presenters to walk guests through the operation of any software application, including those that are web-based. Remote features allow presenters to relinquish control to users so they can work remotely within the application which is good since the more hands-on the training is, the more conducive it is to learning. Online training with the aid of cheap web conferencing helps reduce travel costs and optimize productivity.

The reach of your sales team can be extended even as you reduce the cost of travel. Cheap web conferencing offers you that advantage, allowing your sales team to give multiple daily presentations without leaving the office. With the use of PowerPoint presentations, you can unlock a virtual conference room and make your pitch to potential clients online.

Distance learning is also another aspect which economical web conferencing directly affects. With web conferencing, you can reach out to students across the globe using the virtual classroom. PowerPoint options lets you create a lesson plan and import in into the online classroom. You can also utilize the Whiteboard feature of most conferencing tools as a blackboard to display course work.

"Cheap" doesn’t always mean "Affordable"
In theory, web conferencing software is a great money saving concept and allows you to save a bundle on business travel and yet, still keep far-flung clients and employees engaged and up to speed. But the problem with web conferencing software these days is that because it is still a relatively new concept with very little competition, mainstream vendors offer them at steep prices. And sometimes when you do find the cheapest web conferencing package, it generally turns out to have very little features so that it hardly seems worthwhile.

The main industry giants in web conferencing are WebEx, Macromedia, and Microsoft. The software packages they offer have become the standard and several companies rely on these vendors for their web conferencing packages despite the steep prices. But most small businesses cannot afford these expensive solutions.

Affordable Packages
Fortunately, there are several developers of web conferencing software emerging in the market that provide cheap web conferencing software alternatives. And, as the increase in demand has spurred the growth in numbers and the speed with which software is developed and improved, it is now possible for average businesses to afford web conferencing technologies.

Now, not only do you have the industry giants, such as Microsoft, Macromedia, and WebEx dominating the market, but you also have such companies as Hot Conference, offering their own two cents to the more affordable web conferencing solutions.

Compare Hot Conference to these companies

Company
Monthly Fee
Includes
Each Additional User
Setup Fee

Webex

$49.00

10 people

$0.33/user/minute

none

VoxWire

$37.00

10 people

$2.08/person/mo.

none

NetMeeting

$75.00

5 people

$15 per user

none

Convoq

$200.00

25 people

.15/user/minute

none

Ilinc

none

unlimited

.30/user/minute

none

CloudMeeting

none

N/A

$34/user/month

none

WiredRed

$350.00

5 people

$30/user/month

none

RainDance

$399.95

10 people

.50/user/minute

none

OpTecs

$19.50

3 people

$3.90/person

$15.00

BLive

$49.95

10 people

$0.15/user/minute

none

Adobe Connect

$375.00

5 people

$0.32/user/minute

none

GoToWebinar

$99.00

1000 people

N/A

none


Hot Conference


$44.99


Unlimited


None


$14.99


More about Web Conferencing

About Web Conferencing
It should be noted that web conferencing doesn’t just mean a real-time online discussion between individuals on the web. It has come to mean more than that as technology continues to expand.

Audio Web Conferencing
Serving as a powerful tool for company meetings, audio web conferencing is the preferred low cost telecommunication tool preferred by many companies today.

Benefits of a Web Conferencing System
Advances in technology and the Internet have brought about the rapid increase in development of web conferencing systems. So much so that web conferencing systems are fast replacing email lists in disseminating information through the web.

How Web Conferencing Works
During web conferencing, each participant of the meeting sits at his own computer that is connected to others' computers via the Internet. The Internet therefore serves as the matrix by which the whole web conferencing network relies on.

Free VoIP Online Conference Room
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