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Cheap Web Conferencing
Are you looking for a way to reduce company expenses on
offsite meetings? Want to utilize the companys 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:

- 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" doesnt 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 doesnt 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.
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