Web conferencing-which one is right for you?

Posted by Darrell Hyatt on April 15, 2009

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:58 — 4.1MB)

Welcome to the enabling abilities to appear podcast, my name this Darrell Hyatt.  There’s been a lot of talk and discussion recently about social media and how it assists both entrepreneurs and clients to build relationships and maintain a connection with one another.

I want to talk about some of the tools that I use in my business to assist me with that connection, creating a relationship with individuals.  If you listen to my previous podcast I talked about two programs one was Skype www.skype.com which is a communication program the other one that I talk about was the Mikogo  www.mikogo.com which works in conjunction with Skype.

While I thought there is so much more to the topic of what’s called Web conferencing and essentially that’s a tool that many of us use to work with our clients to assist them where we can actually, not only talk to them but see what is on their computer screen or show them what’s on our computer screen for example it may be a website that were talking about.

Some of the features that you may want to look for in a web conferencing application which in my mind a simple way of looking at this is “give me the tools that will allow me to communicate with either another person or a group of people at the same time without limitation or restriction to what information I present to them, and give them away to communicate back to me so that we have a true two-way communication.”

Here are some of the key tools that I look for in applications that I want to use, number one because I’m a computer trainer I want the screen sharing so that both of us can see what’s on the other person’s computer screen in real time.  I also want to be able to switch presenters so that I’m not always the one presenting the material on my screen.

Remote control can be very useful this allows me to take over someone’s keyboard and mouse, it allows me to perform operations on their computer from my keyboard and mouse not everyone needs this sort of functionality depending on what you’re doing.

Another nice feature is having the ability to do file transfers.  If I want to send someone a document or file that I’ve created and I want them to have access to it, rather than sending it through e-mail for example if it tends to be larger file I can send it through the file transfer of my web conferencing application.

Another nice feature is to be able to record the meeting and play it back for future reference and I can send it to the individual so they can have an archived copy of it.  One of the things you may want to look at here is if only the presenters audio is recorded, or whether the presenters audio plus the participants audio is recorded along with the presenters screen.

Most web conferencing applications now will come with a white board which will allow everyone to draw on the whiteboard and present their ideas and your able come up with a final drawing or diagram based on everyone’s input.

This is all wonderful in terms of the things that we can do but there is also the consideration of a cost factor? and this is where if you are a Skype user already there are several applications that will work with Skype and as I said earlier, Mikogo is one of those such applications, another one is called Yugma www.yugma.com that is  also a integrated Skype application.

Now with Yugma you can have up to 20 people for free with the integration of Skype and they do have options to increase that to 50,100 or 500 people but those are not integrated with Skype.

Another application that does this is one called DimDim www.dimdim.com it’s not integrated with Skype but it does have VoIP which is voice over Internet protocol capability which means you’re not paying long distance charges for connecting with the service or neither are your participants, and again with DimDim you can have up to 20 people.  With the Mikogo you are limited to 10 people and based on your needs 10 may be sufficient 20 may be fine or you may need more.

I will put the links to all three of these applications in the transcript for this podcast and if this type of service interests you I recommend checking out all three of these services to see which one will best suit your individual needs.

If you have any comments, concerns or questions please feel free to e-mail me at darrellh@enablingabilities.com also you can visit my website www.enablingabilities.com for information about all the services that we can assist you with.  Thank you very much.