WebConferencingTest.com compared five leading Web conference call services: Citrix GoToMeeting, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, WebEx MeetMeNow, Acrobat Connect Professional and Netviewer one2meet. Go here to see the Results Comparison Chart.

In this and in several upcoming posts we will take a closer look at these web conferencing providers. We’ll start with Citrix GoToMeeting. This service gives you access and allows interact with information and attendees in real time.

Survey of Online Meeting Tools says about Citrix GoToMeeting: ‘User-friendly solution with all key functions and transparent costs. Latest version enables Mac users to participate in – though not to organize - meetings.’

So what is good about GoToMeeting?

1. User-friendliness. GoToMeeting is an easy-to-use application. It offers a number of functions (see below) that make meeting arrangement and meeting conducting easy. It offers:

• a meeting calendar,
• Meet Now button,
• it also provides free access of the attendees to your meeting, which means that they do not have to be GoToMeeting members.

2. Large amount of attendees. It allows you to hold unlimited meetings for an unlimited duration with up to 10 attendees per meeting, which means that you can have as many online meetings as you want at no additional cost. Besides, if you want to expand the number of attendees up to 1,000 computers, you can try GoToWebinar.

3. High level of security. GoToMeeting ensures that your confidential meeting information remains private. It offers industry-standard security features, which include:

• a meeting ID for all attendees,
• a meeting ID plus a password for your attendees,
• the Inactivity Time-Out, which automatically stops screen sharing after a specified period of inactivity
• you can share just the application you choose, instead of your entire desktop

Features.

GoToMeeting has a wide range of features, though some useful ones are missing, e.g. that would be great if it allowed to expel attendees after the meeting started and included surveys and participants reporting. But on the whole, GoToMeet offers a full range of features necessary for web conferencing and even more. It allows you to

• Organize an instant meeting with a Meet Now button
• Use a Meeting calendar
• Organize an upcoming meeting
• Invite participants after meeting has started
• Transfer mouse and keyboard control
• Access to desktop and selected applicaions
• Clean screen (wallpapers, panels, etc.)
• Chat
• Instant messaging
• Audio conferencing
• Annotation and drawing tools
• Meeting recording

How much will it cost you?

It will have cost you nothing for the first 30 days, if you sign up for a free trial account which allows you to hold meeting with up to 10 attendees each. If you are satisfied with the service you can subscribe to GoToMeeting either on monthly or annual basis (the latter allows you to save 20%).

Manual basis - $49 per month, which will be $588 per year

Annual - $468 per year, which will mean $39 per month.

For more information visit GoToMeeting official website.

Technorati Tags: web conferencing, online meeting, conference providers, GoToMeeting, telecommunication

What VoIP software do we know? Skype, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger are among the most popular ones. I have already reviewed the Skype application. Now Yahoo has released a new version of its messenger with Voice. Now you can use it not only for PC-to-PC calling, but for reaching traditional and mobile devices.

The PC-to-phone rates are very cheap starting from 1 cent per minute with the maximum rate being that to Diego Garcia (sounds like a name of a person) - $0.95. The minimum price is lower than Skype used to offer ($0.02) and the list of destinations is impressive. You can see the rates here.

So what do you need to get is a PC, a broadband connection, a headset and download Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Before starting using it, you have to buy a prepaid credit (either $10 or $25), which is easy to do online.

So after you have done all that, you are good to go.

Step 1. From the main window, click the gray touch pad icon to bring up your touch tone dial pad and enter the phone number.

Step 2. In the text box next to the dial pad icon, just type in the number.

Step 3. Remember to include the area code when dialing the number.

Step 4. When you are done with talking, you just press the button “End Call.”

You can get a phone-in number for your PC, so that people can call your PC just like it is a regular phone. For it you go to Phone In, select your country and area code and you got it.

Remember to give the number to your friends and relatives and happy call conference.

Internet telephony, VoIP, Yahoo! Messenger, VoIP software, VoIP providers, Voice over Internet Protocol

Technorati Tags: Internet telephony, VoIP, Yahoo! Messenger, VoIP software, VoIP providers, Voice over Internet Protocol