The idea of a web conference is to provide the users involved, with a seamless interactive atmosphere and share data with multiple individuals based at different geo locations. There are many online conferencing solutions in the market today, we will compare are review the three most popular ones DimDim, WebEx and GoToMeeting.

All three services provide a good interface to work on for the potential customers. They allow for an interaction between the concerned individuals by virtue of their product model which enables people to share their desktop workspace, presentations and even make changes to the presentations in full view of the people involved in the conference. They allow registered users to create and invite people to a conference by just including their email addresses. The recipients on their part have to just click on the link provided in the email they receive to join a particular conference. Once a conference is started, the organizer along with the attendees can share files, desktops and even work on a particular document dynamically. The control of the conference can be shifted to one of the attendees, such that they could continue the presentation. With just a click of a button, desktops can be shared and unshared at will.

Here is a closer look on these service providers:

Webex:webex

Webex is a popular tool for web conferencing which has been acquired by CISCO. It can be used for a wide range of purposes such as web meetings, conducting training sessions, for IT  support among others. It also provides various features such as recording of the conferences. Webex provides these services at a cost of $59 per month wherein the client can arrange such net meetings with up to 25 people at a time. The payment plans also involve cheaper annual plans and prepaid plans as well. They also have a “anytime commitment cancel” system which enables users to cancel the services.

GoToMeeting:gotomeeting

GoToMeeting is another popular web conferencing tool. It also provides a secure way to share desktops and workspaces between the organizer and the attendees. Apart from the basic  version, GoToMeeting has more advanced versions which include Webinar services which allows the organizer to conduct Webinar sessions with up to 1,000 attendees. The basic version of GoToMeeting is priced at $49 per month with options to save up to 20% on annual payment schemes.

DimDim:dimdim

DimDim is a popular, open source alternative to WebEx and GoToMeeting. Since DimDim is open source, it is free to use for up to 20 members. DimDim’s impressive list of features  includes the ability to create a whiteboard where ideas can be shared among the attendees. DimDim has an option to buy a Pro version which is priced at $19 per month which enables unlimited meetings and other pro features for up to 50 people. The pro features include Webinar widget which allows the organizer to share meetings over popular third party websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

My Favorite:

Effectively, all three service providers cater to the needs of the customers and provide similar features. Having worked on all, I would say GoToMeeting is the best of the three. The user interface is quite intuitive and there is no learning involved at all. DimDim, is cost effective as compared to the others as it is an open source initiative, you might want to go with it in case of budget constraints. Though DimDim also offers a slick UI but the constraint of putting PPT over their servers before presentation is quite restrictive. As far as WebEx goes, I didn’t really find any point why a small-medium business would go with WebEx when GoToMeeting provides all the features at a comparatively lower price.

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