eed of web workers, then you should be very familiar by now with the idea of web conferencing. Being your own boss, working your own hours, deciding on where you’ll work from is great, but there will be times when you need to discuss plans with partners and clients. That’s easy in the traditional business world; you go and meet with the client face to face, have a chat and show him what you’ve been working

on. However, in the new world of remote work, that’s just not going to happen unless you do a bit of traveling.

So what are your options? How can you work remotely with others in your company and your clients? Here are a few basic tools we use on a daily basis.

Email – the killer app of all time, use it for everything from keeping clients informed to reminders.IM – comes in very handy to stay in the loop with events in the office.Softphone – used regularly to make cheap calls to contacts and coworkers.

As I’m sure you will agree, there’s absolutely nothing groundbreaking there. Each tool is great at what it was intended for, but there are times when even a combination of tools fall short or what’s required. If you’ve ever had to do a remote proposal, you’ll know exactly what we mean.

Core Competencies Of The Best Web Conferencing Apps

This is the beauty of web conferencing applications; they are the complete solution for teleworkers. So before you run off, credit card in hard, what should a good web conferencing solution have?

OS agnostic – a web conferencing solution for a company standardized on Windows sounds great, but what if your clients run Linux or Mac OS X? No, the complete tool will be a web conferencing tool for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.Speed – you don’t want to wait on your screen to redraw every time you open a new tab or change to a different workbook. A good web conferencing tool must be fast!Affordable – part of the benefits of using web conferencing is that it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than driving or flying to meet up. But in the world of ridiculously cheap flights, web conferencing needs to be very cheap or businesses may as well send you off to meet face to face.Collaboration – any web conferencing tool worth it’s salt should have drawing and annotation functionality, multiple presenters and smooth screen sharing. If an application can’t do this, then they shouldn’t be on your final list.Communication – you should be able to IM participants, video conference, teleconference and use VoIP to call contacts.

Web Conferencing Services

Here are some of the best conferencing services available now. Some will involve downloading a small Java applet, others are completely web-based and will work right in your browser window. Some are free, others charge a monthly fee. We’re sure that you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Acrobat Connect
Adobe pitch their Connect web conferencing application at professionals and companies as a comprehensive communication solution. When you actually scan down through the list of features supported by Adobe Connect you quickly realize that this is not for small companies, but rather for target oriented corporations with offices and departments located in numerous geographic locations. Some of the more notable features and capabilities in Adobe Connect include branded meeting rooms, multiple presenters, video conferencing, voice, scheduled meetings, recording, remote file storage, web seminar hosting and much more. This is certainly not for small companies, and is priced as such. If you don’t need as much functionality then we would highly recommend WebEx as an alternative.dimdim
This is an example of another Web 2.0 company that doesn’t understand the principle of capitalizing. This particular web conferencing application is browser based and unlike runs on open source code. With dimdim you can share screens, show slides, IM, talk and present documents within the browser window. Unlike many of its competitors dimdim does not require any downloads for web conference attendees. If you want more than the free version you can actually host dimdim on your own server, which is ideal should you be presenting material sensitive material such as company financials or strategy.GoToMeeting
With tight integration with Microsoft Outlook to cover meeting invitations, GoToMeeting covers most of the bases for web conferencing well. GoToMeeting allows presenters to share their screen with web conference attendees as well as share their keyboard. The application is also capable of supporting multiple presenters, which comes in useful when you are attending a meeting with heads of various departments in attendance. Furthermore, web conferences hosted with GoToMeeting may be recorded, saving you the hassle of recording your Skype call. While there is everything needed for a basic web conference in GoToMeeting, it does lack some key features offered by some of the others listed here. For instance, you can’t annotate on a document or page to help put your point across, which in our opinion represents a huge gap in functionality. Integrated VoIP and video conferencing are also absent. However, if you don’t mind not being able to see your attendees or talk to then through GoToMeeting, then give it a try. If, on the other hand, you do need a more fully featured web conferencing application, may we suggest WebEx.Live Meeting
As you would expect from an application made by Microsoft, Live Meeting runs alongside and is integrated with Office and PowerPoint in particular. For companies based around Microsoft Office products, we’d say it’s time to give Live Meeting some concerned thought. It can handle two-way VoIP and PSTN calls, video conferencing, support for many file types (chiefly Office), recording, whiteboard and tools for annotation that can be used during a presentation. Microsoft Live Meeting is quite a good package as far as web conferencing tools go, however we would be reluctant to recommend it over WebEx.Vyew
Vyew is a relative newcomer in the web conferencing sector that requires no software installation because it runs in the browser window using Flash, which can be branded with your company logo and color scheme. You can use Vyew to present and collaborate on just about any type of content, whether that be a Word document, PowerPoint presentation or a JPEG, and use the whiteboard to make comments. Attendees can draw, comment, take screenshots, chat and use teleconferencing to increase the productivity of meetings. However, Vyew can’t do video conferencing or web seminars. What’s the main benefit of Vyew? Price. The basic version that will meet most company’s requirements is free, and you can pay a small amount per month for more power and customization.WebEx
WebEx is a Cisco owned company that has become synonymous with web conferencing around the world. WebEx web conferencing is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, so no matter what platform your business or clients use you’ll be covered. This is an excellent solution when you want to show a design or document to multiple attendees, screen sharing is fast and is accompanied by a suite of communication and collaboration tools. In testing we found setting up WebEx a doddle, audio quality was great as was video. WebEx supports multiple presenters, which is ideal when you have people from different departments making presentations. We particularly liked the ability to invite attendees to call in and join a teleconference. Would we recommend WebEx web conferencing? Absolutely!Yugma
Yugma is an excellent web conferencing application that is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. VoIP isn’t directly integrated into the Yugma platform, but it does integrate with Skype. We found that screen sharing with Yugma was mostly good, but not as responsive as that of WebEx. It offers IM between attendees, multiple presenters and can be used for free for up to 10 attendees. Yugma is a good option if you don’t need to web conference on a regular basis or are looking for a free web conferencing solution.

VoIP-Sol.com Recommends

If you are just looking to share your screen for the occassional online meeting, then we suggest you go for Yugma. If you are an intermediate user and plan on using online meetings to communicate with coworkers and clients, we recommend WebEx. Should you be looking for an enterprise class, fully featured and extensible web conferencing capable of everything from video conferencing to hosted webinars, go for Adobe Connect.