What Is Web Conferencing?

Web conferencing is a wonderful way to use the internet to relay information. It’s convenient and a great time and money saver for all parties involved. One of the predominate methods of sharing information in a business setting has always been the conference. While this usually means a bunch of people getting together in a large room, technology has now expanded this option to include people from different geographic locations meeting on the web. Web conferencing has applications not only in business, but also for families and friends that are located in different places but still want to “get together”.

Adding a conference call service to your companies list of tools might seem like a frivolous expense, but the benefits of web conferencing are sure to outweigh the costs. Now you can meet with colleagues who are miles away without having to travel by car or plane.

A web conference lets you share information in ways that are quite different than the simple audio conference call. Some of the applications for web conferencing include:

Sharing Files and Applications - On a web conference you can use your “space” to share files or run applications. This is great for technical meetings where you want to get everyone working on the project on the same page or to illustrate a problem or defect.

Sharing Websites or Online Data - You can surf the web to illustrate a point or show the other people in the meeting a new website or perhaps even critique a competitors web site.

Powerpoint Presentations - We all know how much executives love power point presentations and with web conferencing you can still use this standard mode of communicating information.

Text Messaging - Web conferencing has an option where the attendees can text in their messages. This is great for holding a Q&A session after the meeting. People can text in their questions which can be held until the end. This way a Q&A can be done in an orderly manner and everyone can see the questions coming up so they won’t have to duplicate it if they wanted to ask the same thing.

Web conferencing has applications in brainstorming solutions for a customer problem. It works particularly well when you have a team on-site. This way they can conference back to yoru headquarters to get everyone up to speed with visuals of the problem. It’s also a good solution for companies with satellite branches where the staff needs to communicate on a deeper level than just using an audio conference.

A business can find many different offerings for a web conferencing solution. There are different applications targeting different needs as well as different pricing structures. Businesses can expect to find two levels of payment - flat rate and per minute. The flat rate works on a monthly fee which can be $25.00 a month or more. The per minute is a charge per minute per person and can cost up to 50 cents per minute per participant.

Lee Dobbins writes for http://www.conference-call.minding-your-business.com where you can learn more about business conferencing and conference call services.