Webinar software advice?

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

As much as I despise the (non)word "webinar," my employer is looking to host one and I'm in charge of picking the right software. I've looked at GoToWebinar, Adobe Pro Connect and WebEx. The first two have fairly comprehensive info on their respective sites, but WebEx's site is pretty vague as far as actual capabilities go.

I don't think this thing is going to be very elaborate. Just looking for something that has one-way audio, PPT compatibility, some sort of chat interface, and recordability would be nice too, if we want to put it up on our website afterwards. I'd say we're looking at 200-300 "attendees" max.

Any of you guys used the ones I mentioned above? Any other ones I should check out? Any advice is appreciated...

[ElTaco]

I can't say that I have experience in putting on a webinar but have worked with meeting software. As far as features go, most will have very similar features, such as desktop and application sharing, whiteboard features, voice or phone/dialin, etc..

I've personally have used WebEX, Livemeeting.com and a variety of logmein/goto___ tools and all seem to work fairly well. As I said, in general, we usually use a conference bridge for audio functionality because they are better then any built in audio. In particular I can tell you that we have done a variety of webinar/large meetings over livemeeting, which has a chat feature, they offer a conference bridge and they can do application sharing for educational/demo purposes. Our company records a majority of these sessions and publishes them on our internal site for after the fact. Of course you do not have to use the conference bridge that any of these guys offer. Most phone companies and lots of other companies offer conference bridging. The nice thing is that it allows anyone to ask questions and the person in charge can mute everyone or open up the conference to questions. Of course you can use the chat feature to ask questions as well, but still have the conference bridge for some basic discussion for smaller groups. Not sure how well it would work with 200 to 300 people.

I would say, and you are already on this path, but if you are intending this to be a one time/rare thing, I would definitely just use one of th big companies. By using a conference bridge, I think you'll save headaches during the demo but it will cost a bit more. Most of these guys can supply you with a conference bridge or you can shop around for that from another company. If you intend to use it as a regular demo/conference/sales platform, you have multiple options. My company for example just uses Livemeeting as our webmeeting software. We pay a base fee, which covers a certain amount of meetings per month up to a certain amount of participants. Anything over costs extra money.

Good luck!

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

Thanks man. I will check out LiveMeeting and also look into the conference bridge idea.

[PSUFAN]

I've used gotomeeting.com quite a bit in the last two years...and thought it was excellent. I don't know what the pricing is like...

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

GoToWebinar (which is GoToMeeting's webinar software) is $99/month with a 30-day free trial. By comparison, WebEx and Adobe are quoting me four figures for a one-time webinar. The latter two have a few additional features, are more Mac compatible, and their support staff will basically run the whole thing for you. They'll also send out email invites and a bunch of other perks, but goddamn, that's a huge price difference. GTW is a lot more do-it-yourself oriented. Ultimately, it's not my money, but it if was, I'd go with GTW in a heartbeat.

[Mister Bushice]

I've used GotoMeeting and it was easy to set up and it worked very well, and we got the 30 day trial, which was a nice option. Switching who was the primary controller was a snap, and the learning curve was very very low.


I don't have a lot of use for that type of meeting set up but the next time I do, I'll use Gotomeeting for sure.

[PSUFAN]

I think Ceiling Wags approves.

[Mister Bushice]

Well, that's how they make it work ya know. :)