Web-based conferencing tools that aren't a ripoff

April 21, 2005 2:16 PM

My company has 37 sites in the US, Canada, and Mexico, and we deliver a lot of training/hold a lot of meetings using Webex. To my mind, Webex is a bloated money-eating hot pile of pig goo. What else do you like?

We're looking at Webmeetpro, Microsoft LiveMeeting, and Glance.net. Meetings/Classes are generally less than 100 logins for less than two hours apiece, and we're already using a VOIP for the audio. Any suggestions?

posted by pomegranate to computers & internet (6 comments total)

We use WebDemo & WebInteractive from Linktivity and love them both. However, our sessions are typically 1-5 connections. No clue how well they do for 100.
posted by paulychamp at 2:45 PM on April 21, 2005

I've had the same WebEX experience. What we do is send along a password protected pdf, give them a password when our meeting starts and refer to page numbers often.

More of a work around, but I've had far less frustration with that then the 45 minutes of trying to get the client to see the WebEX of an hour-long call.
posted by Gucky at 3:02 PM on April 21, 2005

GoToMeeting has become our standard after dumping WebEx. Simple, simple, simple and end-user access has never been a problem. This is not, however, a true classroom tool. There is a whole field of offerings intended to offer live, instructor-led trainings over the Web. These are usually called Learning Content Systems, or Learning Content Management Systems. This would include attendance records, test taking options, archiving, etc. Most are hosted solutions, but the cost can be up there. Centra is but one example. We're looking into buying one of these products, hence, my clarification.
posted by jbradley at 4:38 PM on April 21, 2005

Macromedia Breeze
posted by banished at 4:29 AM on April 22, 2005

I'll second GotoMeeting; A vendor of ours used a program called "I-Linc" prior to using GotoMeeting. They initially used WebEx and it was "stinky."
posted by AllesKlar at 7:33 AM on April 22, 2005

We use WebDemo & WebInteractive from Linktivity and love them both.

Ha! I used to work on WebInteractive, and I was always pissed that WebEx totally took over that market. Glad to see at least someone prefers WD / WI. Obviously I recommend it.
posted by rkent at 5:24 PM on April 25, 2005