Best web and phone conferencing for a single host?
June 14, 2017 12:39 PM   Subscribe

I'm a solo practice consultant who needs to buy a subscription to a web conferencing / web presentation service that allows dialing in by phone. Must work at least on Windows and Mac (Linux would be nice too but not required ☹️). Cheaper is good, but works well is more important.
posted by Tehhund to Technology (10 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: I think that Zoom may be what you're needing. I've helped support it in the past in a one-on-one method only, not a one-to-many, but it worked well in a telehealth setting.
posted by deezil at 12:54 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also came to say Zoom. It's what we use in our company (and we use it heavily) and is pretty solid. Individual users are free.
posted by phunniemee at 12:56 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Zoom's free version comes with a dial-in line?
posted by Tehhund at 1:01 PM on June 14, 2017


Join.me is my fav of the many web conference tools I've used. It does come from free dial in conference calling.
posted by COD at 1:06 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I really like join.me, which is the only service I routinely use that works properly on my external monitors (I spend a lot of time squinting at my 13" laptop display and GoToMeeting, my company's official service). I also like that I have a static session url (like http://join.me/notreallymyurl ) and also lets me create scheduled meetings with an access code.

I have a vendor that uses Zoom and it's a freaking nightmare. Kept trying to turn my video camera on, once I accidentally minimized it and couldn't get it open again, the audio was bad. I mean, all of them have their quirks, join.me included, but I've been least frustrated with it versus the others.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:09 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wait, minor clarification: works on my external monitors **and I can afford**. WebEx works fine on all my monitors, but I can't afford it.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:10 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't know what your price point is here, but in my job I end up using pretty much all the available options, and the only one that actually works pretty much every time is the one my company pays for, which is GoToMeeting.

Works on Windows and Macs and mobile (though I don't think you can present from mobile). Don't know about Linux. Each meeting comes with its own audio room, and you can dial into it with a phone or use VOIP.

I have used multiple monitors for years, and never had a problem with GTM. It does seem to have a limitation in that you can only share one of them at a time, though.
posted by uberchet at 1:17 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


UberConference might be another option for you as well, if you're not hosting large numbers of people calling in.
posted by culfinglin at 2:05 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


My gotomeeting issue is a weird DPI glitch mostly on Lenovo w/ Windows 10, but GTMs stink-face response when asked to address it left me irritated, and I would be concerned about any place you might run into funky drivers. Join.me has a DPI issue too, but it's just on one part of the conference menu, so at least I can still put the streaming window up on one of the big monitors.

An issue I have with both join.me and gtm (but not, if I'm remembering correctly, LogMeIn), I just remembered: if you are streamed into a desktop with UAC on, you won't be able to click on any windows running "as Administrator", either by force or by system design. You can, however, stream onto another desktop and then RDP to the system you actually want to work on and all is well.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:40 PM on June 14, 2017


Google Hangouts supports call in by phone now.
posted by jferg at 3:42 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


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