My non-profit needs a free, cross platform means of conducting online conferences. Most of my board uses PC, but I use a Mac with OS X, but so far, everything I've found is for 10.2 and higher when I am using 10.1 and my G3 won't let me upgrade OS. I'd appreciate a suggestion.

For our internal training classes, we recently started to use ReadyTalk instead of Netspoke (which has not been acquired by Premiere Global). So far I've found ReadyTalk fairly trouble free and the support very good whenever I've had a question.

The Netspoke web conferencing service just had a major redesign and launched Nov 20. No client download is required...so colleagures and anyone outside your office do not require PC admin rights. The new Netspoke is highly cost-effective (aka low price) and supports desktop/application sharing, PPT sharing, multiple presenters, video conferencing, Q&A, polling, chat, recording...but by far the coolest feature is that everyone gets their own "Conferencing Portal" with a unique URL and a site that can be self-branded. Meetings that are designated as public appear on a public page and make it super easy for participants to get into instant and scheduled meetings. Worth a look... http://www.netspoke.com. Netspoke comes pay by the drink for ~$0.15/min or unlimited use (named user) for $39/month/user. That's not bad considering that the average cost for a trip is $1200/person and wastes over 5 hours of completely unproductive time (driving, security, waiting, delays, etc.).

Cheers - Peter (my blog http://www.webconferencinghub.com)

I ask the same question: Cross platform applications between Mac and PC whereby we can share data and maybe voice. Anything available? Is ready talk cross platform?

kefcwwg,

To the best of my knowledge, both ReadyTalk and WebHuddle are platform agnostic, meaning that they should support Windows, Mac and Linux OSs.

WOF,

As far as I can tell, WebHuddle should support all versions of OS X. As least that's what their site leads me to believe.

Hope that helps....

:thinkerg; 07.09.19 noon-ish local •
umm http://www.webex.com is pretty good..been using it since 1995..
Alo'ha
?

I've used mostly webex, however there are new players in the market. www.talkingonthenet.com provides some good analysis of the major vendors.

We currently use LiveMeeting but that's because Microsoft gave it to us. We're hoping to try out Adobe's Acrobat Connect, which is Flash based. I've attended webinars using some of the other products.

Jon Frank
Training Manager
NPower Seattle

We regularly use Glance.net. It is very simple, straightforward and easy for people joining our web conferences to use. It is just a screen sharing tool and doesn't have a lot of the other extra features that other packages have (no shared whiteboard, no video feed, etc.) but that's actually why we like it so much. You can have up to 100 people join in and they don't need to download extra software.

They also have a very easy way to embed the conference in your website. They work on all platforms that we have encountered.

If you just want simple screen sharing over the web, I highly recommend: http://www.glance.net

-Josh Knauer
CEO, Rhiza Labs
http://www.rhizalabs.com

gotomeeting.com, we recently came to know dimdim.com, we might give a try to use it.

If you have experience with dimdim, please post here

dim dim has recently add new features and we are looking forward to trying it

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Hello all!

I just wanted to share my experience with these softwares. Recently we were looking to switch our web conferencing software for a more cost effective system because we had to square off some budget. Someone suggested the web conferencing system from RHUB. It has been a wonderful experience since they provide a four-in-one web conferencing application. We have tried it for so many meeting types and so far so good. Just thought you should add that to your list! J

 The software is available at RHUB http://www.rhubcom.com

I have used DimDim - a couple of cons: the viewing screen is very small and it is slow to load applications.  I'm currently looking for other products.

We are looking for a good one now.   A few key factors are missing from the above article (and spreadsheet), such as # of attendees included in the pricing info, whether ads are displayed to attendees, external publishing of recorded material, custom branding, meeting archive accessibility, and user permission controls to name a few.

I appreciate the spreadheet comparison, but last updated Nov 06??  It is unfortunate that it was so old.  It is my opinion that TechSoup could have updated it with relative ease prior to sending out the recent newsletter.

For those reading, here are two sites comparing free web conferencing tools from January of this year.
http://www.webinarcentral.net/2008/11/webinar-central-blog-guide-to-free-webinar-hosting-sites
http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/2009/01/free-web-conferencing-tools.html

Here is a more thorough list of most companies offering web conferencing solutions:
http://thinkofit.com/webconf/realtime.htm

We still haven't determined which one we will use, and of course, our choice will not be the best choice for you.  So, do you

I also just came across www.freeconferencecall.com.  No video services at all, but free audio conference calling for up to 96 attendees for up to 6 hours!  Not bad!  I'm still looking for the catch...

Good luck!

~Jay