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What video conferencing options are available for small teams - 10-12 people or less?
People ask me about this quite often and I don't know what the best options for very small companies with smaller checkbooks who want to do video conferences a few times a month with only a dozen or less (even 3-5) attendees. Ideally, everyone would be able to use their pc-based webcam.
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7 Answers
Hi Lori,
Skype (http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/allfeatures/video-call/) is always a solid option for free 1 on 1 video chat/conference, and they offer more features for a monthly fee. I haven't heard any anecdotal feedback but Tokbox (http://me.tokbox.com/) offers a free video chat service, a video meeting service for $12.99/month, and a video conference service (for larger audiences) for $39.99/month. One vendor I have heard quite a bit of positive feedback on is iLinc (http://www.ilinc.com/). I haven't seen the interface but I'm told it looks similar to the Skype dashboard, and shows a video stream for each attendee in the meeting. It has a cool feature that lets you calculate the money saved on travel & emissions, and integrates with Salesforce.com CRM systems. Yugma (https://www.yugma.com/) is another conferencing tool I've heard good things about (free for 1-1 meetings, integrates with Skype, toll-free dial-in for attendees, etc) that looks to have a video enabled tool in the works according to it's website. Hope this helps!
You have some good answers here, Lori. I'm not going name specific providers, but I've come across all kinds in my research. That said, am glad to see Yugma mentioned, and they're a good example of a PC-based conferencing application. Some are free, some are low cost, and some are too costly for SMBs to justify using.
For your scenario, you should be fine with free options, but in time, I'm sure you'll move up to more regular usage, as well as usage with key customers. In that case, you may be better off with a paid service, as they'll be more accountable to you for problems or support to ensure you get the best experience possible.
Also, if you have a lot of remote users, you should know that some apps are totally web-based and on-demand, where you don't need any downloads - but others require a program on your PC. The former is probably better if you do a lot of ad hoc conferencing. The more remote users you have, however, the more challenges you'll have managing a solution that requires downloads. Just a thought.
Check out VSee at http://www.vsee.com
no-frills video collaboration software. all you need is an internet connection, computer and a webcam. one-click screen sharing and drag and drop file transfer. works great over 3G too! :)
HyperMeeting is another option. - http://www.hyperoffice.com/online-meetings-hypermeeting/
join.me is a simple but effective screen sharing service. When combined with Skype audio/video it works well for small groups.
I've started using anymeeting.com. Here's the list of features http://anymeeting.com/Free-Web-Conferencing-Features.aspx. I've not tested them all yet. It does allow the owner to post a profile, which can be public or private. Also integrates "spread the word"-type social media tools. The SMB can create two accounts. One for internal only meetings. One for external meetings, perhaps for marketing purposes. Different profiles for each account.
oovoo is really good and you can have up to three way video conferencing for free.
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