In today’s technologically advanced business environment, it is critical to stay current on tools and practices that can simplify life and increase your productivity. Over the past four to six years, video conferencing tools have become readily available online, all that is needed is a web cam, microphone and internet connection. Video conferencing sites allow companies and freelancers to not only communicate with potential clients & customers via web meetings, but to converse with off-site employees and now even share presentations and collaborate online in real-time. Video conferencing sites can decrease overhead by eliminating expensive travel expenses, but until now many of the top video conferencing sites have come at the expense of a premium monthly price.

We wanted to save you time by breaking down the top three free video conferencing tools.  It  is rumored that Google will be releasing a muti-user video conferencing app in the next six to twelve months, which will certainly be an industry changer – so keep an eye out in Google Labs for the beta version. Lastly, it is important to note that we left off the two “industry leaders” of video conferencing – ooVoo and Skype because they only offer Free Trials of their business versions. ooVoo does allow unlimited and free 2-way audio & video conferences (with other ooVoo users), but requires an upgrade (starting at $39.95/month), for 6-way video conferencing, desktop sharing, recording options, as well as the ability to send files.  Skype is also free for 2-way audio & video conferences (with other Skype users), however there is per minute or per month plans for conference calling and connections with non-Skype users.

Free Video Conferencing Apps

Dimdim

Dimdim Free, provides a simple and clean user interface which allows you to host a basic video conference meeting or webinar with up to 20 participants! In the free video conferencing version, there are four main features – Computer Screen, Whiteboard, Documents and Web Pages. Computer Screen allows you to share what your are doing on your computer screen with the other video conferencing members, but it does require you to install the Screen Caster plug-in. Whiteboard allows the members of the web conference to take notes and collaborate in real-time during the video conference. Use the Documents feature and you can instantly make a presentation, in the following supported file types; .PPT, .PPTX, and .PDF. Finally the Web Pages feature gives video conference members the ability to co-browse an embedded browser, which is shared across the video conference.

The members of the Dimdim’s free video conference can; view the presentation in full screen mode or web meeting mode, record and save the presentation (excluding the whiteboard & co-browsing features), and provides a chat board to quickly ask a question or communicate without interrupting the moderator.  Paid versions of Dimdim allow you to host meetings with up to 1,000 people, as well as provide advanced collaborative and webinar tools. Try it now by visiting Dimdim.com.

Vyew

The Vyew Free package gives businesses the opportunity to host unlimited meetings with up to 10 participants in a SSL secured setting. In order to use Vyew Free, you will first need to download their free software. Vyew Free’s video conferencing also allows members to share presentations & documents (office documents, .PDF, image files, flash movies, audio files are all compatible), easily import desktop screen shots and collaborate on whiteboards in real-time with the use of Vyew Books. The free version allows a user to create up to 20 Vyew Books which can be saved for different presentations, for example a video conference with a client versus one with a tele-commuting employee.  Vyew Free provides many of the popular video conferencing features such as; a simple Invite People button so that you can easily add members via e-mail invitations, live text chat, advanced video conference control settings (restrict who can do what during the meeting), and finally drawing & commenting tools which provide the ability to quickly mark-up documents or take notes.

The one draw back is that Vyew Free is supported by advertisers, so you do need to tolerate third party banner ads in order to take advantage of this free video conferencing app. Paid accounts start for as little as $6.95/month which provide numerous expanded features and upgrades. Try it now by visiting Vyew.com.

TokBox

After you sign-up (which takes less than a minute), you are re-directed to your user dashboard. TokBox.com has the feel of  a web 2.0, social networking user interface, and provides clear calls-to-action which explains how to get the most from the site. It is easy to add contacts by inviting them to join you on TokBox.com through e-mail and popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Easily integrate instant messaging and chat services such as; AIM, GTalk, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger.

Easily host video conferences with up to 20 participants, however to use TokBox as an effective free video conferencing tool or webinar in a business setting, requires  you need to be a little creative. To share and collaborate on presentations or documents, you need to first upload them to other popular social networking sites;  SlideShare for presentations, and EtherPad for real-time document collaborating. A similar feature allows video conferencing members to share videos from YouTube, pictures from Flickr and gives you the ability to invite others to the video conference from social networking sites, via email or by directly sharing the link with them. Unlike Dimdim Free, you cannot record and save TokBox video conference sessions.

TokBox.com also allows you to create video messages (up to ten minutes), which can easily be shared with their integrated e-mail clients (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL and MSN), as well as share it through Facebook or Twitter.  One non-business feature provides user the ability to create video greeting cards which can again be shared through e-mail or popular social networking sites. Try it now by visiting TokBox.com.

Tags: web conferencing

Categories: Technology