webex or gotomeeting?

[einreb]

I need to provide a way to do online training/webinar videos over the web. I'll need to archive and edit them after they are done for redistribution.

This will be a paid for attendance training. I can handle prepayment on my end and forward the meeting login information, but integrating that would be the best.

Any suggestions experiences with the above mentioned sites? other suggestions?

-Bernie

[jluetjen]

We use Webex in my company. Two other option I believe are "Readyconference" and Skype. We use Readyconference for teleconferences, but I haven't used their features for sharing Powerpoints. Skype also allows video teleconferencing, but I'm not sure about sharing desktop views.

Regarding WebEx, It works fine, but there aren't access numbers for every country. It is also well integrated in to MS Outlook so that the meeting automatically get scheduled into your and the participants' calenders with all of the dial-in and password details. The two "issues" that I've found to date are these.

1) If you schedule and then update a meeting, the conference information changes. I had a meeting where another participant forwarded the invitation to other people prior to me making a change. The result was not everyone was able to dial-in without some confusion.

2) If I create a meeting with a local customer and one of our factories in Asia, and then physically go to the customer's site for the meeting, it's a real pain to log-in as the administrator if my PC doesn't have web access through the customer's network. If I don't log-in as the administrator, the meeting can't start.

Neither of those may be an issue for you. The good things?

1) The phone connections are generally good, with very little noticeable delay with Asia.
2) If you can't get a phone connection, or chose not to, you can use the microphone/speakers on your PC to connect, or else plug-in a headset. Once again the connection quality is very good. If you have a camera on your PC, you can video conference. This can be a good or a bad thing.
3) Passing presenter status to other participants works well.
4) The control panel highlights who's talking at any given time, even if they have dialed in using a phone. You can also re-label the listings to help to keep track of who is who.

All in all I like the service and have found it useful.

[einreb]

Good info. Part of our target demographic is India and China so i'll need to dig into that a little more.

Can you set up the login keys/codes/links well in advance? the webinars will be a 'product' so i need to be able to send customers the login information ahead of time and then allow only authorized attendees to 'attend'.

also, these will be recorded and resistributed. Looks like both can do it, but I'd be curious as to any feedback on editors and the file format/interface.

thanks again for the feedback. I'll keep doing research, but experience with the app is great to hear about.

[Tim Walsh]

2) If I create a meeting with a local customer and one of our factories in Asia, and then physically go to the customer's site for the meeting, it's a real pain to log-in as the administrator if my PC doesn't have web access through the customer's network. If I don't log-in as the administrator, the meeting can't start.

While we don't have webex here, one of our major software suppliers uses it for support and we have the same sort of issue, only with firewalls, it's a royal pain to try and get a webex going where you can also login to the server that is the subject of the webex. Otherwise it works great for us.

[eskimo]

What about Genesys?

Genesys Conferencing
They're global too.