Here are several excerpts from an informative article by Heather Clancy, a freelance high-tech industry journalist, that appeared in bMighty.com, Cheap, Easy Tools For Productive Online Meetings:
Looking for an easier way to set up a Web conference or share presentations while you’re on the run? You’re not alone. The worldwide market for collaboration services — including audio conferences, Web presentation sessions, and various video meetings — logged its first $1 billion quarter in 2007, according to Wainhouse Research. Wainhouse researchers project that in North America alone, revenue from audio, video, and Web collaboration services will reach $4.4 billion by 2011, a compound annual growth rate of 8%.
One thing that the big players in this market (LiveMeeting, WebEx and GoToMeeting) didn’t expect were the numerous free collaboration services popping up all over the Web, many of which are designed by entrepreneurs fed up with the complexity of existing options.
One example is Yuuguu which lets you easily set up combination conference calls and Web collaboration sessions on the fly by sending someone an invitation through e-mail or IM.
The service is free to participants except for the phone call. Of course, if you use Yuuguu with Skype, you can sidestep those charges, too.
Another application that supports free Web meetings and conferences is Vyew. You can set up an online session to share and annotate pretty much any type of document — all the different Microsoft Office file types, plus video, graphics, Adobe Flash files, and screen captures.
If you’re in a highly visual profession, you’ll appreciate Twiddla, a free whiteboarding service, with an audio function that lets a team mark up graphics, photos, and even Web site designs over the Internet.
Last, but not least, is newcomer Yugma. Like Vyew and Yuuguu, Yugma lets you hold spontaneous conference calls and share documents through a Web browser. But it doesn’t stop there: The software also includes full-blown desktop application sharing, extensive whiteboarding features, and tight Skype integration, so you can use Yugma with anyone on your existing Skype contact list.
