Thoughts on Webinar/GoToMeeting Software?

The concept is pretty neat, the delivery system is still a bit slow (personal experience)  Gaps in instruction or conversation &/or slide show type presentations for me make viewing in live time a bit annoying.  The couple of seminars that I have gotten the taped version were better b/c I could multitask &/or move around the room with out worrying about missing something.  If I wasn't clear on what was discussed I could back up and re-do a section.

For company workshops to keep employees on the same page, it would be cheaper than flying everyone in for a central meeting.  I could see a lender, real estate broker and insurance agent and a home inspector going in together and doing seminars for the public and then each would have the link to share with clients the process. 

How would you implement this for you office?  cw

I've gone to a couple of these with GoToMeeting with Michael "Mr. Internet" Russer with his Online Dominance course.  The overall performance is spotty and varies between flawless and slow/clunky.

Here's my take on webinars, generally: for some things they are great - pure presentation of material is one example.It's very orderly, with a moderator taking questions one at a time and filtering out duplicate questions.

However, when audience participation is a key factor in the process (such as REBar Camp) it really takes away from the energy of the "in-person" experience as well as the free flow of ideas. It is also very easy to get distracted during a webinar (for me). I would also miss the body language, tone, and, of course, the social aspect.  Introverts tend to become more introverted when they aren't even in the same room.  There's no chance to go up to someone after the meeting for one-on-one follow ups or networking or coffee or whatever.

The bottom line for me is that webinars are good for simply pushing out pre-packaged, pre-designed infomration but not so good if you want lively interaction.

Hi Cheryl J: My CPA uses GoToMeeting to access my Quick Books software.  It is so COOL!  I don't even know what all you can do with it, but it was very user friendly for that application.

Cheryl - I used to use Microsoft NetMeeting all the time at the last company I worked for. We found it very acceptable. I have not tried GoToMeeting. I do have Meeting Space here on my Vista machine but have not tried it. It is free.

Hi Cheryl, 

I have been using vyew.com for the last couple months with great success.  It's free to sign up and use (for smaller groups), there's no software install and I have found that users and guests like the ease of use.  

I wrote a little blurb about it in my Real Estate Tech Blog

Thanks,

Matt

Yeah, I used GoToMeeting for a while myself, but now I'm a huge fan of RHUB's service. It's dependable, easy to use and it's secure b/c its appliance works from behind my firewall.