Successful entrepreneurs reveal unwritten rules, expose new truths, and explode the myths!

I recently began an effort to explore what new web conferencing tools existed, as I realize the landscape has evolved significantly since I began using GoToMeeting over 5 years ago.

Keeping with the 50 Interviews model, I wanted to share what I learned, and ask that if you have anything to add to the topic, please do so below in the comments section. It’s this ability to gather & disseminate collective wisdom that makes the internet so powerful! Instead of one-to-many, it’s many-to-many. I want to simply act as the conduit to help get the data posted clearly and concisely as possible.

Here’s a list of the tools I’m trying to evaluate as quickly as possible:

• Fuze Meeting (tried, failed. Not suitable for screen sharing, VOIP very buggy)
• Mikogo (Free! 10 People Max)
• Cynocast (still in business?)
• Adobe Connect
• Adobe Acrobat Meeting (lower cost alternative to Adobe connect?)
• ReadyTalk (up to 25 users, $49/mo.)
• GoToMeeting (up to 15 users, $49/mo.)
• WebEx (up to 25 users, $49/mo.)
• Oovoo (limited to 6 users, $19.95/mo.
• Microsoft Live Meeting ($4.50/mo.)
• iMeet ($69/mo.)
• Zoho (starts at $12/mo.)
• InstantTeleseminar 2.0 (starts at $47/mo.)
• iWowWe ($9.95 mo/up to ten people)
• AnyMeeting (Free)

Here’s the key criteria I’m using:

• Price
• Max # of attendees
• Ability to record
• Ease of use for attendees

July-2011 Update

The winner?  WebEx.  For ease of use, reliability, and price per user, I’m extremely satisfied.  I really like the fact they gave me my own webex page, which you can check it out at author.webex.com.  Extra kudos to Ryan Person, Webex is lucky to have him. His responsiveness was top notch – even after the sale, which is pretty unusual from a sales rep the days. They should give that boy a raise.

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