OT: Web Meeting Software
by Jon Peltier
Friday, June 26th, 2009
Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2010.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Web Meetings
I had a web meeting with a couple of my clients this week. Normally I use GoToMeeting for this purpose, but the client set it up, and we used WebEx. When I selected a service a few years back, I rejected WebEx in favor of GoToMeeting, because I thought GoToMeeting had the nicest, smoothest, most intuitive interface of all similar products. The WebEx experience this week reminded me why I chose GoToMeeting, and showed that WebEx has not progressed in several years.
I had to download the WebEx software. The download was fine, but installation was a little shaky, and when installation was finished WebEx started, but unlike GoToMeeting, it didn’t remember which meeting link I’d clicked on to initiate the download and installation. Fine, I reopened the email and clicked again on the link. At one point I had to take control of another participant’s desktop, which is intuitive in GoToMeeting: click on a clearly-labeled button. In WebEx I had to right click on an unlabeled icon (without even a tooltip) to request control before the other user could grant permission, and he had to grope around to find the control to accomplish that. The WebEx connection was not as smooth or as quick as GoToMeeting, and the image quality was so poor I could barely read any text. There also didn’t seem to be a VoIP option. The final insult was that when the meeting ended, FireFox crashed.
I asked my client why they use WebEx; the answer was that the boss uses a Mac so they couldn’t use GoToMeeting. Well, a quick trip to their web site showed that this was untrue. So I emailed the client to say that (a) GoToMeeting works for Macs, and (b) the boss should get a real man’s computer.
I have a standard subscription to GoToMeeting, which runs $49/month, and allows unlimited meetings with up to 15 participants. I’ve used it to diagnose problems on client machines, because seeing what’s happening is much more informative than “I get an error”. I use it to demonstrate add-ins and techniques, because I can show something on my desktop, then watch and direct on the users’ desktops, and they learn better than following even a detailed web page. I used it to help my daughter, who’s away at college, clean some malware off of her computer. The subscription paid for itself when one user, who fancied himself as something of a programmer, asked me to walk him through the code so he could document it (he added comments like “Declare Variables”, “Start Subroutine”, and “Set bTest Equal to True”): though remarkably tedious, it was uch better on screen than over the phone..
I’m not getting any benefit from saying this, but I’ll say it anyway: GoToMeeting is by far the best web meeting service I’ve ever used.
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Posted: Friday, June 26th, 2009 under General.
Comments: 14
Comments
Comment from Robert Kosara
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 6:03 am
A “real man’s computer”? Well, why don’t you get yourself a real man’s browser, hm?
But seriously, I have used GoToMeeting a few times on the Mac and it has worked quite well. This kind of software should really be easy to get right: it’s essentially a window that you look through and a small number of possible operations. I guess developers don’t like their stuff to be invisible, so they add things that end up hurting the experience.
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 6:07 am
Robert -
Thanks for sharing your Mac experience with GoToMeeting.
It doesn’t seem like this should be too hard to get right. But before I’d tried GoToMeeting, I just expected all such programs to suck, since all such programs did suck. Why I like GoToMeeting is that they took the suck out of it.
Comment from Norman Williams
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 6:20 am
Can I add that Genesys is a good alternative for low-volume users, as the charges are per minute of use, rather than a per month fee.
Also, I agree with you that these programs are wonderful in theory (especially for the “reduce my carbon footprint” brigade), but in practice leave a lot to be desired.
Comment from BCC
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 9:12 am
“(b) the boss should get a real man’s computer.”?
I know that’s a joke, but can we please avoid a useless Mac/PC flamewar in this useful forum?
I got a Mac for work a few months ago (running Windows as needed via Parallels, and Linux as needed via VirtualBox) and am not looking back. I have the best of all worlds.
But I don’t look down on PC owners. It’s a free country.
Aside from that, thanks for the post- I use Webex, not having heard about any demonstrably better alternatives. Now I have.
Comment from chip
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 10:29 am
Ironically, at this moment I have a spare laptop streaming the recording of a WebEx conference call while I record it via Audacity so that I can convert it to an MP3 and listen to it in my car instead of tied to my computer. WebEx has an export function that continually failed to export after an hour of waiting, and was going to give us a WMV file anyway (which I’m not sure I can convert.) Support has been nonresponsive.
Next time I’ll just tell the team to put a digital recorder next to the phone. It can’t be any worse than the audio WebEx recorded, which I have to Amplify in Audacity in order to make it a usable MP3 file.
Comment from Ken Puls
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 10:40 am
Jon,
I’ve attended meetings run on GoTo Meeting, WebEx and LiveMeeting, although I’ve only ever hosted a LiveMeeting, and that but once.
My GoTo experience has always been a one on one experience, with LiveMeeting I’ve only attended larger presentations, and with WebEx I’ve been in a mixture. One thing I did like about WebEx is that the presenter could see who left their phone on and mute that person. Something I can only wish MS will get as a feature in their product (or teach their staff to use.)
I’m curious if you’ve tried the LiveMeeting software lately. I’m not for or against it, per se, just curious how it stacks up vs GoTo Meeting in your opinion…
Comment from Debra Dalgleish
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 10:51 am
Jon, is it easy for your clients to start using GoToMeeting? Do they have to install software? Do you use Skype for the audio?
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Friday, June 26, 2009, 11:42 am
Ken -
I haven’t used LiveMeeting in around a year. It used to be as fun as WebEx, but it had improved. Not enough for me to want to use it if I had a choice.
Debra -
It’s very easy. When I set up a neeting, GTM sends an email. If the client doesn’t have the software, it downloads it and installs it (with the appropriate security prompts), then it starts up and joins the meeting.
The VoIP is built into GTM, so I don’t need Skype. I have a choice to use a conference call number, VoIP, both, or neither; I generally choose both.
Comment from sam
Time: Monday, June 29, 2009, 2:50 am
I use netmeeting…works great
Comment from John Neal
Time: Monday, June 29, 2009, 5:36 am
Jon,
have you considered the security aspects of these softwre titles? Goto is banned in the office here as it opens a virtual Citrix session that we can’t control – could give access to our servers for someone we would prefer not to see our goodies.
just a thought.
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Monday, June 29, 2009, 6:24 am
John – Good point. GoToMeeting has posted a whitepaper about online meeting security on their web site. I haven’t read it. A quick Google search turned up no meaningful third party links about GoToMeeting security.
Comment from Chandoo
Time: Monday, June 29, 2009, 8:52 pm
We use webex at our workplace to conduct almost 50% meetings. I guess I have grown in to it. Although I am not sure if it allows remote controlling of another’s desktop, we never had such need. Also, I find the record feature of webex pretty neat. We could record entire meetings and playback as needed.
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Monday, June 29, 2009, 10:51 pm
We did use desktop sharing in WebEx. This was one of the features which seemed very slow and shaky compared to my experience with GoToMeeting.
GoToMeeting allows recording of meetings, though I have not tried this feature..
Comment from John Neal
Time: Tuesday, July 7, 2009, 3:25 am
Jon,
I’m not a techie, but our head of security is one of the most highly qualified “white hat” guys in the world. if he tells me it’s not secure, I believe him. I will get him to read that white paper and double check though – thanks for the link.
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