Web Conferencing Blog

Integrating video functionality into web conferences is the new hot topic in online collaboration and many vendors are promoting their new video HD functionalities. Those of you that are tingling with excitement brace yourselves: here’s the reality check.

Let’s start with the basics of online collaboration. The paradigm here is that you want to share your virtual workspace, the center of your activities with others: your desktop – and yes, some might only want to share documents via their browser, which is fine, too. Now, along comes HD video, allowing you to share documents while listening to each other and actually seeing each other in high-res. Well ain’t that just a peach? No its not.

Having up to six participants displayed next to the desktop you want to see can be quite a distraction. And honestly, if someone is introducing a new product via web conference does it really matter what the presenter looks like? Shouldn’t the focus be on the presentation?

The most likely usage scenario for video conferencing is within teams whose members are situated at multiple locations. Skype and iChat enable video conferencing in such a scenario already today and it does make sense for web conferencing providers to include the video functionality for these cases. Next to such internal meetings of globally spread teams video conferencing can also make sense in a one-to-many scenario, i.e. one person presents to an audience and appears in a small window on the viewers’ screens. But then again that could just end up being a distraction.

From a technical perspective delivering HD video conferencing is possible thanks to the widespread accessibility of broadband. BUT: just as with audio conferencing there is one major setback. Not everybody has a decent webcam, or any webcam at all. So just as with VoIP some users might be excluded simply because the peripheral equipment needed is not in place.

The main driver of video conferencing is the quality of video and we predict that usage will increase, although mainly in familiar surroundings with your colleagues and not with your customer you are trying to impress with your presentation. And lets face it, this does have another huge advantage: If you slept on your hair funny right before your big presentation nobody will know…

Audio is an integral part of web conferencing. There are two ways of providing audio service: either a vendor offers an integrated VoIP solution or they offer POTS (plain old telephone service) aka. landlines.

The quality of VoIP is generally very good and exceeds that of a standard phone conference by far. And integration of VoIP should actually be no biggie for the vendors since they simply need to add the audio to the web conferencing functionality already in place. Yet, mostly phone conferences are used for web conferencing. How is that?

Well, even though with broadband easily accessible to deliver the VoIP, many users of online collaboration tools are missing one integral part of the solution: A decent USB headset or computer mike. And many users also feel it is easier to pick up the phone and dial into a phone conference in parallel to the online meeting. Big vendors clearly have an advantage here since they have the resources to provide an infrastructure of geographically dispersed audio bridges to even enable this functionality.

There is a trend in web conferencing, however, that shows an increase of VoIP usage. The increase is slow, but it is noticeable. Mobile devices play a role here because e.g. on an iPad you need VoIP since users will hardly be sitting next to their office phone when participating with an iPad or smart phone.

What will happen in the near future is the following: while VoIP clearly is the future, vendors will provide both POTS audio service and VoIP. And they will have to, because offering only one will equal a huge loss in revenue simply because too many users will be shut out. To get users to adapt to VoIP quicker, vendors should maybe consider bundled offers of web conferencing services plus the necessary peripherals such as USB headset and webcam.

And yes, if you have a fairly new computer it is likely to have an included mike that delivers a decent sound quality as well as a webcam. But this is not the case for a vast majority of office computers. And until that changes, adaptation to VoIP will remain a slow process.

We knew that our number-one-ranking tool, Citrix GoToMeeting, was compatible for iPad. Now we tested its actual performance.

It comes as no real surprise that the quality was very good, with no latencies for VoIP and shared screen. Additionally users always have an overview of who is in the meeting with the attendee list displayed to the right.

Overall, a really convincing performance, BUT: only as a participant. iPad users can only watch others present. All the usual goodies like desktop sharing, app sharing, and chat are not available.

You can find all the details on GoToMeeting and iPad on the GoToMeeting website.

Why did we include Skype in our ranking today? Or better: Why have we waited until today to do so?

Millions of users have been calling each other via Skype for years. If more than two users are in the call – Skype has been offering this functionality for quite some time now – you could say that they are in an „audio conference“. With version 4.1 for Windows and 2.8 for Mac, Skype introduced desktop sharing, which we like to refer to as screen sharing – for two and only two users. With version 5, Skype has enhanced its video functionality: now, for the first time ever, more than two Skype users can wave at each other without being in the same room.

This step-by-step inclusion of features that are important for web conferencing, and the popularity of Skype induced us to test the tool and compare it with the other online collaboration solutions in our ranking. Of course, Skype is chiefly in use for private „meetings“, which is why the focus of the developers understandably rests on the functionalities most relevant to the consumer, as e.g. video calls. With the introduction of desktop sharing, however, Skype has provided business users with an essential functionality for web conferencing, next to VoIP and chat.

The major reason why we haven’t considered Skype so far is just as mundane as it is essential: If you want to use Skype you need an account! And since the world is not quite as black and white and doesn’t change with such breath-taking speed as Michael Arlington likes to suggest in his little „TechCrunch Hightech-Startup-Corner“ the overwhelming majority of business users worldwide simply does not comply with this crucial prerequisite. And if we want to remain realistic for just a second: This will not change all to soon. A lot of potential business users have a big enough workload as is without trying to find the right balance between VoIP and POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) at the workplace. And, not to forget, many companies deny their workers usage of Skype straight out.

Nevertheless, Skype is already being used as a web conferencing solution in some online collaboration scenarios. Especially teams that are spread out across the globe need to make sure to coordinate their efforts and often resort to Skype as a solution. By introducing Skype into our ranking we want to demonstrate what you can do with the tool in regards to online collaboration, and what it leaves to be desired in comparison with established web conferencing tools.

In our test we did not give demerits for the fact that only registered users with an account can share their screens. But we did downgrade the ranking for the biggest – and most painful – gap: Screen Sharing, unlike video conferencing, is only possible between two users! Other turn-offs are:
- Switching mouse and keyboard control is not possible in screen sharing mode;
- Skype offers no marking tools;
- A meeting cannot be scheduled in advance and invitations cannot be announced via mail or Outlook-calendar.

Michael Arrington from Techcrunch posted a blog-post called „Skype Screen Sharing Is A Huge (And Free) Productivity Tool“ in which he lists the major advantages of Skype, i.e. that usage is free of cost and very intuitive. This argument is not really valid. There are well-established, free-of-cost web conferencing tools such as Mikogo and DimDim that offer much more and allow meetings between anybody – not just registered users. Ok, true: with Skype’s “always-on” mode users can start a screen sharing session in five seconds. Most of the webconferencing solutions we tested need between fifteen seconds for scheduled meetings and 60 seconds for ad-hoc meetings. But come on! That cannot seriously be considered a great advantage of Skype. So this is not a relevant criterion either.

Third-party vendors of web conferencing solutions are of no real help when it comes to closing the gap of missing functionalities in their integrated Skype versions. Providers such as Innerpass, Oneeko, Yugma, VuRoom, and Yuuguu basically only offer meeting hosts to include Skype users in their invitations and use Skype’s VoIP functionality. The actual conference is then held with the providers’ own platform, not Skype.

When you go on the hunt for a web conferencing solution for your company you naturally take a look at the functionalities of the potential candidates first. And rightfully so. But there are other factors that need to be considered as well – such as cost.

Fees and licensing models differ from vendor to vendor. In general, web conferences create two types of costs: expenses for actual usage, in the form of license fees or rental charges, and costs of audio functionality – because visual collaboration within virtual teams is usually supplemented by conference calls.

Software as a service (SaaS) is highly suitable for small organizations and freelancers – because it is generally more cost-effective to pay monthly or annual fees rather than install and operate the tool on in-house servers.

Rental model rates depend on how much the tool is used, as well as on user behavior and the corresponding pricing models. Named-user licenses are an excellent option if there is a clearly defined group of multiple users, while concurrent-user licenses provide access to virtual meeting rooms, which is a good idea for a large number of people who rarely use the tool.

As an aside: We are observing that the general trend is drifting away from complex terms and rates towards transparent, clearly structured flat rates.

Another important factor to consider is the cost of phone calls for online meetings. Many tools come with integrated conference-call solutions. Whether these can be used or not depends on an organization’s existing telephony infrastructure. In terms of audio, VoIP solutions lead the field. But to benefit from this technology, participants must have a reliable broadband connection and a headset. Alternatively, conference-call solutions from a different vendor can be used parallel to the web conference. Because the various payment models used by participants in different countries can lead to considerable cost differences, it is worth taking a close look at what providers have to offer. A three-way conference using a regular phone system is often sufficient for meetings between two or three participants.

So, this concludes our series of looking at web conferencing as a whole. We are very certain that we have not mentioned everything there is to say on the topic. If you feel that we have ignored a key issue just let us know.