Web conferencing is a viable alternative for business people who are looking to save time and money. Although nothing will ever replace live contact, web meetings allow users to interactively communicate through things such as the sharing of desktop screens, document sharing, video, and VoIP (sound). Generally, the more features a program has, the more expensive it is going to be.

Web meetings are very easy to use. In fact, its hard finding one that’s not easy to work with. Furthermore, you’re unlikely to get any have technical issues. All of this is important when you want meetings to go smooth and without error. For a web meeting program, whose core feature is desktop sharing, you are going to have to drop about $50 a month.

Webex and Gotomeeting are the most popular web conferencing solutions, with Webex being the more popular of the two. In fact, some people refer to an online meeting as simply Webex. Although Gotomeeting is the cheaper of the two, you can get 10 more people for each meeting if you use Webex (25 rather than 15). Since you pay a flat rate monthly fee for each of these two services, you can use them as often as you want.

Before you buy any web conferencing solution, you have to check if it makes financial sense. Are you buying it just to buy it? Can you get by, by using a free product such as Skype, which allows for up to 5 people in a conference, or the free version of Yugma, which allows 15 people in a meeting?

Aside from looking at the features of a program, when shopping for one, pay special attention to how many users can be in a meeting and how difficult (or easy) it is to set up for users of the meeting.

What web conferencing solution you end up getting depends on what you need. Say you are a video game design studio. Fuze Meeting, which costs about $30, is your best choice since it offers HD communication. If you only wish to chat with a few clients or trainees, Skype will do you just fine.