Nowadays both individuals and companies have a lot of choices when it comes to making conference calls. They can, of course, take the traditional route here and make an audio conference call via telephones, take up the option of video conferencing or look at online conferencing as an option.
Given that even the smallest business has access to fairly powerful computers, state of the art technology and a robust Internet connection nowadays it's hardly a surprise that many of us are choosing online conference calling options to meet our needs here. This can simply be the cheapest, quickest and easiest way to communicate with other people without getting them all together in one room.
Like any kind of conference calling, online conference calls allow you to bring together a group of people no matter where they are located in the world. So, you could have a single conference call that involves people in your town, in your country and even in other continents.
As you can appreciate the biggest advantage here is cost. If you can bring together 5 people from different areas or companies in an online conference then you will be saving the costs of them all traveling to the meeting in the first place. You can also save on time costs here as well — the less time people are away from their desk/offices, the more time they can concentrate on their work.
Another of the big advantages of online conference calling is that the people participating in this kind of call do not need access to a range of expensive and highly specialized equipment. In its simplest terms an online call here simply needs each participant to have access to a computer with a microphone and loudspeakers and an Internet connection.
And, you can add elements of 'real' meetings here by adding a web camera or other form of video conferencing. This allows participants of the meeting to actually see and talk to each other in real time giving them virtually all of the advantages of meeting face to face. It is also possible to record/transcribe online conference calls relatively easily which can make it easier to record meetings for future reference.
More complex online conferencing options really can take conference calls on to another dimension into the bargain. You can, for example, use this kind of conference call to have a 'real-time' meeting where everyone is online at once. Or, you can use it to set up longer term conference calls where people participate at various times on a specific conference forum or topic.
Online conference calling also allows you to use specific software packages as part of your call. So, for example, all participants can access slides and see projections, presentations and charts at the same time. In some cases you can even set up interactivity for the call which allows people to use virtual 'whiteboards' to put down their thoughts or to outline options. All in all these kinds of conference calls can be just as effective (if not more) than traditional meetings and conferences.
