Have you ever wanted to have a way to go over a document or a presentation with someone, but you do not have a webinar account and you cannot afford to pay monthly for webinar technology? So what do you do?
Well, I have just the solution for you. It is called FreeScreenSharing.com, and if you or all of your conference call attendees are online, they can see what’s on your screen. So all you have to do is pull up that word document or powerpoint as if you are looking at it yourself, and they can all see it.
It is a free, non ad-driven service, so it does not have the distracting ads we are all use-to. But they unobtrusively (in my opinion), advertise themselves which I have no problem with. If they are offering me a free service, I feel they should promote themselves. Actually, I am promoting them with this article, and I am happy to.
From what I can tell, in lieu of ads, they do capture the email addresses of those that log-on. I have not heard back yet on my inquiry as to what they do with that information, but like I said, it is a terrific service at no charge. Their FAQ says that they do not sell the information, and that they send out occasional marketing updates about their service.
I have tested it myself and use it as my defacto service now. The fact that it is free is not even the best thing about it.
Hands down, the best part about this service is the easy, professional looking interface, which allows you to display your logo and customize the lobby of the screen. “Holy Cow Batman!” People logging onto your conference call will be very impressed with your own branded landing page which includes your company’s contact information and a picture. Here is a screen shot of mine.
Outside of that stunning fact, you also get the ability to have many attendees (I have not tested the limit yet as of this writing), a whopping 6-hour meeting time limit, your own permanent login ID assigned to you (to share with clients or colleagues), chat-ability, link sharing, document sharing, attendee control, and an optional phone bridge. Remember, the service is FREE.
Also, as an added feature, you can give control of the meeting to anyone in attendance. So if one of your attendees has his document or portion of the presentation just on his/her machine, you just hand-over control to that person and everyone can now see her screen.
The only negatives, and they are not even that negatives, are:
1)There is no way to record the online experience or the presentation. That is because it is merely screen-sharing, and not a true webinar in the classic sense of the term. You can record the phone conference call, however. All of the attendees are able to see your computer screen including desktop icons, photos, open windows, etc…
2) As a result of screen-sharing, if you are not careful or cognizant of what is open or showing on your screen, you may disclose information that attendees are not privvy to, or you may be showing items that are un-related, distracting, or in-appropriate to your attendees – and embarrassing to you. The potential exists that the vacation picture of you on the beach in a Speedo will be seen by the new client you are trying to impress if it is open and you forgot to close it. Just be aware.
The quality of the experience is only affected by their own internet connection and the quality of the file you are sharing.
That is it for the negatives.
If you tried any of the other popular webinar services like GotoWebinar,Webex, MS Live Meeting, GoToMeeting, or Adobe Connect Pro, you can expect to pay anywhere from $29/month to $99/month, and more for quite the same thing you can get accomplished here.
Again, this is a screen-sharing service which allows you to easily gather people together on the internet and share information on your computer with all of them. For Free.
Imagine, no more last-minute emailing or uploading files to everyone before a conference call. And guess what…it’s FREE. ‘Wow!” is all I have to say.
This was just a quick blast out to let you know about it. My hat is off to FreeScreenSharing.com. Thank you for a great technology option.
Check it out yourself and I hope it helps you and your business.
Happy Webinar’ing!
Lambert
Evantage Solutions
Evantage Solutions is part of the Evantage Enterprises family. To see how we put E in everything, visit out parent company home page at: www.vrything.com.
