You've probably heard the buzz about Web conferencing by now. Maybe you've even attended a Web conference or two - an online meeting arranged by someone you work with, or a free "Webinar" hosted by a vendor. But it might not have yet occurred to you that Web conferencing could be a useful tool in your own work. Or perhaps the thought has crossed your mind, but you've put off doing anything about it because the whole subject seems too big, too complicated, too fraught with peril, and you're not sure how you would use Web conferencing, anyway.

Through alliances with best-in-class vendors, TANDBERG offers customers unparalleled choice and flexibility to seamlessly combine full-featured web conferencing or easy data conferencing with audio and video. What is Web Conferencing? Web conferencing employs the Internet to allow users to collaborate with one another using their PCs. Using web conferencing, meeting participants can share presentations and other contents of their PC desktop. Web conferencing can be particularly effective for applications such as salesforce training or presentations to large, dispersed groups. Web conferencing usually requires only a computer with an Internet browser and an Internet connection of 56kbps or above. Web conferencing may also offer several other options such as web-based chat, tools to annotate presentations, streaming audio and video, and other tools.

The Web conferencing and collaboration space has heated up recently, with scores of new services joining the latest revisions of existing products. Here we take a look at a total of five new offerings-four new versions of services we've seen before (Citrix's GoToMeeting, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and Raindance Meeting Edition and Seminar Edition) and one new service (Conferral). Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Raindance Seminar Edition are geared toward larger organizations, meetings, and seminars, as they contain a bevy of tools for setting up meetings, polling, Q&A, meeting controls, and administration. Raindance Meeting Edition, Conferral, and GoToMeeting lean toward smaller, more informal group-collaboration sessions, though GoToMeeting Corporate Edition has some administration features.

With increasing frequency, we are asked to be involved in teams where the members are from different geographic locations. While we would like to always be able to meet in person, that is usually not possible and we need to use teleconferencing and videoconferencing to stay in touch. When we use these technologies, we need to make the most of the time we are electronically connected. Here are some tips to help make these electronic meetings go smoothly.

Some rules must be followed when you are attending a conference call. These rules apply as the etiquette that you should maintain to make your conference call a success. You should respect the etiquette of a conference call, and deal with a conference meeting just as you would deal with a person sitting face to face. It is true that no one can see you, but it would be wrong to take advantage of such a situation. Also, do remember that everyone will somehow know if your attention is diverted away from the conference call.

The conference call is a great development. It lets you have a conference without squeezing all of the listeners and speakers into one cramped room. Every organization needs communication between its different departments. If you are serious about achieving real growth than you need to look at having a way for your employees to easily communicate with each other and the management. Some businesses will be lucky and have all of their people working from one convenient location, making the call aspect unnecessary. But a lot of organizations may not have that luxury in today's world. Moreover, any business that wants to expand and have more than just one location needs to consider how it will keep all of its employees in touch with each other.

Conference calling systems have provided business organizations with the advantage of bringing together their customers and employees. At the same time, it is saving them costs as well. Conference calls have long been aiding organizations with their business operations. They have been helping in getting together key persons from faraway places into virtual conferences to discuss matters of mutual interest. There are occasions where meetings are conducted via conference calls, in which different people from distant places can come together on a common platform to discuss and take decisions about business matters.

Conference calls are just like any other meetings that you may have in your office. Whether you are sitting face to face with your employees or your clients or on a conference call with them, the same basic etiquette will apply. When conducting professional meetings in your office or in your conference hall, sitting face to face with the participants, you prepare meticulously for the discussion. Well, conference call meetings should be dealt with in a similar way. A conference call is usually set up between two or more people, who are seated geographically apart from each other.

As communication needs become more critical, the conference call becomes a solution. Yet, conferences quickly lose their value if not done properly though. It becomes essential to find providers who will offer good service at low prices. The process can be very confusing though, and anyone should benefit greatly from a few simple tips. First and foremost, you need to ensure that you will have good support from your conference call provider. Find a provider who is known for good customer service. Many larger businesses sacrifice customer service quality in order to keep prices low, but it isn't worth it in the long run. In the hope of saving a few dollars, you could be messing up major deals due to delays in getting the call in order.

In this day and age, audio conferencing is the need of the day. Business houses are using it to communicate with its people in other parts of the world. If you are attending your first conference you may have a false idea of the real process. It is just a virtual meeting. There is nothing informal about this call. Treat it like a business meeting. A personal conference from the comfort of your home may grant you some leeway in your appearance and dress, but that is all.