Free to Low Cost Business and Communication Tools: Part 3: Adobe Acrobat ConnectNow

Web conferencing is a great way to reach out to prospective and existing customers or colleagues to demonstrate products, share ideas, resolve technical issues, offer customer support, and collaborate on projects. Depending on the size of your organization and your particular needs, there are a number of great no-t0-low cost solutions available.

Easy to use, the hosted free version of Adobe ConnectNow is built on the Adobe Flash® Platform and operates inside a web browser. Attendees can use any platform with any web browser, requiring only the free Adobe Flash Player to run the application. The application provides meeting participants with all sorts of interactive communication tools and is really pretty robust.

In order to use the free service, you must sign up for an Adobe Acrobat.com account.

Adobe ConnectNow Free Version includes:

• Built-in chat: works just like instant messenger
• Private Chat is also available during the meeting so you can communicate privately with a single participant or with your co-presenter
• Screen sharing: providing 3 sharing options: Windows, Applications or Desktop: meeting host and attendees can share their screens; meeting host can make a request to take control of an attendee’s desktop (great for collaborative work, demonstrations and technical support) or even grant control of his desktop to an attendee.
• Participants can make Notes or markings on the screen to highlight a feature using the built-in whiteboard tools (markings can be saved as a .png image file for future reference)
• Video Conferencing: multi-point video (web cam required)
• Integrated Audio Choices: You can elect to use the call-in telephone number (traditional teleconferencing) to communicate via a telephone or to use your computer’s integrated microphone to communicate by voice online

Pros

Adobe offers several versions of its web conferencing application to fulfill different demands and budgets. The free version of Adobe Acrobat ConnectNow is great for small business demands and offers:

• Personalized url
• 1 meeting room
• Maximum 3 attendees
• Screen sharing
• Chat, notes and whiteboard
• Teleconferencing
• Integrated VoIP
• Cross-Platform

Cons

If you require more than what’s available for free you will have to pay for the added functionality and enhanced services. You can compare Adobe ConnectNow and ConnectPro services and pricing here. The Pro version offers a flexible licensing program, a host of management and customization features, and allows for up to 80,000 participants with ‘Unlimited’ meeting rooms.

In Part 4, I’ll introduce you to another web conferencing service I like very much: Glance.