My search for the “perfect” collaboration service/software began a few short months ago when I realized that the future of Computer User Groups was to share meetings on line. At the time there were several articles about a new free service that was in beta test. This service allowed a meeting to be live on the Internet.
I recruited my friend Mike Ungerman to help and we soon realized that we had a number of desires to make this adventure successful, but no one service/software supplied all or did so, successfully. We have tested several services and presented our findings at The Florida Association of Computer User Groups Fall Conference on October 25, 2008.
We want to make our meetings available to members and non-members through the Internet live and recorded for on-demand playback. Since not all presentations include the same techniques, we soon understood that each service or software was successful in certain areas. To determine which would suit the Central Florida Computer Society was our goal and we began to test many of them.
What we want is the ability to or include:

1. Stream over the Internet
2. Video of the Presenter
3. Video of any speaker
4. View of Presenter’s computer screen for demos
5. View of PowerPoint presentations
6. All screen views readable
7. Two way voice communications for all viewers who have microphones
8. Chat capabilities (Text and/or Voice) 
9. Record the complete session including Audio, Video, & Text
10. Keep the costs for the software Free or very inexpensive for the presentations
11. Keep the costs for the viewers/attendees at zero.
12. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

What we have found is that there is no one solution for all of them. Many of the services are still in their infancy and do not include all of the items yet. Many are more focused for other purposes, such as chat rooms or VoIP. Almost all have limitations as to the number of free viewers and that ranges from 2 to 20. Those services that charge, do so in increments of the number of viewers.
Some computer user groups are attacking this from a different prospective. They are looking to have presenters come to their meetings remotely. This presents a different list of needs and wants which I am not addressing in this document.
Let’s look at each of the wanted items.
1. All of the services that we are looking at allow immediate access on-line
2. Some of the chat services are just text chat and do not include video.  One charges a membership fee to view videos. Of course a webcam is required. I have also been using a camcorder connected to my PC via fire wire and utilizing software that allows multiple video sources.

3. Very few of these services allow a video of more than the presenter. Some allow switching to a different speaker and that video is allowed. Some limit the number of video speakers at 3 or less.
4. There are several ways to view the presenter’s screen. One of the most used is to use a projector and aim a camera at the projected image. The quality is very poor and usually unreadable at the viewers screen. If the presenter has all of the correct software and connections, some of the services will share and steam screens. The quality depends upon the service and internet bandwidth/continuity from the presentation location. Some work better than others.
5. PowerPoint presentations are the easiest to present. Many of them can be captured by a camera fairly legibly. Many of the services have selections to stream the PowerPoint, but some require uploading it first, and the services convert it to a Flash presentation. If the presenter isn’t set up to participate in the conference or video streaming  from their computer, the PowerPoint can be run simultaneously on another computer that is running streaming or conferencing software.
6. Using a camera to view a projected screen is fuzzy at best and unreadable in most cases. However, it is the most used. Even a presentation of the recent rollout of new Adobe products was streamed with a camera aimed at a projected screen and was mostly unreadable, as they demonstrated different programs. The ability of the service to share a screen is preferable. Some allow the presenter to change the screen to another attendee and reclaim the screen when that person is finished.

7. Voice communications, like video, has a wide range of availabilities. Some of the services only allow the presenter and perhaps a limited number of viewers to have microphone capabilities. Of course, a microphone is needed on those computers. Speakers or a headset is needed to listen to the audio. Having a headset with an included microphone is recommended. Some of the chat services allow an unlimited number of attendees to have voice abilities. We have found that using a dedicated microphone for the host computer is preferable to using a built in microphone. Better is to have access to a microphone mixer and several microphones so that both the presenter and audience can participate in the streamed meeting.
8. Almost all of the services include text chat capabilities. This is needed, to be able to communicate with the attendees and for them to be able to ask questions or to comment on the material. It is recommended that a different person than the presenter monitor the chat and is the meeting’s representative for the on-line attendees. Some of the systems even allow private chats between any 2 on-line attendees.
9. Recording the on-line meeting is a challenge. Some of the services have the ability to record the meeting but do not include the text chat and/or the video. Some are planning on adding recording, but it is not available yet. Other services do not have that availability. Camtasia can be run on another computer and record the session, but setting up to capture the audio as well can be a challenge.
10. Free is good, but the most reliable of the services are fee based. Some of the fee based services are free for 3 to 5 viewers, and may not include all of the bells and whistles. They charge by group sizes, and either by the month or per use. Even the fee based services do not have all of the desired functions, but usually give a 15 to 30 free trial.  APCUG and Microsoft are making LiveMeeting access free to member user groups through the Regional Advisors.
11. Almost all of the services allow the attendees to view for free. One requires viewers who want to see the speaker videos to be paid subscribers. In some cases, a program or a web browser plug-in is required to be installed. Almost all require the most up-to-date versions of the Flash viewer & Sun’s Java to be installed.
12. Many of the services are very easy to set up and use. The more that you want to do, the more intricate it all gets. To do meeting streaming as we want to, we have discovered that we require helpers. There needs to be a presenter computer, a camera computer, and a chat monitor on another computer. A camera person is also desired, and having the camera on a tripod is recommended.

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