After several days of research on web conference solutions I’ve come to a conclusion.

Web Conferencing is NOT for Mac users.

I’ve tried several different solutions, but none of them seem to have Macintosh based clients. It seems like the only web conferencing solutions that support Mac are server based solutions that require you to setup your own web conference server, or solutions that are extremely expensive.

I have 600+ users. My last web conference had 50 seats and I ran out of room. That solution cost me $120 a month. To upgrade to 200 seats would cost me over $200 a month! Sever based solutions are even MORE expensive.

What I’ve settled on is Hot Conference. It requires a small software install. The install process takes about 1 minute. I even created a camtasia video for my users on how to install it. The camtasia video is 2 and a half minutes. Simple, right? I created another short 3 and a half minute video on how to use the software.

It supports an unlimited number of users for $29.95 a month. If you want more than one conference room you will pay $44.95 a month. That gives you 5 conference rooms (unlimited seats) and the ability to resell the software.

The only downside I see so far is that the software doesn’t support Mac Users.

However it does allow me to record the voice broadcast as an MP3 file. So I can use Camtasia to record the screen, and I can save an MP3 of the audio. Then all I have to do is combined the video and the MP3 into a Camtasia project. I can then export it as a flash video, windows movie, quicktime, etc. Sounds complicated? Not really. It will probably take me about 5 minutes to convert my training into a Flash movie and my Macintosh users can watch the replay of the training session.

Cool right?

If you want to see what I’m doing visit my training site and you can see the camtasia videos I put together. Plus you can download my conference room software and try it out for free.

- Ben

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