There are many benefits to using webinar services. Businesses can save on travel expenses, increase flexibility with regard to timing and location, it can enhance productivity, and it can lessen the environmental impact from traveling to and from various locations. Many companies are beginning to realize that utilizing a webinar system is a beneficial change to implement in their day-today business operations.

Here are five affordable systems for online meetings and webinars.

1) Yugma Yugma offers a free web conferencing trial for anyone. This allows you to share your desktop and ideas online with others. This web conferencing account allows the organizer to invite up to 20 attendees. Yugma also offers Yugma Pro, a real-time collaboration with white board & annotation tools and mouse & keyboard sharing. You can schedule meetings and send invitations in advance, record your webcast, and use live Technical Support. Yugma Pro programs start at $14.95 per month. https://www.yugma.com/

2) Packetel Turbo Meeting Packetel offers three webinar options. One, for $10.90 per month, you can host online meetings with up to three participants. Two, for $19.40 per month you can host online group meetings with between six and 50 attendees. And three, for $95 per month, you can host a web seminar with up to 100 participants. http://www.packetel.com/web-conferencing-turbo-meeting-main.asp

3) Microsoft Office Live Meeting Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 is an online meeting space that your organization subscribes to where attendees can deliver a presentation, kick off a project, brainstorm ideas, edit files, upload and share documents, collaborate on whiteboards, and negotiate deals from their personal computer. After a free 30-day trial, costs start at $4.58 per user per month with no one-time fees. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/default.aspx

4) GoToMeeting GoToMeeting enables co-workers, customers and prospects to view any application running on your PC in real time. It also has industry-standard security features to protect confidential information. GoToMeeting offers a free trial for businesses. It costs $49 per month for a month-to-month option. https://www1.gotomeeting.com/en_US/entry/entry.tmpl

5) MegaMeeting MegaMeeting is a browser-based video conferencing software, which means there is no software that needs to be downloaded for the program to function. Anyone using a Windows, Mac or Linux based machine may participate in a Web Conference. It has a multipoint online conferencing so up to 16 individuals can be seen at the same time, and an unlimited number of secure video conferencing attendees can see those 16. Program costs start at $45 per month. http://www.megameeting.com/index.html

About the Author

I am a business contributor for a free small business resource website: www.WBSonline.com. Personally, I have owned and operated several small businesses and I contribute information from time to time based on my experiences.