I was recently asked to setup Skype at work for some clients so they could video conference with each other. Being the way that I am, I immediately started thinking of alternatives to Skype. I wanted to see if there was anything that was out there that offered more features and was free and/or open source. I managed to find Big Blue Button today.
With Big Blue Button, you can create a meeting and it will give you a link you can send to anyone you want to participate. It looks like it was designed primarily for use with distance learning programs, but it could definitely be used by anyone looking for a good web conferencing software. It can be used in conjunction with VOIP so callers can join a bridge and be part of the conference. Other than that, you can just surf over to the web link to join a meeting.
Once in a meeting, you can share a presentation with the meeting attendees (PDF and most MS Office file formats appear to work) and share your desktop, webcam, or microphone. It supports a whiteboarding feature that lets you markup your presentation. And of course, it has chat functionality that lets you either chat with everyone or have private conversations with attendees.
We have always used WebEx where I work for business meetings and presentations, but I haven't been able to find anything that we use it for that we can't do with Big Blue Button.
I'm going to continue playing with it in my test lab. I'll post here with any cool new features that I uncover while messing around with it.
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