George Mason University
| Home | Introduction | Background Information | Social Networking | Video Conferencing | Conclusion | Bibliography |
In recent years, video conferencing has provided a means for people to have face-to-face interaction over long distances. Businesses have successfully used video conferencing as a tool to help boost both their customer service as well as their ability to communicate with other businesses. In both cases, the face-to-face environment that video conferencing allows is an ideal way to do business, as it is the closest thing to meeting in person. Video conferencing has saved companies substantial sums of money on transportation costs, as well as time due to the fact that anyone with the ability to video conference is seconds away for them. By effectively using video conferencing tools, employees are able to have multiple person business meetings, or simply chat with a single client. This technology has helped to shrink the world, and allow companies to compete in larger markets. Many video conferencing options exist, but according to an online review by Online Meeting tools, the top rated web conferencing companies are GoToMeeting 4.5 by Citrix, Netviewer Meet 6.0, and WebEx Meeting Center 8.5 by Cisco. Citrix was rated at the top of these systems by ProQuest Online Database, “Citrix Online's web conferencing tools GoToMeeting(R) and GoToWebinar(R) were rated top in overall user experience for the second consecutive year, according to Wainhouse Research in its annual "Web Metrics First Half 2010 Survey" of web conferencing users.”(ProQuest, 2010 August). These services have enabled businesses and customers across the globe to communicate with each other via video conferencing. In addition to traditional video conferencing, many mobile devices now support video conferencing also, allowing companies to implement video conferencing on the go through these mobile devices. This allows face-to-face business meetings at almost any time and setting. Video conferencing has enabled companies across the world to communicate on a face-to-face level, the next best thing to meeting in person, effectively and efficiently, and allowed business to compete in wider markets with access to more customers.