Note: Pricing for this product is in US$.

Virtual meetings are now an accepted part of any company’s communication toolset. Whereas a Web cast is typically a one-way Web conference from the speaker to the audience — usually with limited audience interaction — a webinar is designed to be a more collaborative form of communication.

In webinars the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, discussing the information being presented on screen to the audience — who in turn can respond over their own telephones (preferably speakerphones). Webinars can include audience polling and question and answer sessions to provide greater audience participation.

GoToWebinar 4.0 from CitrixOnline offers some key enhancements with this latest version. Of note, GoToWebinar 4.0 now provides out of the box support for both traditional voice conferencing — via a regular handset or VoIP telephony using its integrated audio conferencing called Total Audio. With the release of version 4.0, full Mac OS support is provided. CitrixOnline does not offer any support for Linux desktops nor are there any public plans to do so in the near future.

GoToWebinar is an example of software as a service (SaaS), and to use the application you sign up to either a month by month service or take out a yearly subscription. Both options provide unlimited webinars for up to 1000 attendees.

To get started you simply log into www.gotowebinar.com and create a username and password. You will be prompted to download and install a Java applet. For Windows users, Internet Explorer 6 or later or Mozilla Firefox 2.0 or later are the supported browsers, and both Safari 3.0 or Firefox 2.0 are supported for Mac OS. Javascript and Java must be enabled whether you are using a Windows or Macintosh environment.

Once the applet is installed on your PC you are ready to schedule your first webinar by right clicking on the orange system tray icon. Once the date and time is set you are taken to the My Webinars page where you can customise your webinar by adding polls, designing surveys and sending e-mail reminders.

Registration details for webinars can be customised, required or optional. If you do not need to capture the registration details you can select the “meet now” option and invite attendees on the fly via e-mail. A handy feature in version 4 of GoToWebinar is its ability to schedule recurring webinars either for the same group of attendees or a different group of attendees. This is a big time saver if you plan to run the same content over multiple sessions. Additionally, using the My Webinars page you are able to track the status and details of your upcoming event(s) including the number of registered attendees.

The dashboard is the control centre for GoToWebinar. It is where a host/presenter shares their screen or gives control of their keyboard and mouse to a remote user. Using the dashboard controls, a webinar can be set to be recorded for future playback .

The dashboard also allows the host/presenter to “chat” with logged-in attendees while the webinar is running. Polling questions are also launched from within the dashboard.

If the record option was selected using the dashboard, when you exit the webinar, GoToWebinar will process the session and save a file locally to the host/presenter PC. This can take almost as long as the original webinar so make sure you aren't in a hurry.

Post-webinar follow-up and feedback is a strong feature of the GoToWebinar software. The package has a number of preconfigured reports that the host/presenter is able access after the webinar concludes. These reports can be used for lead qualification and follow up.

GoToWebinar 4.0 costs US$$99.00 per month, or $79.00 on an annual plan.