GoToMeeting: Web Conferencing made possible

GoToMeeting is a great web conference program. It has countless conferencing capabilities that make it possible to hold meetings with people hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Like other web cam services, you can face-to-face conferencing. This program lets up to 15 people in your meeting, and you can use the program on a computer, iPad, or smartphone. This is an example of the ever-increasing mobility (Campbell and Park) in computer mediated communication. You could conference from anywhere, at any time. Being able to tune into a business meeting from any place is a great advantage and could cut down travel expenses an incredible amount for any company.

GoTo could be classified as part of Web 2.0, which in this case are web applications interactively shares information. The author (host of the meeting) interacts and collaborates with the others attending the meeting. The host of the meeting can get people to webcam with each other, pull up documents on their own screen which is projected to everyone else in the meeting. You can avoid the hassle of e-mailing attachments to everybody, and needing to wait for everyone to download and open the files. The program has a couple of communication modes, either text-based, audio based (just like a conference call), or visuals with webcamming and/or presenting documents and files to all the others in the meeting. GoTo allows the host to show everybody their own computer screen, leading to high efficiency and little wasted time. There is a sense of community building and trust development during these meetings. Hearing someone speak specifically to you through the GoTo audio program, or chatting with each other on a webcam is very personal. There is a lower level of anonymity and as a result, users feel like they can trust the others more (Joinson).

GoTo is revolutionizing business meetings. With all of its capabilities, it follows the new communication trends that include collaboration, personalization, and active participation (Alcatel-Lucent). In a business world, a product such as GoToMeeting is a very efficient means of communicating with customers and partners.