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.

Microsoft Outlook: An E-Mail Client

Microsoft Outlook is a great e-mail client to use. It is not just like your regular e-mail address; you can get e-mails, news updates, and other things all sent to one inbox. Aside from the regular e-mail functions, you can save a very detailed contact list, make a calendar of all the important dates and events in your life, and even be updated on RSS works. The RSS works are essentially when you use Outlook to subscribe to things such as blog entries, news headlines, and small audio and video clips. Some RSS works are updated by the minute, so having Outlook including all your RSS interests at once is very helpful so you do not have to go and check every webpage for any updates. Applying this to the Herring article on Language, Outlook can be an example of every kind computer mediated discourse. It is very text-based in the e-mails, calendar, etc. Most of the applications of the tool are messages. There are some capabilities of audio and video files however, seeing as some of the links in your inbox, on your RSS feed, or linked on your calendar may be a visual or audio file. All this shows is that Outlook is capable of pretty much any type of computer mediated discourse.

Outlook is one of the most useful programs out there. According to the Mobility article by Campbell and Park, more and more people are using mobile technology. People are capable of doing just about anything on their iPhones, Blackberries, and other smart phones. Outlook is an example of that. The program can be put onto their phones, and then the users can basically have any of the content they're interested in at their finger tips no matter where they are. They will not have to track down a computer to find out information. Campbell noted that mobile technologies "have a remarkable reach" and the changes in available technology have rapidly-increasing usage. They can get e-mail, RSS feeds, and just about everything else from Outlook, on just a mobile phone.

An article by Kaplan and Haenlein notes the opportunities of social media; how just about everything can be accessed through social media. Not only is Outlook a great tool to access, but is an example in itself. You can get almost anything throughout Microsoft Outlook. There are virtual conversations in the e-mails and messaging system, virtual worlds in the calendar you create, and can be accessed by all. Everyone has a chance to use the great program.