Article Advise

submitted: May 9th 2008 | by: TylerVaughn | Total views: 3 | Word Count: 379 | |

Is it time for you to give webcam conferencing a try? If you have meetings not quite important enough to justify flying, but still needing that personal touch, try webcam conferencing.

Webcams are cheap, easy to use, and have much better clarity these days than a few years ago. Prices range from $28 to $200+ depending on the features you want. If you just want to talk with your friends or family you can get by with a lower-priced model. Planning to use this for business meetings? I personally like the Logitechs.

Your choice should definitely be a USB webcam. Installation is easy, and you'll be ready to go in a snap. My website lists a number of webcam brands/prices for you to review.

Family Usage:

Now that you have your webcam, how do you start with webcam conferencing? Easy. Try it out with your instant messaging software. AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger all work with webcams. Ask one of your friends to chat with you so you can sit down and practice.

Professional Useage:

Businesses don't use video messaging much yet. They tend stick to web conference software. Fortunately, the major vendors all support video streaming and will integrat with your webcam.

You'll definitely want to practice the integration with your web conference software. Figure out how to turn the video streaming on and off, how to adjust the resolution and speed, just for starters. By the way, if you don't already have a web conference vendor there's a great 14-day free trial available to let you practice. See this article's resource box for a link.

Points to Remember:

Slow down! (Your speech, that is.) Webcam conferencing usually doesn't quite keep up with natural human speech. You don't need to talk like you're in quicksand, just remember to talk a half-beat slower than normal. This is a common recommendation for presenters anyway -- it's good to get in the habit.

Check out your webcam's features. Many of them offer real-time enhancement (think: wrinkle-smoothing), lighting adjustments, and other features to improve the image. Use that web conference free trial to practice a bit.

That's it! You're ready to join the webcam conferencing world.

About the Author

Tyler used web conferencing while employed as a technology consultant. Learn more about getting webcam conference free trials at his website. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.

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