Web Conferencing Central

Author: Jenna Vasquez

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The Good

• Screen sharing
• Annotation feature
• Quick slides tool
• User interface
• Form and survey builder
• Clickable URL
• Entrant tool

Web Conferencing Central seems to have all the basic necessities for being a good online conferencing program. We found that there is screen sharing available. This is important if you want to see the computer of different participants in a conference. Screen sharing can let people do demonstrations, such as new software or how to do something on a computer program. Another basic feature contained within web conferencing central is the annotation feature. The presenter can easily make markings on a shared screen, presentation, or on "canvas" provided within the program. Annotation is a basic feature that most web conferencing users look for. While there weren't any mentions of being able to use PowerPoint for Web Conferencing Central, there is a quick slides tool that easily lets you make a presentation for a meeting or small webinar. While the demonstration of the tool wasn't all that good, we did like that this feature was included in the system. The user interface seemed to be pretty sleek. The presenter to be the focus of the presentation or be a small square on the sidebar as it is, can adjust the one stream of video, as limited. This feature is useful for if the presenter wants to walk participants through a slide presentation or make a point after going "around the virtual room." The platform does contain a very powerful form and survey builder. We particularly liked this because it let the presenter take polls in the room. It can also be configured for attendees to give feedback on a session. A more crude use of the form and survey builder would be to use it as an attendance tool. In the industry, we saw that many conferencing tools did not have a form and survey builder. We also liked one key feature of the product that happened after a meeting had ended. The presenter has the option of making an ending of the session where participants are sent to the company's home page or another clickable URL. This can be a great tool to help meeting facilitators conclude a session and leave a lasting image of the company or brand with the participants. There is also a very cool entrant tool, so you can see who is coming and going from your conference or webinar. You can also add, eject, or mute people with the entrant tool.

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The Bad

• Transparency
• No mobile app
• Price
• Integrations
• Number of users

There were a couple of things that raised some red flags about Web Conferencing Central. First of all, there was no information about the company on their website, save their address and their phone number. There was no "About Us" page, nor was their any any information on the company's business reputation. Another big red flag for us was that Web Conferencing Central does not have any app for mobile devices. It's 2015, folks...most web conferencing platforms have apps to let mobile users beam into conferences. Most businesses, at the bare minimum, are looking for some sort of mobile app to use as part of their web conferencing platform. The price for Web Conferencing Central is a little bit on the high end, in terms of the features that the company offers. We would like to see more than one video stream. Some products that we reviewed in the industry had at least a few video streams to let people see what was going on, especially if more than one person was talking at a given time. There were no app integrations...such as DropBox, Box, or Google Drive with Web Conferencing Central. Additionally, we would like to see some sort of functionality for e-commerce and sales users. There are no CRMs or anything listed on the website...not even API configuration. If this company has apps for their product, we would love to know about them. Finally, the number of users that the system can accommodate is dismal. For $99 per month, you can have 300 users participate. The website describes the "webinar" potential of the system, but you can't get as many into a session as some of the other products out there. When we reviewed the industry, we found that many platforms let you get 1,000 users to participate in a webinar.

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The Bottom Line

Hands down, we couldn't recommend Web Conferencing Central. There just isn't enough information about the company's reputation. Additionally, the features are pretty on the low end for the price that the customer is paying. The lack of mobile apps was a deal breaker. Most web conferencing platforms have mobile apps. We also felt that the lack of app integrations made this product unusable for businesses.