There are many free and paid tools on the market now. So which do you use and why? I am going to review some of the more popular ones here:
Skype – Offers both free and paid service. Works on all computers, cell phones, and tablets. You can put up to 25 people on the same conference call for free and share a desktop. With the video feature you can only video conference with one person before you have to pay.
Google Hangout – Works on all computers through a google account, such as gmail and is also available as an app via apple/android. Can share desktop. Can call and video chat with up to 10 people for free.
Facetime – An apple product only. Allows 1 to 1 video conferencing. Is nice but only works with apple.
There are more but these seem to be the ones most people are using. I personally use Skype for everything. Having said that if a user is on another system I have accounts for most of them.
Ditto on having multiple accounts for different video conferencing tools…but my favorite is Google Hangout which has recently was fused into Google Voice/Chat. It’s built into your email which makes it convenient if you are the type of Gmail user that keeps their email open all day.