Web Conferencing Resources

OpenACircle Collaboration App Trys to be Everything

OpenACircle is a new collaboration tool that features a suite of applications, including screen-sharing and video conferencing features. Unlike many of the new web 2.0 applications that are light on features, OpenACircle acknowledges the fact that distributed teams need a complete set of tools for collaboration and real-time interaction, and have attempted to create a set of tools that will answer everyone’s needs.

Collaboration tools usually find a niche in a specific category. Online presentation applications include big names like GoToMeeting and WebEx. There are whiteboarding applications like Twiddla’s brainstorming solution and Adobe’s Connect Now which lets you whiteboard and web conference at the same time. Or there’s Vyew which lets you whiteboard and screen share. OpenACircle contains a set of these tools, all in one convenient package. The suite however, does not include a dedicated white boarding feature.

There aren’t many applications that combine all these functions into one. OpenACircle, however, makes a good effort at at the complete package. The only feature that they seem to be missing is a dedicated whiteboarding tool, but considering the support for everything else from file sharing to screen sharing, it’s not worth dismissing the app solely due to that one missing feature, however it is puzzling why they didn’t include it. Apparently they’re looking to include this feature in a future release.

There are applications out there that do include all of the features including dedicated white boarding and online powerpoint uploads and presentation such as InstantPresenter. Instantpresenter has a complete set of web conferencing, video conferencing, webinar and collaboration tools at competitive pricing.