Top Web Conferencing Tools for Mac

If you’re an Apple user looking for the best web conferencing tools to help with your business, look no further. Here are some of the top picks to check out. As the global economy grows more interconnected from region to region, there is an increasing need for businesses and individuals to communicate with one another across long distances. Rather than spending exorbitant amounts on the costs associated with travel or phone communications, web conferencing provides a great alternative for your meetings. While there are some great options for web conferencing out there, unfortunately not all of them can support Mac users. For users on Apple devices, here are some of the best tools you can start using for all of your web conferencing needs.

Blue Jeans Network

Available on BlueJeans.com, this service provides one of the best ways to stay in communication across the widest variety of platforms and access points. Users can communicate from the front or back facing cameras on their iPhone by using the Blue Jeans smartphone application. Alternatively, they can access the interoperable service from their iPad, from their Safari, Chrome, or Firefox browser, as well as from their desktop iMac or MacBook Pro. The great thing about the service is that because it is rooted in the cloud, anyone from those using Polycom to people using Cisco can communicate with one another seamlessly and with sparkling clarity. So for those who have gotten frustrated with their inability to connect with non-Apple products, this offers an easy, universal solution. One of their most competitive features is their support of web conferencing between consumer devices like laptops and traditional conference room systems.

Blue Jeans allows users to send and receive files with one another throughout their video conference, meaning you can review any relevant documents in discussion with your clients or coworkers in real time. The system is a great pick for any Apple user looking to streamline communications in their business. The company was founded by Krish Ramakrishnan and Alagu Periyannan in 2009 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Visit BlueJeans.com to learn more about their cloud-based conferencing products.

Fuze Box

Another popular platform for web conferencing is known as Fuze Meeting. This is another cloud-based product that allows for web collaboration with your clients and coworkers. The product offers high definition video conferencing between multiple parties as well as the capability to share your screen with the other participants in the conference. Fuze Box is based in San Francisco and has been in operation since 2009 expanding their scope of visual services. The company has since launched Fuze Movie for film-editing software, as well as Tweetshare, a popular Twitter client. Their web conferencing software is available for three different levels of service with Fuze Free offering up to 25 participants and 1 GB of storage on the cloud. With Fuze Pro, customers can host meetings with up to 125 participants. The Fuze Enterprise package for businesses offers services such as custom branding and corporate directory integration.

Yugma

Yuma provides its users an instant web-based conferencing platform to communicate with others running the Yugma software for a relatively low cost. One of the interesting features of the product is that it allows users to install Yugma access buttons onto their webpages so that instant ports for chat connections are available. The company offers professional and enterprise conferencing services and some of their most popular services include webinar hosting and online sales calls or presentations. If you’re already using Skype on your MacBook, you can incorporate Yugma’s screen sharing capabilities into your Skype communications.

The company was founded by Lingaraj Mishra in 2003 and is based in Minneapolis. The company’s interesting name comes from Sanskrit and is translated into English as “confluence, meeting or state of togetherness.”

FaceTime

As the native communications system built into Apple computers operating with Mac OS X and beyond, FaceTime is a user friendly application that offers video conferencing as well as VoIP (voice over internet protocol). The service is popular among Mac users for its ability to support video communication between any iOS devices that are equipped with front-facing cameras. Users on their MacBooks can easily chat with friends using their iPads or iPhones. Steve Jobs initially unveiled the service in 2010 alongside the iPhone 4 to popular reception. Although FaceTime is a popular and intuitive program, it is primarily used for social communications as it supports only one on one video conferencing. At the present, Apple has decided not to open FaceTime for use by non-Apple devices partially due to concerns about the risk of telemarketing.

Visit Apple.com to learn more about chatting through FaceTime.

Ultimately, each person is going to have different tastes as to which product works best for them. So if you’re an Apple user and you want to start incorporating web conferencing into your day to day business operations, one of these products is sure to fit your needs, whether you choose BlueJeans.com, Fuze Box, Yugma, or FaceTime.