LiveMinutes – Free Video Conferencing

Emailing and instant messaging can only go so far in a business setting. In certain situations, it becomes necessary to put professional associates and clients in face-to-face meetings. LiveMinutes is a completely free tool that groups of people and professional teams can use to speak face-to-face even when they’re sitting on opposite sides of the globe.

To say LiveMinutes has a bevy of features would be an understatement. The web-application offers tools for auto conferencing, video conferencing, document sharing, document collaboration, group sketching, file storage, and report generation. To get started using all these features, sign up for an account. Or, if you’re in a major hurry, you can skip that step and move right into hosting your first meeting. With one click, LiveMinutes will provide you with a meeting URL that you can share with up to 20 colleagues. Upload the document you want to discuss and wait as your friends and associates each get on the call. Those associates will have the choice to use LiveMinutes’ integrated browser platform or Skype for both the video and the audio components. As the host, you get to choose whose webcam everyone will see on the large screen at any point during the meeting.

When your LiveMinutes meeting is through, the web-application automatically generates an annotated report that shows all the progress your team made on the document you were working on. This report also includes a list that shows who was at the meeting and what they discussed, which can be distributed to absent employees or kept securely for future records of the event.

Practical Uses:

• Hold an online brainstorming session to collaborate on a new project
• Meet face-to-face with colleagues who work from home
• Host a conference call with reporters discuss this week’s story ideas
• Make sure absent team members can find out what they missed during a meeting

Insider Tips:

• Hosts can decide whose video should display when there are three or more people in a room
• Up to 20 people can participate in an online video chat at once
• Participants can sketch on a document for group collaboration
• Users who connect their Dropbox accounts can easily grab files to share during meetings

What we liked:

• Users don’t have to download any new software to start video conferencing
• People can host their first meetings without even signing up for an account
• Users can store files and sketches in their LiveMinutes libraries
• Inviting people to a meeting is as easy as sending out a shortened URL

What we didn’t like:

• LiveMinutes doesn’t currently offer multi-way videoconferencing, however that option will be available in the future

Alternatives:

• join.me – https://join.me
• MeetingBurner – http://www.meetingburner.com
• Zipcast – http://www.slideshare.net/zipcast

Company Info:

• Launched: October 2011 (Alpha)
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California, and Paris, France
• Founded by: Kemal El Moujahid and Alexis Dufétel
• Web site: http://liveminutes.com

Costs:

• Free