What to Look for in an Effective Online Meeting Platform
A well-structured online meeting platform is essential to ensure a smooth, productive meeting experience. A platform must have features that allow participants to effectively collaborate take notes of ideas and tasks, and share them with remote teams. It should also offer tools to record notes in real-time and sharing a digital whiteboard and creating mind maps and Kanban boards to display project progress. The ability to plan in advance, as well as the up-time and reliability of the platform are also important aspects to be considered.
Skype, Zoom and Google Hangouts are the most used platforms for videoconferencing. Google Hangouts is a free tool that provides instant messaging, video calls with up to 10 people and collaborative document sharing. It can be used for group meetings, video conference and webinars. It is compatible with Google applications and services, and offers HD streaming video, cloud recordings and screen sharing. Its interface is easy to use and simple but it’s susceptible to audio and visual display issues, buffering delays, and dropped calls.
Other features that you should look for in a good online meeting platform are the ability to build and manage a meeting agenda and to add participants. Some platforms let you drag and drop files directly into your virtual meeting room. This is great for UX designers who want to utilize their wireframing tools in the same virtual room, or software developers who provide a URL to code repository or a new feature. You should also consider an application that allows you to quickly access documents, applications, and websites. This allows team members to quickly access screenshots, notes from previous meetings or bug trackers without leaving the meeting.
