GoToWebinar, Automated Webinars and Google+ Hangouts

                                            
Video conferencing or video calls are not a recent phenomenon. There have been many instant messengers and software tools that facilitated video calls and conferences. However, none of those applications or tools offered as many features as the likes of Google+ Hangouts and GoToWebinar provides.
Companies across the world have started using Google+ Hangouts, GoToWebinar and automated webinars within the organization, to host client meetings and to attend to myriad purposes. Professionals who telecommute are also using GoToWebinar and Google+ Hangouts to make life simpler and easier.
While all the three are popular choices, there are many differences between GoToWebinar, Google+ Hangouts and automated webinars.

Google+ Hangouts

Hangouts are a free service that comes along with having an account or profile on Google's social network. There are no payments to be made and all facilities within Hangouts are completely free. Users can add as many attendees or participants in a webinar on Google+ Hangouts and every attendee can speak, listen to others and see everyone in the conversation or conference.

Google+ Hangouts also offer the facility to exchange files, videos, send textual messages, to share video links and to host presentations or to share the screen display with others. In a nutshell, Google+ Hangouts come with several features that a video conference or webinar would need.
On the flip side, Google Hangouts do not appear to be completely professional. It cannot be customized and there is a certain concern with privacy. Since users or attendees can add people within their social networks or list of friends on the social network, the webinar cannot always be kept confined to the invited or desired list of attendees.

GoToWebinar

GoToWebinar is a tool that provides all the resources, features and facilities to host a perfectly professional webinar. Up to 1000 attendees or guests can be invited and participation of attendees is only by invitation. This feature offers more security and privacy to conferences hosted using GoToWebinar. It is a paid software tool and it comes with all kinds of technical support. Companies that need to host commercial webinars, conferences with clients and need frequent video conferences with employees at other sites or remote locations would benefit from a state of the art tool like GoToWebinar.

Automated Webinars

Automated webinars are prerecorded presentations, not live, that are broadcasted as per preset schedules. Automated webinars can be simply a presentation, can be interactive with a set of choices for participants, may engage one person in the audience at a time or pull in many attendees at the same time. Automated webinars can be broadcasted on websites, video sharing sites or to invited attendees using software like GoToWebinar.