Item: GoTo Meeting
Rating: 8
Author: Mark DiNallo

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

GoTo Meeting is being used to take the place of formerly in-person meetings, to provide informative seminar-style presentations to people without them needing to leave the confines of their office. It makes it easier to disseminate information without requiring a physical presence at a set time, and the ability to record and re-broadcast the presentation is helpful as well.

Pros and Cons

Very easy to set up to use either as an audience member or a presenter, or in a more conventional business meeting situation
Audio controls are widely compatible and stops the 5-10 minutes of "is my mic working? Can you hear me?" stuff that has become so commonplace in the past year
URLs are easy to generate, not cumbersomely long

Streaming quality can be iffy at times, though that seems to be more of a hardware issue for most people; I do find the overall quality better than Zoom
Does not have as many screen sharing options as competitors, such as the ability to share dual-screen setups
Lacks ability to password-protect a scheduled meeting
Does not auto-share to quite as many calendar setups as some others

Return on Investment

It has improved efficiency by lessening the number of items that require out-of-office attendance
The ease of use has made personnel who are generally tech-wary feel more emboldened to try it
Confidential polling allows me to get internal attitudes toward questions without any type of fear of participation--real honest feedback

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Connect and Skype

The differences between the various platforms are generally small in nature and come down more to a case of personal preference in a lot of areas. I like the setup of GoTo Meeting better--I do wish that the mobile apps had a little more functionality, but overall, given our company's size and structure, as well as being part of a national dealer franchise that requires occasional larger-scale meetings, this seemed like the best fit.

Key Insights

Do you think GoTo Meeting delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GoTo Meeting's feature set?

Yes

Did GoTo Meeting live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of GoTo Meeting go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy GoTo Meeting again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Overall, like most people, I never thought I would use video conferencing software to anywhere near the extent that is currently commonplace. That said, in the past year and change, nearly every daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly meeting I used to attend in person has gone virtual instead, from the 10-person department head meeting to national meetings involving thousands of people. I have experienced every video software there is, and overall, the pricing, security, and ease of use of GoTo Meeting has made it a clear winner. Will you notice a real difference if all you are doing is sitting through an hourlong presentation once a month? Not really. But the sheer variety of plans, sharing capability, available cloud storage, and general ease of use makes this a great option.

GoTo Meeting--makes video conferencing meetings as painless as possible these days

Overall Satisfaction with GoTo Meeting