Dear all advocates: I am not an app developer, I scarcely get around as an advanced user of software. For some time I have been looking for a Webinar service so I can offer my colleagues, and anyone interested in professional translation, a webinar where I can deliver my experience and, maybe, increase my income a bit. However I have crashed with the inability of all webinar companies (the Goto, the Jam, Any, and a long etcetera) to provide payment options for everyone. They are all centered on Credit Cards or PayPal (which is the same as credit cards). Some of them even offer false or misleading advertising on their websites saying they accept wire transfer, but when you ask them to provide the details they disappear (Goto), or they answer with links to pay with a credit card (Zoom) and when they finally answer to the question, they say they only accept bank transfer if you pay a whole year's subscription (many hundreds or thousands of dollars), despite they were well aware I could only pay by month. I am not rich, and I don't have access to a credit card, and these companies are not capable of offering other payment systems (like Skrill, Xoom, and others). Why they don't? The easy answer is they are idiots because they might be losing business opportunities, focusing only on the "big money", but maybe there is another reason. Well, I won't rant anymore.
I am here because I thought I might be able to adopt OpenMeetings, maybe the only alternative to a market which really is only for an elite. I have worked with open source software before (like Joomla - even tweaking its inner organs to create my own functionalities), but of course, with much help from the experts or finding common solutions to problems on the Internet, so I am very aware and grateful of the fantastic work you do. If I can do this with OpenMeetings, even if it takes time, it would be very worthwhile. However, although I am confident, the problems I have found installing, configuring and creating a webinar with OpenMeetings, can be solved eventually, there is one issue that might not have an easy solution at this moment. I must say this mail is not purposed to criticize but to understand OpenMeetings real functionalities at all levels, at this point of time. This issue would be the following: Me, as OpenMeetings-Webinar manager, host and presenter or “broadcaster”, I should go into all the tasks required to have it up and running effectively and efficiently (ideal but not impossible) to deliver a given webinar or provide a meeting place. This requires lots of downloading, installing many different apps, changing settings in my computer, solving quite a few install and usability issues, and creating an appropriate guide with access procedures for my “receivers”, those who will watch my webinar(s) to register and enter the meeting as easily as possible. However, if my “receivers” have to go through that same process, downloading, installing, etc., most probably I won’t have any “receiver”, even if my webinar was worth a Grammy. Most commercial webinar services just require one download and a simple activation. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but, with OpenMeetings, must those users who will be “receiving” my “broadcast” go through the same procedures with imagemagick, FFMpeg, Ghostscript, SWFtools, SOX, Environment variables, install and configure OpenMeetings, screensharing download, and whatever else I haven’t discovered yet? Or is there a way for “receivers” to enter a room with a simple download and a pair of clicks? Please excuse for such a lengthy post, including the rant, and I hope anyone can give me a bit of light on this, the “receivers” side. Regards, Richard
