Online Webinar Applications (Recommendations)

Hi guys,

I'm asking for recommendations/advice regarding conducting a webinar. The CCK fishing team is scheduled to put on a few summer fishing seminar over the summer, however, with the Covid-19 pandemic we would rather pursue holding our seminars online to prevent potential spreading of the virus, and to stay within state and local health policy.

My questions are:
What online platform is a good to conduct online webinars (ie. Facebook live, Youtube live, Zoom)
What are the potential cost, pros and cons, and benefits of such platforms?
Have you guys used these online webinars and what are your thoughts and potential recommendations?

Feedback or recommendations is greatly appreciated. --TLA

I use zoom regularly for work and I think It would work fine. I teach at sac state using zoom due to the pandemic. If you have questions feel free to pm me and ill let you know what features and things I've used and what can be done.

My questions are:
What online platform is good to conduct online webinars (ie. Facebook live, Youtube live, Zoom) -  I have been using Zoom and they are easy to use to conduct meetings.  Using the Share-screen option, you can do PowerPoint, video, or other types of presentation.
What are the potential cost, pros and cons, and benefits of such platforms?  They have free and other minimal fee options.
Have you guys used these online webinars and what are your thoughts and potential recommendations?  Online presentations/meetings are much better than I anticipated.

Paul

If you need two way video conferencing, then it comes down to zoom, google hangouts. Google hangouts we use for work daily and I vouch it's easy to use as a participant and moderator.  FB live, Instagram for one way streaming. I know Instagram live has very specific start/stop times which can be disruptive if your running over. For FB, don't stream any sort of music that's copy written as they'll shut down your feed, not that you would .

Thanks for the comments. I'm looking to share a power point. One way stream, with the ability for people to type questions and i can answer them online.

I believe with Zoom (which I have used, but not for webinars), 45 mins is free for 3+ people, but to hold a webinars you need to have pro subscriptions and also purchase the seminar license. It seems like you have to buy it for a full year, and not just for one time.  Total cost is about 400+ for the year.

We want to keep these events free for the public, but with the added hosting cost and software fees we may have to charge a nominal fee.

As far as cost goes if its only a couple meetings I'm sure I could let you use mine depending on the dates feel free to message me if you want to go that route and ill set up what I can.

As far as cost goes if its only a couple meetings I'm sure I could let you use mine depending on the dates feel free to message me if you want to go that route and ill set up what I can.

Bryan,
Thanks for the offer. I'm going to explore my options and if i take you up on it, i'll DM you. --TLA

I’ve done zoom meeting with 80+ participants on the free version. I believe the max is 100. You can also record sessions with the free version. The downsides are that you’re limited to 30min per meeting (it’ll let you extend the mtg by 10min the first couple times you approach the 30min mark). And that users have to download the app. I wish you could view zoom meetings in a simple browser—that would make it more accessible for things like this, i.e., virtual fishing seminar.

We should have a weekly NCKA zoom meeting haha

I strongly recommend Zoom, but for the free account you have to watch your time limit.  Here is the features differences.  With a paid account, you can also record the meeting for future references.  There is also plenty of meeting controls.  BTW, I am not affiliated with Zoom other than I am a paid Zoom user.  I would think you don't need to use the Webinar portion, just limit attendant to 100 people, and hold multiple sessions if there is more than 100 people that are interested.

https://zoom.us/pricing