Published in InfoAlert.

Are members of your company spread out across the country, or even the world? Is it important for you to hold regular meetings with your customers, sales reps, or employees?

Have you considered conducting your meetings online?

Let's look at some avenues for conducting online meetings. For the purpose of this article, though, we'll concentrate on free web-based chat programs or rooms. Online chatting can be text-based or voice, though voice chat doesn't have the clarity or ease of use that a telephone does.

One advantage to an online conference is that everything is in writing, so you can always scroll back through the discussion if you miss anything. Many chat programs even allow you to save a copy of the transcript to your hard drive for later use.

Online conferencing is certainly cheaper, in most cases, than a long-distance telephone call, and it's definitely less expensive than flying people from all over the country for a "real" meeting.

If you need to meet with only a few people at a time, some of the freeware chat programs may be of interest to you. The benefits of these programs include ease of use, private chatting, and notification when users on your chat list arrive online.

Disadvantages include having to download the programs and updating them when new versions are released, which is a small price to pay for the quality of the programs themselves.

With PowWow, an excellent and easy-to-use program, you can communicate by text typing or by voice. When connected to other users, you can transfer files or join in group chats of up to nine people. A community mode is also available which allows up to 75 people to communicate.

America Online has enlarged their instant messenger capabilities to users who aren't connected through AOL. AOL Instant Messengerallows you to have instant, private, one-on-one chats. Instant Messenger also gives you access to AOL NetFind, a search engine for the Web. Of the three programs mentioned here, AIM is the easiest to use and set up and probably the most trouble free. However, it's also the most basic with few extra features.

Mirabilis claims to be the "world's largest Internet online communication network." Their chat program, ICQ, is an extremely popular program that allows you to find and contact associates in real time through the Net. With ICQ, you can send messages and files, or it can also be used in a multiple-user mode for conferences. On the downside, ICQ tends to be a little confusing in the beginning, which can be frustrating to users. But it's an excellent program with a multitude of features.

But what if you don't want to fool with downloading a program? No problem. Try Talk City .

Talk City has several business-related chat rooms already set up in categories such as business, finance, and real estate. Or, you can attend meetings on specific topics, like brainstorming your business challenges or discussing small business and retail practices. You also have the option of setting up your own room.

With Talk City, you don't have to download any programs. Once at the site, you have the option of using EZ Talk Lite or EZ Talk Pro. Pro has more features but sets up slower than the Lite version.

Yahoo! Chatis a similar online chatting community where you can join in on group business-related chat sessions or set up your own private meeting rooms.

With Yahoo! Chat, you decide which type of software you want to use based on your browser and operating system. You can choose Java-based chat or HTML-based chat, and the site recommends which is best for your particular setup. Both virtually install themselves immediately with no downloading involved.

Excite People & Chat Channeloffers Java-based instant chatting, instant paging, and even e-mail capabilities. You can chat in one of their already established chat rooms, or set up your own private room for conferencing.

A few sites offer listings of business-related chat rooms all over the web. From the Ultimate Chat List , you can visit Entrepreneur Magazine's Small Business Square, or stop by legal or stock chat rooms.

Another site that offers a list of business-related chat rooms is Chat Seek Business Chat. Categories include commodities and trading, small business, and financial planning and tax.

So the next time you need to schedule a meeting, consider making it a virtual online meeting. It's certainly the wave of the future.

Robin Nobles is a freelance writer who can be reached at robinnobles@robinsnest.com.

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