Starting and running a Skype conference
Going beyond the basic conferencing facilities
Moving files and sharing links
Viewing screens and using applications
Talking one on one with your friend or colleague is a type of communication that Skype facilitates very effectively. You may also spend a lot of time in the company of others. When you're communicating in a group setting, you're probably accustomed to sharing ideas, opening a dialog, debating, and even bantering. In short, you probably like to collaborate.
So, you're in luck! Skype conferencing makes collaborating with a group easy, and this chapter is your guide to doing so. In this chapter, we share some basic conference-calling techniques, show you how to use the conferencing capabilities that are native to Skype, and illustrate how third-party hardware or software can expand your conferencing capabilities. The combination of Skype and Web conferencing enables you to share files, show what's on your computer screen, allow others to remotely access other applications, send chat messages, and discuss ideas in a group setting. With these capabilities, you can do anything from running online classes to holding press conferences to strategizing a new product launch in your company.
When a group of people gets together — with a specific purpose or function in mind — the group selects a corresponding venue to fit the occasion. Coming together in a Skype conference call is no different. The approach to conferencing with Skype is not a one-size-fits-all solution; instead, you can conference with others using Skype in three ways:
By calling multiple people at the same time: This is the simplest form of conferencing with Skype — right out of the box. There's no additional software to download or special procedure to follow. All you're doing is connecting a group of people over Skype.
By adding Web conferencing and third-party tools to the mix: For example, GoToMeeting and Unyte are third-party tools that extend your Skype-conferencing reach by sharing your computer screen and giving others on the conference access to your keyboard and mouse. Web conferencing transforms your conference calls into virtual meeting rooms. Quite literally, there is very little you can do in a face-to-face meeting that you can't do with Web conferencing and Skype together. If you've not investigated any tools like these, I predict that (as soon as you find out what you can do with them) you'll want to start using them ... immediately ...ASAP. Really, you won't want to wait.
By catering to a large crowd: When you want to gather a large crowd — perhaps to hold a press conference, run a shareholder's meeting, or organize a relief effort in the aftermath of a hurricane, you can resort to facilities such as Skypecasting (see Chapter 14) and High Speed Conferencing (see Chapter 12). Skypecasting can accommodate up to 100 people at a time, and High Speed Conferencing can accommodate up to 500 people. Both of these services are free to Skype users.
The remarkable fact is that conferencing with Skype in all three venues has an astonishingly low barrier to entry, and the type of conferencing you can do for little or no cost is amazing.
The ability to make VoIP calls, be it PC to PC, or to a landline or mobile phone is great, but having conference-calling capabilities is really the icing on the cake. Conferencing opens up a world of possibilities. For example, suppose you bought a software product, only to find that it doesn't work properly. The software company claims that your computer is not configured correctly; the computer manufacturer claims the software company doesn't know what it's talking about. Everybody wants to point fingers, but nobody wants to take responsibility. No problem. Catch them off guard with a conference call and let 'em duke it out. We predict that your troubleshooting problem will be solved in no time at all!
Here are some other things you can do with conference calling:
Plan a surprise party
Have a telephone visit with someone in the hospital
Hold a book club dialogue
Podcast a panel discussion
Conduct a language class
Hold weekly status meetings
Help real estate agents schedule a closing with all the lawyers, bankers, and other parties
Connect doctors at multiple locations to confer about a patient
We encourage you to make your own list of ideas for conferencing via Skype. Just use it!
A traditional way to conduct a conference is to bring participants together physically (say, in a conference room) and talk face to face. Years ago, that was the only way to hold a conference. A technology such as Skype changes the ground rules for conferencing, but with new capabilities and opportunities come new challenges.
Communicating by Skype conference call with several people at one time can quickly get complicated. For example, intended conference participants may be located in different time zones, or they may look at the scheduled conference call as a chance to run through a long list of unrelated topics. Here are some simple suggestions for applying good conferencing practices to your Skype conference calls:
Plan ahead for time-zone differences: The people you want to bring together in a conference call can be located halfway around the globe from you or each other. A call you initiate at noon in Denver occurs at 3 a.m. in Hong Kong. Of course, if you regularly keep in touch with the various parties for your conference call, you can easily arrange to accommodate time-zone differences. You can imagine the potential for embarrassment when you schedule a conference call with people overseas and you call an hour later than planned because of a mix-up over Daylight Saving Time.
Note
Tip
Avoid calling at the wrong time by chatting over Skype or sending an email in advance of the call. Use this message to confirm the call's date and time in each time zone — your local time zone and the local time zones of each participant — as well as the time in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time; see the sidebar "DST, GMT, UTC, and so on" for more on time zones). If you ask participants to check their local time against GMT time, you minimize the potential for missing conference calls because of the complexities of time zone differences.
Note
If you use Outlook to schedule your meetings and have it integrated with Skylook (see Chapter 9) and your participants have Outlook, then the time zone differences are automatically reconciled in each person's Outlook schedule.
Establish a Plan B for your conference call: The kind of people who regularly participate in conference calls tend to be busy people on the go. Their time is valuable, and in their hectic real world, not everything goes as planned. Suppose you lose your wireless or Internet connection right before the call is to occur. Or perhaps one of the participants has a last-minute change of schedule. Whatever the cause, you would do well to have a backup plan. It pays to set up an alternate date/time for the conference call. This is especially relevant if you are trying to pitch a new project to a prospective client, or some similar situation in which the people you're talking with don't know you very well or are not regularly in contact with you.
Avoid conference-call drift: If you are holding a formal conference call on Skype, you'll want to keep the conference call focused. The simplest method for maintaining focus is to provide call participants with an agenda. Simply open a chat window to all the conference participants before beginning the audio conference; then, copy the agenda from your Word document and paste it into the chat window. Or even better than pasting text, paste a link to a Web page that holds the agenda into your chat.
Tip
What if someone takes the conference call via phone and has no Internet access? You can explore a multitude of services (many of which are free or at least have free trial periods) that allow you to send faxes from the Internet. If a participant has no fax machine available, just read the agenda at the start of the meeting and refer back to it as the meeting progresses.
Skype conference calling doesn't require any additional software. If you have Skype on your Windows PC or Mac, the conferencing capability is already built in. The people you conference with don't have to use the same kind of computer platform as you do. They can use a wireless mobile Skype device, such as a Pocket PC or Windows Mobile, and because you can conference with anyone reachable using SkypeOut, participants can even take a conference call on their landlines and mobile phones.
Right out of the box, Skype allows you to connect groups of users, which is the essence of conference calling. Exactly how many people can you connect this way? Skype by itself allows five people to be speaking together at one time, but if you have enhanced hardware (such as a dual-core processor), Skype allows you to take advantage of this and double that number to 10. But effective use of Skype conferencing doesn't require you to rush out and buy a brand-new, top-of-the-line computer with a dual-core processor (it's a nice excuse, though).
Note
A difference between Skype conference calling and the more traditional conference call systems is worth pointing out. With Skype, you conference call out to reach all the parties, rather than have them call in to you.
The mindset with Skype conference calling is simple and less structured than with traditional conference calling systems. When you set up a traditional conference call, you first reserve the availability of a dial-in number for a specific date and time, call or email each participant with the information, and then have everyone call the dial-in number at the scheduled time. But Skype's technology makes this level of prearranging unnecessary. Whenever you feel like it (and your intended participants are available), you can reach all the parties over Skype in one step and just start talking.
Follow these steps to making an easy Skype conference call:
In your Skype client window, Ctrl+click the Skype contacts you want to include in your conference.
As you select multiple contacts, the green handset button you use to start Skype calls changes appearance to indicate that you're in conference mode (see Figure 10-1).
Click the Conference button, and Skype calls the selected contacts.
That's all there is to it!
Skype gives you alternative ways to start a conference. You can start a conference call from the Skype menu by following these steps:
Choose Tools
Create a Conference Call.
The Start a Conference Call window opens.
Type the title in the Conference topic text box if you want something other than Skype Rocks.
Choose your conference participants.
You can select individual Skype contacts in the All Contacts pane and click the Add button (see Figure 10-2). Alternatively, you can click and drag a Skype contact into the Conference Participants panel.
After you select the participants for your conference, click the OK button.
Tip
As the conference organizer, you can use this same method (click a contact name in the All Contacts list and then click Add) to add people to an ongoing conference call. Of course, you can add callers only up to Skype's limit on the number of participants allowed.
Note
You can include SkypeOut contacts, as well as Skype-equipped contacts, in your conference calls. Before making the call, just add a SkypeOut contact and supply a regular phone number in the contact information. Once that contact is added, you can immediately include the SkypeOut contact in any conference call you initiate. Of course, if there is a charge for the SkypeOut service (which depends on where you are calling), you will incur those regular charges.
Note
Care to hold a conference call while you're on the go? Specifically, we mean when you're on the road moving at 55+ miles per hour. For a small monthly fee, your phone company may provide you with a device to connect your laptop to the Internet wherever you find a reasonably strong cell phone signal. This feature, along with Skype, gives you a roving conference center. Of course, you'll be conferencing from the back seat while someone else is driving. Safety comes first!
Conference calling on Skype is a no-brainer. Not only is setting up a call super easy (see the preceding section), but staying connected is also quite convenient. During a conference call, connections can be dropped unexpectedly. For example, suppose that a conference call participant is talking on a cell phone, drives through a tunnel, and then loses the connection (in some jurisdictions, it is unlawful to drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time). When you use Skype, you can reestablish the dropped connection without having to restart the conference call, as follows:
Click the Contacts tab to go to your Skype client's contact list.
In your contact list, all the call participants should be already selected.
Ctrl+click the dropped contact and click the green call button on the Skype client window.
The dropped contact gets added back into the call, and you don't have to close the current connections.
Now that you can conference call easily with Skype, you may get adventurous and hold your power meetings with participants overseas. A potential challenge is this: The participants you're speaking with may have foreign accents that make them all sound alike to your untrained ear and leave you scratching your head trying to figure out who said what.
A welcome feature in Skype lets you see who is talking. The feature shows up differently on the Windows and Mac platforms. On Windows, a glowing halo surrounds the icon of the person currently speaking. On a Mac, the sound meter level for the speaking participant increases. Figure 10-3 shows this feature on both platforms. Now you can really "see" who is doing the talking in your conference calls (it's seasonedskyper in both examples).
If your participants are chatterboxes, you may see more than one halo glowing at the same time. In this case, you needn't worry about who's saying what because you're unlikely to understand what they're saying, anyway.
Skype conference calls are handier when the participants can share a common chat window to type in text messages and provide live URL links during the conference call. Here is the easy way to start a simul-chat:
In the Contacts tab of your Skype client, Ctrl+click the participants for your simul-chat and conference call.
Start a chat.
With your participants selected, right-click and select Start Chat from the resulting menu. A chat window opens. You may want to start the chat with a message like "I am about to start the conference call."
Start the conference call.
On the Skype client window, your chart participants are selected. As more than one contact is selected, the large green button should display the conference call symbol. Simply click the button to start the conference call.
When you start a chat with your conference callers, you get these advantages:
You can keep a written record of the conference call: The text chat can persist long after the conference call itself is concluded. Additionally, you can retain the text content of the chat as a summary and record of information exchanged during the conference call.
You can ask just one participant a question without bothering everyone: If you need to, you can quietly conduct a separate whisper chat (where you can send a private comment to one of the participants without having all the others aware of the side discussion; see Chapter 6) while the conference is in session.
You can share discussion material: It's easy to paste several paragraphs of text into a chat window or give your participants links to click while still carrying on your conference. You can even transfer files to the conference participants.
While conference calling with Skype, you can transfer files to the connected participants. Obviously, you won't be able to transfer a file to any participant connected over SkypeOut. The last time we checked, conventional phones don't have the capability to send or receive files. Also, as of this writing, mobile devices running Skype (such as PDAs), don't have the capability to send and receive files over Skype. (But we won't be surprised if this feature is added in the future.)
When you're on a Skype conference call, you can transfer files to regular skypers by following these steps:
Make sure that you have a chat window open to your conference participants.
Locate the file you want to send.
Drag the file into the chat window.
Dragging the file to the area you would regularly be typing in messages sends the file to all the people on the chat who are capable of receiving files. Users on mobile devices who can participate on chats may not be able to receive files.
Tip
File transfers during a Skype conference call occur in the background while everyone's speaking in the foreground. Because keeping the high-grade quality of the voice line is important, the file transfer may run a little slowly. Slow transfer is noticeable if the file is several megabytes in size. You may be able to speed up the file transfer if you first place the conference on hold (by choosing Call
Skype conference calling is convenient and practical. You can convene a group people to talk and exchange ideas, send paragraphs of text, and even transfer files. The richness of the conferencing experience and benefits get multiplied when you add Web conferencing into the mix.
Web conferencing in conjunction with Skype provides a number of advantages that you cannot get using Skype alone. You can:
Present a stunning visual presentation in a group setting: Here's your chance to win over a group of people in a virtual boardroom setting. Not only can you run through your PowerPoint presentation, you can also "hand off" your presentation to another presenter midstream, showing what's on somebody else's computer. That's not all. You can create an interactive presentation that allows your conference participants to run and control the application on your screen from their computers.
Record your presentation or online session: Web conferencing can provide for features such as creating an audio or audio plus video recording of your online meeting. You can use this recording for your own personal records, for rebroadcast over the Web, or for DVD distribution as an instructional video.
When you record a conversation or meeting, be sure to adhere to any legal requirements in your jurisdiction about notifying parties that you are recording the online meeting.
Create the stunning visual presentation in collaboration with your colleagues: Sharing your screen and applications in a collaboration mode is a very effective way to work. In this manner, you can build very effective presentations with the help of your colleagues but without requiring their physical presence.
Web conferencing tools can have some administrative aids: If you plan to use Web conferencing and your line of work is professional services related, you may appreciate the fact that a number of Web conferencing services can log dates, times, and participants of online meetings. Capturing this information in the form of a spreadsheet, Web page, or text file may come in very handy.
When you tally the number of hours spent online, and the number of hours you save your clients (not to mention the reduction of travel expenses), you will find that dollar for dollar, next to Skype, which is effectively free, the added dollars you spend on Web conferencing is some of the best spent money in your budget.
Adding Web conferencing to Skype is easy to do. All you really need is Internet access (which you already have if you're using Skype) and to sign up with a service that provides Web conferencing. In this chapter, we describe two Web conferencing tools: GoToMeeting, a product of Citrix Online, and Unyte, a product of WebDialogs. There are plenty of others to pick from.
To help you understand how Skype and Web conferencing work together, we take a closer look at each of these Web conferencing products.
Skype and GoToMeeting work very well together. To get started, you need the following:
Skype and an Internet connection: You need a broadband Internet connection; a dial-up connection is not fast enough and cannot support both Skype and GoToMeeting at the same time.
A computer running Windows: To host an online meeting with GoToMeeting, you must be using the Windows operating system. Intel-based Macs that run Windows also work.
GoToMeeting: To get GoToMeeting, go to
www.gotomeeting.comand set up a GoToMeeting account. You have these options for your GoToMeeting account:Standard Account: You can pay for the service a month at a time or sign up for a year for a discounted fee. A standard account allows you to have up to 10 participants + 1 for the host. You can explore the features of GoToMeeting by setting up a free trial account.
Corporate Account: Gives you multiple user accounts but enlarges the number of participants to 25. Additional licensing options expand the number of participants to 200.
The features that we show in this chapter are based on using the standard edition of GoToMeeting.
There's a point worth mentioning about using Skype and GoToMeeting together. Depending on your Skype configuration, when you host a Skype conference call, you may have a limit of one host + four participants, or one host + nine participants. The standard version of GoToMeeting supports one host + ten participants. If you need to hold a combined Skype/GoToMeeting conference that exceeds a total of five people, you need to make sure that you are using the appropriate hardware such as a dual-core processor so that Skype can take advantage of it.
Note
The number of users permitted on a Skype conference call is dependent only on the configuration of the computer used to host the call. You do not need to concern yourself with the kind of computers your conference participants use; only the one you are using to host the conference matters.
Here are some things you can do with GoToMeeting and Skype:
Hold a private online meeting: A key advantage of using Skype in conjunction with GoToMeeting is that all the information exchanged can be 100 percent encrypted, including the information showing on the presenter's screen, the keyboard and mouse movements, chats, exchange of files, and the Skype audio conferencing. Because the Skype voice and chats are secure, you can even transmit the GoToMeeting password securely over Skype!
Hold an online interactive class: Now you can run a virtual classroom in cyberspace and all your students can be anywhere in the world. You can teach them how to run a piece of software and give them turns at taking over the mouse and keyboard. You can give them a class assignment and later file-transfer the solution. Because you can switch presenters at any time, you can team-teach the class, and individual students can be made presenters. This is unlike anything the Show and Tell that we used to know in grade school!
For whatever it's worth, GoToMeeting gives you the ability to make audio and video recordings of your Web conference.
Solve a problem for a client: If you happen to be a consultant and your client has a problem on one or more of their computers (it could, for instance, be a problem with some formulas in a spreadsheet), you have the ability to connect in over Skype and GoToMeeting and collaboratively work on the problem with the client. Skype makes it easy to transfer files, such as a spreadsheet, or software drivers, or whatever is needed at the moment. To clients, there are two other tangible benefits:
Security: Clients may want to give you temporary access to their private data to fix a problem but not allow you to take custody over the data.
Software licensing: Clients may be running some special software that has a per seat software license fee or might be difficult to install on your computer. Accordingly, Web conferencing à la Skype lets you circumnavigate these issues altogether.
Team programming: The idea is not so far-fetched. As you are developing some code for an application, you can use Skype and Web conferencing to develop an application jointly with a colleague who can be hundreds or thousands of miles away. Both of you can type and edit the programming code, and run the code on the spot. As you need to, you can transfer files back and forth using Skype. Having high-quality sound in Skype makes it seem as though your colleague is sitting in the room next to you. In this mode, you can work productively for hours at a time.
A chief benefit of this kind of team programming is the fact that you can improve the quality of your work product while shaving hours off of development, testing, and validation.
During the process of creating a GoToMeeting account, you provide some basic information including a your email address and password. After you are signed up, you can immediately start hosting online meetings. To do so, go to www.gotomeeting.com and click the button that says Host a Meeting. You are prompted for your email address and password, which is information you provided when you set up your account.
The first time you host a meeting, GoToMeeting automatically downloads and installs all the necessary files on your computer. Thereafter, you can host or schedule a meeting by right-clicking the GoToMeeting icon in your system tray and choosing either Meet Now or Schedule a Meeting.
After you establish an account and set up GoToMeeting, you can use it as much as you want. GoToMeeting puts no limitation or restriction on the amount of time you spend on meetings. GoToMeeting can also provide (at no charge) a dial-up phone number for the audio portion of your meeting. The dial-up number you are given is not a toll-free number. If you elect to use this service, all the participants who call would have to pay the toll charges. Fortunately, because you and all your participants can be using Skype, you can eliminate the need for a separate phone number and just use Skype instead. Setting up and using Skype as opposed to conventional phone service is simpler, works better, and has zero cost for Skype to Skype communications.
GoToMeeting works the following way:
GoToMeeting gives you a meeting ID: When you set up a meeting, you receive a URL that you must disseminate to your participants. Although you can email this information, the easy way to invite participants is to send the link over a Skype chat. Participants join simply by clicking the link in their chat window.
When the participants click the link, their Web browser opens a new Web page associated with the meeting. If they never used GoToMeeting before, a special Java applet is automatically downloaded and launched. It may be necessary for them to signify that they "trust" the applet and agree to let it download and launch. Participants are prompted to sign in and supply their name and email address. If you establish a password for your meeting, they are also prompted to supply that password. The whole process is automated and is a lot easier than it sounds.
Meetings can be prescheduled or on the spot: You can set up online meetings that are scheduled in advance for a particular date and time, are recurring, or are impromptu. In a scheduled meeting, you can specify the meeting subject.
Meetings are kept private: All the transmissions over GoToMeeting take place over encrypted channels. For extra security, you can require users to provide a meeting password. Additionally, if you use Skype for the audio portion of your meeting, for text messaging, and for file transfers, you can hold a complete online meeting that is 100 percent encrypted.
To start a meeting with Skype and GoToMeeting, follow these steps:
Right-click the GoToMeeting icon in your system tray and choose Meet Now from the resulting menu.
Enter your email address and password when prompted.
Tip
You can tell GoToMeeting to store this identification information on your computer and avoid having to provide it every time you host a meeting.
A GoToMeeting panel opens and displays a variety of controls for your meeting. You can optionally change the meeting subject by choosing File
If you haven't already done so, start your Skype chat and conference and get your participants online.
If you are unsure how to start a Skype conference, refer to the section "Starting a conference call," earlier in this chapter.
In the Invite People (or Invite Others) section of the GoToMeeting panel, click the Copy/Paste tab and then click the Copy button.
The information about how to join the meeting is now in your clipboard.
Click the input region of your Skype chat window (where you normally type messages) and press Ctrl+V to paste the meeting information for your participants.
Before pressing the Enter key, you can edit the meeting information. GoToMeeting automatically gives a dial-in number. Because you are already using Skype, you don't need to include this number, unless you want it as a backup to your Skype call.
As a host or meeting organizer, that's all you need to do.
If you are the recipient who is invited to a meeting over Skype, here is what happens:
The host opens a Skype conference and chat with you and the other participants.
The host posts a link to the meeting on your chat window, and you click it.
When you click the link, your Web browser launches (if it is not already open) and goes to a page to see whether you already have the GoToMeeting Java applet on your computer. If you don't, it is downloaded for you and you are asked to trust it. Say Yes to trust it. You have the choice of selecting Trust Always or Trust for Just This Session. If you select Trust Always, you won't be asked this question every time you start a GoToMeeting session. Either choice is fine.
When prompted, supply your name, email address, and, if necessary, password.
After the Java applet is downloaded, it prompts you for your name and email address. If the meeting host requires a password, you will have to supply this as well before you can enter the meeting.
When you enter the meeting, you may see a welcome screen or the presenter's computer screen (see Figure 10-4). The presenter is in control of the meeting. He or she can control what you are allowed to see. The presenter can choose to give you access to his or her mouse and keyboard. The conference organizer can change presenters at any time and can even make you the presenter.
If the conference organizer transfers meeting control to you and makes you the presenter, a window pops up on your screen that announces as much. This window also asks that — before showing the contents of your screen — you close any confidential window and then click the Show My Screen button. Nobody sees what is on your screen until you say it is okay by clicking this Show My Screen button (see Figure 10-5).
Tip
If you need to opt out of being the presenter, simply click the Close (X) button in the top-right corner of the pop-up window.
Tip
Whether you're the conference organizer or one of the participants, the GoToMeeting panel takes up a good deal of screen space. Click the "->>>" icon at the top-left corner of the panel to collapse it.
Unyte, appropriately named, brings together Skype and Web conferencing. The Unyte software integrates tightly with Skype and comes in two varieties, which you can download from www.unyte.net. Unyte Basic — the free version — allows you to share your screen with one other conference participant. The Unyte+ version allows you to share your screen and applications with multiple participants in a session. Unyte+ is fee based, and the fee depends on how many users you need to connect at one time. You can start with five users (which matches the low end configuration of Skype) or, for a higher fee, you can have up to 25 users on a Web conference. Pricing is also based the duration of your subscription.
Note
If you need to hold a Web conference that goes beyond the five-or-ten-participants limit of Skype, you will need an alternative source to handle the audio portion. The recommended source is High Speed Conferencing (www.highspeedconferencing.com), a free audio conferencing service for Skype users that can support conferences of up to 500 people. You can find out more about High Speed Conferencing in Chapter 12.
You can host an online meeting on Unyte or Unyte+ only on a Windows-based system. If you're on a Mac, you will need to be running Windows on Boot Camp or a virtualization software that allows you to run Windows.
When you host a Web conference on Unyte+, you have to specify a number of options:
What applications and desktop resources to share: You have the ability to specify what participants will see when they connect to your computer (see Figure 10-6). For instance, you may be showing a PowerPoint presentation but, behind the scenes, running an Excel pricing spreadsheet that you don't want your viewers to see.
Allowing remote control: When you start sharing resources, you have the option to allow remote control from other computers. At any time during your online meeting, you can turn remote control on or off.
Note
When you allow remote control, all the participants in the online meeting can control your computer. Participants using Macs can remotely control your computer as easily as those using PCs.
Skype contacts and invitations: Unyte gives you the option of selecting from your list of Skype contacts to invite to your online meeting (see Figure 10-7).
After you invite the participants, a new Skype chat window opens with a message from you that says something like this:
I'm inviting you to view my desktop applications. Click this link to start: https://skype2.unyte.net/skype?s=268269141&k=29089&l=en-US
Web conferences are connected through Java applets running from participants' Web browsers, so it is not necessary for the invitees to be running Skype. It is not necessary for you to limit your invitees to only Skype contacts. You can also send invitations by email, copying and pasting the meeting URL into an instant message, or simply by reading instructions to other people over the phone.
When you invite non-Skype participants, you will have to resort to a separate audio system to accommodate your invitees. The one system that can handle this for both Skype and non-Skype users is High Speed Conferencing (see Chapter 12). This system is free to set up and use. Skype users get to call for free. Non-Skype users calling from regular landlines and cell phones incur whatever it normally costs to make a call to an assigned phone number for the call, which is based on the country the caller is dialing in from.
In addition to sharing screens and applications, Unyte conference participants can draw or highlight relevant items on-screen, or use an arrow pointer to draw attention to important information (see Figure 10-8).
