CONFERENCE CALL

Conference Call Recording Made Easy
I have created my fair share of podcasts and found that recording phone conversations for interviews was a must. I also found that recording conference calls was a brutal exercise in futility and frustrating to say the least.
Yes, there are plenty of conference call companies out there who provide recording now but it seems bizarre how many of them are still delivering actual CDs and Tapes!? Most of them do not even make the recordings available online after the call, you have to ask for it and it costs extra.
There are free conference call providers out there that allow you to use their service free of charge who do provide recordings, but you have to pay for the long distance toll charges.
With some services it's as simple as a checkbox when you create your conference call online or if you are using the system in an ad-hoc reservationless fashion you can just enter "6#" on your phone to start or stop recording. Within a few minutes your call recording(s) will be waiting for you.
You can listen to the conference recording using the embedded flash player or download the recording MP3 to your computer. Some services also offers an RSS feed for the recordings that is quite unique. You can add recordings to your RSS feed creating a podcast that listeners can use to download recordings directly to their MP3 player or iPod. It's as easy as click on the plus button next to your recording. You can reverse the process as well by clicking the minus button to remove it from your podcast feed.
Now that we have our RSS feed link we can post it to our blog. When a reader subscribes to that RSS feed their reader will reflect the changes that you make to your feed. If you add a conference call to your feed they will see that and be able to listen to it. If you remove a conference call they will lose that call from their feed.The Benefits of Having a Reservationless Conference Call
Organizations of all types today utilize new communications technology to facilitate collaboration among members. One of the most-used and most useful applications is the teleconference, which enables multiple people and groups of people in separate locations to connect and talk on the same phone call. The teleconference has become a staple of business life, and it is used by all types of organizations, including multinational corporations, government agencies, universities and academic collaborators, and small businesses. New communications technologies facilitate the spread of information and ideas, and conference calls are no exception.
However, conference calls today still are not very user-friendly. Often there is a long dial-in number that needs to be distributed beforehand either through email or another phone call. Then after dialing that number, the teleconference participant must enter a code or password in order to join the conference. This process can be tedious and annoying in everyday situations; in the event of an emergency, this type of delay could actually be dangerous.
The reservationless conference call is the answer to quickly setting up and participating in a teleconference with either a handful or dozens of other people. Not all mass notification companies offer the option of setting up an instant conference call, so it is important to make sure that the company you select offers this service. The notification company will contain the contact information of the organization's members in its database, and when an administrator or other user sends out a message, they can select the option to connect that person to an on-demand conference call.
Imagine this situation: your company receives word that a natural disaster has occurred at or near one of its facilities. Management needs to be notified immediately to determine the details of the situation and to decide what course of action to take. How do you connect all of these people in the fastest way possible? You could contact all of them by phone individually, but this wastes valuable time in a critical situation. You can email them, but there is no guarantee they will see the email or realize the severity immediately.
The solution is an emergency notification service that has the ability to set up a reservationless conference call. Simply send out a message to your users, telling them that a critical situation has occurred. This message will be send over multiple modalities, including email, SMS text message to cell phones, and voice messages to cell phones, home phones, work phones, and BlackBerry PINs. The message will give the user the option to connect instantly to an on-demand conference call. In a matter of seconds, your whole team can be connected to a reservationless conference call, without all the hassle and waste of first setting up the conference, then notifying all of the participants of the dial-in number and the password, and then waiting for all the the participants to dial in and enter their passwords.
Conference Call Providers
Conference call providers are the ones who enable the basic service for conference calls, either on web conferencing software or on a comparative low cost audio conferencing solution for online conference call meetings. They provide advanced teleconferencing platforms for customers to place international phone calls to anywhere in the world. With these features and calling flexibility, the telecom costs can be easily reduced by 90% over the traditional phone companies. This helps businesses to save money on international phone bills.
An organization can have up to 50 people connected on a single call through a conference caller, and be billed the same rate as a regular phone call. They don’t have to pay those high per-minute rates from other telecom companies. Conference call providers use the latest digital routing and switching equipment. Nowadays, conference call providers use full fiber-optic cabling throughout the network, providing callers with the finest quality service available, with a good bandwidth and less noise and transmission errors. There are multiple options to connect to a conference call provider. You can dial into a local toll-free access number, enter your conference code and get connected.
For conference call providers, with Conference Caller Web Dial Out, the calls are initiated via the Internet, are able to be received at any time of the day, 7 days a week. The fully automated system acts as a 24-hour operator, connecting organizations to their international partners and clients.
A lot of these providers are full-service conference call companies offering quality service and low-cost options. These companies provide personalized service for all of your conferencing needs. Affordable conference call provider rates, obviously, are preferred by most businesses. Reasonable pricing is the growing trend in the conferencing industry. Conference call providers are battling for their share of the marketplace. One must be sure to discuss and negotiate the best deals from their providers.
One should note that many providers offer a limited selection of conferencing services. Most of the companies specialize in one or two services, like audio, video, web, or data. Web collaboration software, video equipment, and conferencing phones are also offered by some companies.