Paltalk / Conferencing Software Alternatives
I am going to be starting online language lessons and have been reviewing various options for tools to use. I would like to keep the approach quite simple - all I really need is an application which allows:
- Upto 500 users to log on
- No advertising
- The ability for myself to be able to give the lesson using the microphone. There is no requirement for other users to be able to speak as this would be impractical given the no. of users.
- Text to be typed by any user within the Group - this will enable an practical Q&A session with users typing questions in text and myself answering using the Microphone.
Paltalk allows all of these features and appears to be cost effective. However, I am very much against all the advertising and also as many younger users are using the tool - I find Paltalk has uncontrolled adult chat rooms / advertising as well as spyware. Although if I subscribe to the premium service I can control advertising in my own group - this doesn't allow users who have downloaded the application for free to opt out of the barrage of advertisements or deal with the issue of uncontrolled adult chat rooms etc.
On all these counts I reluctantly am finding an alternative and would appreciate any advice on this. The problem with some of the alternatives I have looked at is that they are overkill in terms of enabling video streaming - which I don't require, or extremely expensive or very limited in number of users (understandable if video streaming is enabled). I wouldn't be averse to video being available or some extra features - but wouldn't want to pay a huge premium for this or limit users as a result of this.
Paltalk is approx $600 per month for a 500 user room. That is very acceptable as our pricing for users can factor this in - e.g. cost of $1.20 per user per month if we had full subscription. Some alternative tools run into the thousands.
Kind Regards,
Raheel
- Upto 500 users to log on
- No advertising
- The ability for myself to be able to give the lesson using the microphone. There is no requirement for other users to be able to speak as this would be impractical given the no. of users.
- Text to be typed by any user within the Group - this will enable an practical Q&A session with users typing questions in text and myself answering using the Microphone.
Paltalk allows all of these features and appears to be cost effective. However, I am very much against all the advertising and also as many younger users are using the tool - I find Paltalk has uncontrolled adult chat rooms / advertising as well as spyware. Although if I subscribe to the premium service I can control advertising in my own group - this doesn't allow users who have downloaded the application for free to opt out of the barrage of advertisements or deal with the issue of uncontrolled adult chat rooms etc.
On all these counts I reluctantly am finding an alternative and would appreciate any advice on this. The problem with some of the alternatives I have looked at is that they are overkill in terms of enabling video streaming - which I don't require, or extremely expensive or very limited in number of users (understandable if video streaming is enabled). I wouldn't be averse to video being available or some extra features - but wouldn't want to pay a huge premium for this or limit users as a result of this.
Paltalk is approx $600 per month for a 500 user room. That is very acceptable as our pricing for users can factor this in - e.g. cost of $1.20 per user per month if we had full subscription. Some alternative tools run into the thousands.
Kind Regards,
Raheel
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Thanks - that is an excellent product. Actually prior to your response I had found a more professional variant of PalTalk - www.hearme.com - it is exactly the same technology, similar licensing but more like the other professional conferencing software on the market with nice, clean interface and you can set up your own room so no advertising, adult material etc scattered all around the place.
However, after looking at the product you have mentioned above - I am highly impressed and certainly enough so to do a product comparison before deciding which one to go with. I may end up going with HearMe because of some useful functionality on the application sharing and better codecs for sound quality - but it's nice to have options! :-)
Kind Regards,
Raheel