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Meet Market Are we ready for a Web-conferenced world?

By Eric Brown

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Ah, the business trip: delayed flights, air rage, lines for rental cars, road rage and overpriced hotels.

No wonder Web-based conferencing services are taking off. With a typical service, you link to the site with a standard Web browser and use online tools to host your meetings. You can upload PowerPoint slide shows and create annotated whiteboard presentations, and participants respond via text chat and a linked-in voice-conferencing service. The latest packages support file transfers, audience polling, streaming media, videoconferencing and software sharing.

According to Collaborative Strategies LLC (www.collaborate.com), a management consulting firm in San Francisco, the data-conferencing market will grow from $550 million in 1999 to $1.2 billion this year. Web conferencing service providers include 3Cube (www.phonecube.com), Astound Inc. (www.astoundinc.com), Evoke Communications (www.evoke.com), PlaceWare (www.placeware.com), MSHOW.com, WebEx Communications Inc. (www.webex.com) and WebSentric (www.presentation.net).

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