Unfortunately there does not appear to be a silver bullet yet. Which software you use depends on how important multiway video is.

I think the safest bet is for everyone to download a copy of ivisit, but you should probably try it out first before dishing out money. Otherwise if AOL IM supports multiway video then that’s a free solution.

Assuming everyone is on broadband and the group is mixed between Macs and PCs, you have 4 options:

1. Macs use iChat and windows users use AOL messenger.
   • I’m not sure if this extends to more than 2-way video and AOL’s quality is reportedly not the best.
   • The software is free.
2. Windows people use MSN messenger and Mac people use Mercury messenger.
   • Not sure how well the Trillion software works
   • Not sure that MSN supports multi-way video
3. Everyone buy a copy of ivisit and do up to 8 way video
4. Everyone download the free SquidCam.
   • not sure about multi-way

iChat

If both parties are using iChat (Mac OS X only) you can videoconference and/or audioconference with 3 other people simultaneously, up to full screen. Overall if everyone used iChat this gives the best experience on the market.

It is also rumored that in the next version of OS X Apple will be beefing up iChat to have high quality VOIP (telephone quality voice and ability to make calls to phone numbers).

On the Windows side, iChat can videoconference with AOL Instant Messenger application or trillion which costs $25.00 to do the video. The limitation here is that AOL doesn’t let you resize the video on your screen.

I haven’t been able to confirm whether

MSN messenger

The windows version of MSN messenger appears to be similar to iChat in features - you can do full screen conferencing, but I don’t know if you can do it with more than 2 people.

There is no mac video client for MSN, but people on a Mac can use a program called Mercury Messenger which is currently under development to video with Windows people on MSN. Not sure about quality/ease of use, etc as it’s still in beta.

iVisit

I think this is the successor to the CuSeeMe program from Cornell. This is a commercial program that can install on Mac and Windows. It supports up to 8-way videoconferencing You can share files over a connection as well as “co-browse” the web. Cost is something like $50.00 per client.

SquidCam

A free cross-platform videoconferencing application. Not sure about multiway video, although there is a LANcast feature, which seems promising.