Hot on the heels of Ronni’s Gnomedex post (sorry about those stairs, but you’ll be happy to know there’s an elevator right around the corner from them)… Tom Poe from Charles City (Iowa) sent me this request for assistance:

Chris: I’m living in a small community in north-central Iowa. I’m stirring some interest in the community laying the groundwork for the cutover to digital in Feb 2009. One of the pieces is a Meraki unit in each house, and a shared Internet access for a community wireless mesh network. Another piece is a few digital recording studios around town for producing digital content for broadcasting across the community. A third piece is setting up to hold streaming conferences that let participants with webcams participate on one level, those with Internet access participate on a chat level, and those without Internet access being able to sit in the audience. Since we’re a small community, we have to start at the lowest, klunkiest level.

I have a cheap desktop computer loaded with state-of-the-art audio and video software from Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, so that lowers the digital recording studio piece to near zero. The Meraki.net units in each home costs a one-time fee of $50, and running a cable line to the center of town lowers the monthly Internet shared payment to about $3 per month per house, so that takes care of the infrastructure. It is the third piece that needs work. What suggestions for setting up to have videoconferencing capability do you have?

I’d love to recommend ustream.tv, but they really don’t have a collaboration feature set. I’ve hacked my own live stream with CamTwist about as far as it can be pushed on the client side, but… I’m guessing that Skype is going to do everything you need it to do (and then some). Don’t make this more complicated than it really needs to be. ;)