I have just started looking into web conferencing. I have used elluminate. It's expensive but it works. I am interested in trying out the BigBlueButton. (http://bigbluebutton.org/) It looks like it has most of the functions that I would need. I never really liked the record features of elluminate simply because I never really wanted to watch long meetings again. However, If you invest $299 in Camtasia studio (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/), you can record meetings and then cut out the fluff later.
There are some free alternative desktop recording options, but Camtasia is, by far, the best out there.
I actually use Camtasia a lot to create training videos and lectures. It would be nice if a web-conferencing programs also allowed the recording and editing features that you find in Camtasia.
I have also used Camtasia to record someone else's elluminate meeting. It was a good thing since they forgot to hit record at first and then later realized their voice wasn't being recorded.
As of this reply, BigBlueButton was still working out some kinks on their whiteboard feature. However, a good, free whiteboard application/website is scribblar.com. (http://www.scribblar.com/) It allows you to create multiple rooms and each room allows multiple pages. It even allows file sharing and pdf uploads of 5 pages. I have used scribblar for lecture rooms in moodle as well as tutoring rooms. I love the fact that you just have to put a link to the room in the moodle course for others to access the whiteboard. It also allows you to lock the room so that others cannot change or delete things if you have a lesson set up or something. It doesn't have a record feature, but again you can use Camtasia to record a session and post it to YouTube or something later.
So, my recommendation would be to use 3 programs:
- BigBlueButton - although I have only seen demos at this point (But it does have a moodle module.)
- Scribblar - Easy, powerful, and free whiteboard
- Camtasia - $299, but well worth the money. You will thank yourself for buying a copy.