TechBuzz: Web Conferencing

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Topic: Web Conferencing

Whenever two or more people gather to share information, collaborate, brainstorm, argue, inform or train one another, that's called a conference.

Face-to-Face Conferences:

• A salesman attends a trade show to pitch his product to hundreds of potential clients.
  
• The accounting department and the CFO sit around a big table and review the fourth-quarter numbers.
  
• A consultant flies around the country to train employees on a new software application.

The drawback is that these face-to-face meetings, presentations and training sessions aren't always financially viable. Many of today's companies compete in a global marketplace with offices around the world and clients from Moscow to Moscow (Idaho and Russia, that is).

Communication and technology advances have made it possible to recreate the impact and interactivity of real-world conferences without having to leave your desk.

Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings, training, or presentations via the Internet. In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each of the attendees' computers or a web-based application where the attendees access the meeting by clicking on a link distributed by e-mail (meeting invitation) to enter the conference.
Web conferences are organized like

• An organizer sends out e-mail or text message invitations to join the Web conference on a certain day and certain time.
  
• The invitation includes a link to the conference and a password or access code to enter. If the invitation is accepted, a reminder is programmed into the attendee's calendar application.
  
• Once all the attendees log on to the conference or seminar, a single presenter controls the meeting. As presenter, you can share your desktop and other documents and applications. You can also hand control over to the other attendees and let them present.
  

Common Features
Here are some of the common features of Web conference programs:

• Using common applications like Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Flash Player, presenters can create dynamic graphic presentations enhanced by audio or even streaming video.
  
• Has the ability to create e-mail invitations with easy-to-use templates.
  
• Desktop sharing allows the presenter to display everything that's on his computer to attendees in real time. They see exactly what he sees. 
  
• Document sharing and application sharing work exactly the same way. 
  
• File transfer allows you to post documents for download either before, during or after an online presentation.
  
• Audio control allows the presenter to mute or un-mute panelists and attendees as needed. For larger Web seminars, it's typical to mute all attendees.
  
• Whiteboards are shared virtual workspaces where presenters can cut and paste documents, graphs and images. By sharing control of the whiteboard, presenters can draw, annotate and edit just like they were scrawling on a real-world whiteboard.
  
• For greater interactivity, presenters can give attendees chat capability or the option of instant messaging questions to the presenters.

Unified Communication Systems

Many people can participate in online or video conferences.

Moving forward, we're going to see more and more companies offering a unified communication system. With the popularity of IP telephony on the rise, businesses can now access all of the old and new means of communication through one supplier and one simplified software package or Web interface.

Unified communication systems will be attractive to businesses because it will simplify billing and systems administration and hopefully lower the overall costs of conferencing by combining disparate services through one vendor.
There are going to be several big companies vying for these all-in-one corporate accounts. Cisco Systems recently bought WebEx, the market leader in Web conferencing services. And Google recently announced a partnership with Avaya, a leading IP telephony and communications company.

Software and Service Providers

Adobe Acrobat Connect	Glance	OmNovia Technologies	TalkPoint
Citrix Online	IBM Lotus Sametime and IBM LotusLive	Openmeetings	TimeBridge
Dimdim	Microsoft Office Live Meeting	Oracle Beehive	Tokbox
Elluminate	MSN	Premiere Global Services (PGi)	WebEx
Fuze Meeting	Netviewer	Rhub communications	WebTrain
Genesys Meeting Center		ShowDocument	Zoho

Regards,

Suman G