May 1, 2009 - 1:29pm
Do you want to discuss new trading opportunities with your partners in China? Teach English to a group of students? Or conduct live meetings with your remote co-workers to show them several variants of new logo? Consider web conferencing. It is a cost effective way of creating a virtual working environment with individuals all over the world. Here are some basics about web conferencing features and options.
Web conferencing is a meeting of several persons for sharing information via the Internet. From multi-million dollar corporations to tiny home-based offices, web conferences save time and boost productivity by having decision makers all present in a single secure setting to discuss budgets, tasks, marketing strategies, and other important topics.
Web conferencing has proven to be a useful and rather inexpensive tool for many businesses and organizations, especially in such fields as Sales and Marketing, Team Collaboration, Education and Training, Schools and Universities, Live Tech Support and Corporate Communications.
This innovative online technology has become excellent replacement for in-person meetings among employees and executive boards because it saves travel costs. The employees can attend conferences even if they can’t physically come at the event.
In the beginning of the Internet age, the term "web conference" was often used to describe a group discussion in a message board and therefore not live. In the late 1990s, the first true web conferencing capability became available. After that dozens of other web conferencing plans were launched.
A web conference can be either a downloaded application on each of the participants' computers or a web-based application where the participant simply need to enter a website address to join the conference. The combination of audio and visual components lets attendants interact with one another similar to a face-to-face meeting.
Web conference features
Typically, a web conference provides the following features:
• Live video to accompany presentations with digital video camera or multi-media files.
• VoIP to accompany presentations with audio.
• Slide show presentations (PowerPoint or Keynote slides) combined with markup tools and a remote mouse pointer help the presenter illustrate the topic.
• Whiteboard allows the presenter and attendees to make notes or highlight items on the slide presentation.
• Message abilities allow attendees to send private message to the presenter, who may answer in private or publish the message to the entire group for discussion.
• Polls and surveys allow the presenter to ask questions with several variants of answers.
• Screen sharing (or desktop sharing) where attendants can view anything that the presenter is showing on his or her screen.
• Meeting recording can record a meeting session offline and online for later viewing and distribution.
• Search and filter tools allow participants search messages by date, author, or keyword.
• Access control - if some part of presentation is private, a conference moderator will control what level of access each attendant has.
As the product is annually enhanced with additional features and options, it will no doubt provide even more useful ways to communicate with persons all over the world in the future.
Web conferencing plans
The field of web conferencing software has grown at an amazing pace. In the summer of 1994 there were just a couple of products in this category. Both of them were very simple freeware packages. Nowadays there are over 60 commercial and freeware products that support web conferencing in one form or another.
Web conferencing is often sold as a web-based application hosted on a server controlled by the vendor. Plans can vary, but most vendors provide a monthly flat fee model ($29-$49 per month), a cost per user per minute model, and a seat model.
There are many commercial providers of web conferencing services. They include Adobe Acrobat Connect ($39 per month), Citrix GoToMeeting ($49 per month or $39 per month if you agree to a year of service), Elluminate Live! (a free version for meetings with three seats or less), IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting (flat rates start from $48 per month ), Microsoft Office Live Meeting ( $15.42 per user per month for the Professional edition and $4.58 per user per month for the Standard edition), Webex MeetMeNow (flat rates start from $39 per month).
Web conferencing is a meeting of several persons for sharing information via the Internet. From multi-million dollar corporations to tiny home-based offices, web conferences save time and boost productivity by having decision makers all present in a single secure setting to discuss budgets, tasks, marketing strategies, and other important topics.
Web conferencing has proven to be a useful and rather inexpensive tool for many businesses and organizations, especially in such fields as Sales and Marketing, Team Collaboration, Education and Training, Schools and Universities, Live Tech Support and Corporate Communications.
This innovative online technology has become excellent replacement for in-person meetings among employees and executive boards because it saves travel costs. The employees can attend conferences even if they can’t physically come at the event.
In the beginning of the Internet age, the term "web conference" was often used to describe a group discussion in a message board and therefore not live. In the late 1990s, the first true web conferencing capability became available. After that dozens of other web conferencing plans were launched.
A web conference can be either a downloaded application on each of the participants' computers or a web-based application where the participant simply need to enter a website address to join the conference. The combination of audio and visual components lets attendants interact with one another similar to a face-to-face meeting.
Web conference features
Typically, a web conference provides the following features:
• Live video to accompany presentations with digital video camera or multi-media files.
• VoIP to accompany presentations with audio.
• Slide show presentations (PowerPoint or Keynote slides) combined with markup tools and a remote mouse pointer help the presenter illustrate the topic.
• Whiteboard allows the presenter and attendees to make notes or highlight items on the slide presentation.
• Message abilities allow attendees to send private message to the presenter, who may answer in private or publish the message to the entire group for discussion.
• Polls and surveys allow the presenter to ask questions with several variants of answers.
• Screen sharing (or desktop sharing) where attendants can view anything that the presenter is showing on his or her screen.
• Meeting recording can record a meeting session offline and online for later viewing and distribution.
• Search and filter tools allow participants search messages by date, author, or keyword.
• Access control - if some part of presentation is private, a conference moderator will control what level of access each attendant has.
As the product is annually enhanced with additional features and options, it will no doubt provide even more useful ways to communicate with persons all over the world in the future.
Web conferencing plans
The field of web conferencing software has grown at an amazing pace. In the summer of 1994 there were just a couple of products in this category. Both of them were very simple freeware packages. Nowadays there are over 60 commercial and freeware products that support web conferencing in one form or another.
Web conferencing is often sold as a web-based application hosted on a server controlled by the vendor. Plans can vary, but most vendors provide a monthly flat fee model ($29-$49 per month), a cost per user per minute model, and a seat model.
There are many commercial providers of web conferencing services. They include Adobe Acrobat Connect ($39 per month), Citrix GoToMeeting ($49 per month or $39 per month if you agree to a year of service), Elluminate Live! (a free version for meetings with three seats or less), IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Meeting (flat rates start from $48 per month ), Microsoft Office Live Meeting ( $15.42 per user per month for the Professional edition and $4.58 per user per month for the Standard edition), Webex MeetMeNow (flat rates start from $39 per month).