Archive for the ‘Communications’ Category

Web Conferencing Services – Types

Diane Parker asked:




You may already have recognized the need for web conferencing within your organization. You have heard all about the many benefits and have decided it is the way forward for your company. Now all you have to do is decide which type of web conferencing would best suit your company’s needs.

A quick investigation into the types of web conferencing available will result in a myriad of information. For the uninitiated, unraveling what is available can be confusing and time-consuming.

Below you will find a quick guide to the types of web conferencing currently out there. Each organization will have its own individual requirements and it is important to be clear about what you hope to gain from web conferencing. For example, is it a fully interactive virtual meeting place that your organization needs, or do you require a document sharing system that will allow employees in different geographical locations to work together on projects? Once you understand how you want web conferencing to work for you, analyzing the types of web conferencing and how they could work for your organization will become much easier.

Web Meeting

With growths in international business and a growing trend towards home working, the need for a virtual meeting place is increasing. A web meeting is just what it says – a meeting that takes place over the Internet. This facility has the capabilities to hold real-time conversations and share documents. Web meetings can be fully interactive, allowing participants to converse in real time and for information to be exchanged between delegates.

Web meeting set-ups vary in terms of sophistication and a very rudimentary system can be set up using just a digital camera and a broadband connection.

The Webcast

As the name would suggest, a webcast is a type of broadcast similar in nature to a television broadcast except, of course, a webcast takes place over the Internet. The broadcasting nature of this facility means that there is little opportunity for the presenter and delegates to interact with each other and therefore its function is primarily as a presenting tool. The other main feature of a webcast is that it can be broadcast simultaneously to hundreds of recipients.

If your requirement is for a presenting tool that also offers the interactive features of a web meeting, then you should consider a webinar.

The Webinar

As the name suggests, the webinar is a facility that allows you to conduct a seminar over the web. Allowing a greater level of interaction than the webcast, a webinar enables the presenter to conduct question and answer-type sessions with delegates. However, you should remember that a webinar does not afford the same degree of interaction as a web meeting.

Other Uses For Web Conferencing

Online Presenting

Web conferencing can also be used for conduction online presentations. Online presenting is ideal for sales pitches, performance reporting or providing training for other members of your organization. Add on features include slide shows, web based conversing and audio/video streaming.

Online Collaboration

This is by far the most commonly used type of web conferencing and is the ideal solution for organizations who have multi-location sites yet require collaboration between their employees on projects and documents. Online collaboration has file sharing capabilities that updates changes and alterations to documents in real-time to avoid errors.

Juan

Webinar – Communication Made Easier

Hope Dever asked:




Webinar is one of the easiest ways to communicate with people online. One can use it to promote business, conduct official seminars, gather information, vote and many more. Unlike webcast or other conferencing services, web conferencing allows the audience to interact with the speaker.

This service is generally hosted by a vendor on a web server. Some vendors allow their clients to host the web seminars at their own servers. However, most vendors offer assistance to their customers and also to people who join the conference. Thus any form of technical problem, occurring at the time of the conference, can be handled by the vendors with ease. Thus, the client doesn’t need to be worried about technical glitches at the time of conference.

Here are some features that make webinar a unique online conferencing tool:

1. Slide show presentation can be done through this conferencing service, and the specialty is that the pointer can be used at the Power point or keynote presentation. This ensures that the audience remains engaged while the presentation is being made.

2. Usage of Whiteboards enable the audience as well as the presenter to carry out any kind of annotation and highlights of the meeting. It can also be used for making notes and even marking the slides.

3. Videos can be used (both live and streamed video). Video files can be from full motion web cams, multi- media files or digital camera files.

4. Usage of VoIP helps in communication between the audience and the speaker.

Webinar allows sharing of screen, desktop and other application among the attendees and the presenter. Therefore, anyone can view anything, irrespective of the position of the person. Though not yet widely used, there is an application of screen sharing that allows participant to remote desktop control. It lets the participant to manipulate the presenter’s desktop.

Website demonstration is being made easy by the use of this kind of conferencing online service. URLs, data, cookies, online forms and scripts can be transferred among the participants by any attendee. This can be done through web based clicks and logon features.

Live question and answering session can be conducted through these web based seminars. Text chats are also possible during this sessions. It is also possible to make it visible either among all the participants or keep it private among couple of people / few of the attendees.

This kind of conferencing online service helps in carrying out multiple choice questions, polls and surveys. Thus, the answers can be obtained immediately. Since the audience is live, the result can be deduced without wasting of time.

The web seminars are also possible to be recorded. This helps the organizers to view and distribute the video among the attendees. It can be recorded by both the vendor, client or both of them.

There are numerous software and vendors that are available online to conduct webinar. Some software are free and can be downloaded. However, in order to conduct better web based seminars, it is always advisable to buy appropriate software. Various types of customized features has made this tool user-friendly.

Vendors, offering the service, charge their customers either on per minute service or on the total number of participants. There is another type of payment method is also there, namely “flat rate”. It is always advisable to conduct a research on the services provided by the vendor before selecting.

Tiffany

Webinar Host – Choosing the Best One For You

Tom Cruz asked:




One of the most important things with webinars is the host service that is used. A Webinar host is a necessary for any webinar. In most instances, you are going to want to go with a hosting provider that is going to provide you with all the features that you need in order to run your webinar. This means that in many cases you are going to want to look for a business that offers you both the hosting for the video but also offers you the ability to use either phone conferencing or is going to have voice over IP options.

You may also want to consider other things such as pricing plans. This is primarily going to be determined by the amount of use your webinar is going to have. For example, if you are going to be using it infrequently then you may want to consider what is called a per minute per seat rate. This type of payment plan is offered by hosts that deal with individuals or businesses that are infrequent users of webinars or who have webinars that have multiple levels.

For example, say you are training an entire department. You can do this in a single webinar by having all employees start out for the basics, then give the general information for each level with managers being the last individuals to leave the session. You are only changed for the number of people who are in the session and viewing at any given time. For infrequent uses, this is a perfect solution.

For individuals who have frequent webinars a flat rate monthly free may be more appropriate. This includes up to a certain amount of bandwidth and a certain number of seats per session. There are usually multiple packages allowing for as much or as little as you need. The final package is usually a per seat fee. With this fee package, usually it is so much per seat up to a certain number and then they may have discounts for seating after that number and usually include bandwidth charges.

Features may or may not be extra and may be available as independent additions to your package or available in packages. The features to look for in a webinar host are one such as voice over IP or phone conferencing options. You may also want to look for things such as chat rooms or even message boards. This allows you pick out the various options that are going to work the best for your webinar and your clients.

Researching into a webinar host that is going to provide you with what you need to run your business and your webinar is an essential part of creating a webinar and getting it out to the people, you are trying to reach. You will want to consider feature packages, fee plan and exactly what you need when it comes to a webinar host for your business and your clients, customers or staff.

Katie

Advantages of Using Video Conferencing

Serena Wilkinson asked:




There are those who would argue that staging a webinar is not much different from conducting a live presentation in person. In many ways this is true, but the web conferencing format expands the audience and enhances the presentation. One example is through the use of videos in meetings.

Video Conferencing Explained

The term video conferencing refers to technology that allows communication via live video streams. It can involve two or more persons, but the basic idea is that all participants can see all others involved in the web conference. While it can be a standalone service, it is usually a component of today’s web conferencing software. While video conferencing is not absolutely vital to the success of a meeting, having a video component does greatly increase the overall presentation’s effectiveness.

The Benefits and Advantages

Few conferences can be considered successful without some sort of video component. Along with standard features as chat, annotation and whiteboard, presentations can be structured in such a way that participants can offer their own input in real time. This is one of the many benefits of conducting a seminar or meeting online and a growing number of organizations are catching on to this fact. These include:

Large and small companies: Regardless of the size of any business, there are great benefits to be had by either hosting or attending a webinar. Some companies may use them to provide training for employees. Smaller companies recognize the value of the web meeting for networking opportunities and self promotion. Many meeting software also have built in screen sharing functions, allowing for an easy way for teams to collaborate and work together regardless of their physical locations.

Schools and universities:

Use of video conferencing does not only apply to online schools. Online learning also schools the flexibility to offer self-paces or distance learning classes for students who are not able to attend classes on campus. Courses taught online can often be recorded for reference by students or professors later.

Vera

Online Conferencing – Various Forms of Services

Hope Dever asked:




Online conferencing was once associated with high profile businesses, who had to interact with people from various places. It was expensive to set up such an conferencing internet service. However, with time, internet has become more accessible so has the conferencing services. The facility is now no longer limited to multi-national companies but can be utilized by small and medium size businesses too. To convey about one’s business one does not need to hold meetings at various locations and in this way saving the money on travel as well as accommodation. Thus, you can reach out to more people. Thereby, online conferencing has become one of the most impressive tools in boosting small businesses.

The internet market is now full of conference call providers and everyone is competing with the other to grab more market share. This has benefited the clients as the cost of conferencing has come down like never before. So select the facilities that you would require for your business and then select the online conference service provider.

Audio or Video Conferencing:

Depending on your business, you got to decide the mode of conferencing that you would select. Though audio conferencing services are much cheaper than video conferencing ones, it does not possess the multiple features that video conferencing offers. Under the umbrella term “video conferencing”, webinar and various other web-based video conferencing are also there. Presentations with slide, power-points, application of white boards, sharing of desktop and screens among the attendees are possible. Even simultaneous online wiki-style editing is facilitated. Usage of pointer and the visuals makes it easier to explain or put across points to the others in video based conferencing.

Free Conferencing:

There are multiple online conferencing service providers that offer free conferencing. If you have few people to reach out to and do not require a prolific service regularly then it is alright to use free services in conferencing.

Reservation:

Online conferencing vendors offer two kinds of services, reservation and non-reservation. Once again if you want to conduct an online conference without any preparation then you can avail the non-reservation facility. In this case, you are free to select the people that you want in the conference and the service provider is in no way involved, apart from providing you with the conference facility. On the other hand, in case of conferencing reservation, you need to schedule and book the time. Then you have to inform the number of participants to become a part of the conference. In case of reservation conference, people without invitation cannot take part in it.

Time limit:

Decide on the time that you would require to talk on your business matters. Most of the time, a conference call is allowed to run for one hour, but larger audience would mean more duration. So, know the number of participants along with the time required by you. At the time of doing your reservation you can give an estimation of the time that you would require. This would also enable you to make an estimation of the cost required for the conference.

Online conferencing also lets you keep the record of the conference so that you can refer to it later.

Floyd

Benefits of Hosting Webinars

John C Sutton asked:




There are many benefits of hosting webinars, and having web and video conference calls. It certainly depends on what type of business you are running, but almost all companies can find an application of how hosting webinars can beneift their business. In this article we will examine the three most basic uses for webinar hosting.

Demonstrate and sell your product to prospects Meetings with existing clients in different cities Training employees in satellite offices I am sure that many clever people can come up with more than three uses for webinar hosting, but these are the tree most basic that apply to almost all businesses. Let’s review the three variations.

Selling your product

Sales representatives no long have to leave the office to go to an onsite demonstration. Sales reps can now log onto their PC along with the prospect and discuss all of the features and value that your product has to offer. We all hope the demonstration goes well, but if it does not, do not worry. You have already gained back the time from having to commute to the potential customer’s site. Instead of wasting time, the sales rep can continue to sell immediately after the presentation.

Monthly Performance Reviews

Regardless of what industry you are in clients and internal parties often have performance reviews. These reviews take place as frequently as daily, but most are either weekly, monthly, or even quarterly. The advantage of being able to host a webinar is that you can organize a meeting with people in different offices, cities, and regions and have them all come together as if they are in the same office. Instead of having a conference call, you are able to show live visual representation of the data you are explaining.

Training Employees

Years ago we all had to fly to the corporate headquarters to receive new hire training or even on going training. In this day and age, this is no longer necessary. While nothing can take away from a face to face meeting with your colleagues, hosting a webinar allows you to connect multiple office with a few clicks on a computer with an Internet connection.

Phyllis

Advantages of Web Conferencing

Hope Dever asked:




With a web conference tool you can organize a business meeting with your partners residing in different places. However, you might feel it is somewhat easy today to talk to people through web voice conferencing services, with a computer (web enabled) and web cam. So, why use web conferencing service at a price. Web video conferencing services comes into effect when you are using the service to organize a large seminar or meeting with people sitting at multiple places and are huge in number. Business has gone global today and merchants are embracing high tech tools to communicate and work renouncing the traditional means of communication. So, to ensure that you select the best web-based voice conferencing tool look for the specific features you need.

So, what are the possible advantages to enjoy by availing a web video conferencing service? Here are some examples.

No Expensive Equipments Required: As you avail the web video conference tool, you are spared of the expense of purchasing pricey equipments. Spending merely on a few tools will give you clear audible sound and lucid desktop images of the many members of the conference. You will experience difficulties in conducting a seminar in case the sound and the image quality is terrible. With web conferencing you can now enjoy flawless sound delivery and picture in real time and conduct any business meeting successfully without spending a huge sum on expensive equipments.

View Images: In desktop web video conferencing you can have a look at the images of people participating in the conference sitting at any part of the globe. Thus, you can watch the facial expressions and reaction of people sitting at the conference.

Trainings: Apart from meetings and seminars, you can even conduct training sessions. Thus with the desktop conference you can train novices in your company about the several technical aspects. Or else sitting at a distant office, you can use the tool to train your employees working in other offices on any new trade rules. Novices in the company entering into their first are often unaware of the practices in the corporate world. This tool is probable the best way to train them even when you are sitting at a remote office.

Features Of video conferencing services: There are additional features related to web video conferencing today. These include event conference call, web presentation, file sharing with the help of excel, word or power point documents, direct phone call, event conference call and webinar.

The above mentioned advantages are some of the most common merits related to web video conference. If you wish to enjoy the service, make sure you select a web conferencing company that offers features suitable for your business need.

The service will allow you to get the most out of your conferencing reducing your expenditure. There are a few customized features you will enjoy with a web conference tool package. However, this generally depends on the web conferencing company. The features include event management, conference calling, multiple host control and other features. So, if you wish avail such profits make sure you select the best conferencing tool.

Kelly

Web Conferencing Services – Many Advantages Over Other Services

Lauri Jones asked:




In case you are still not aware of the benefits of web conferencing services, you should probably gather information about it. This service has turned very popular in the past few years since it has turned out to be a very popular means of transferring information through online seminars. These web-based seminars can be held on several topics in which you are either interested in or your work deals with. Several people today are selecting internet conference service over a telephone or mobile connection due to the several advantages offered. Here are a few merits of a conference service:

With web conferencing, it is pretty easy to set up a meeting with several people at a time. With just a simple click of a button, you can schedule a meeting and thus talk to many people, share files with them and make other attendees join the meeting. You can communicate with both your voice and text.

1) Features: With internet conferencing you can host an online conference, or a video conference through the internet. The web conference software enables you to easily organize a webinar by installing an easy software. Thus, you can now enjoy the accessibility of Internet web-based seminar and meetings. The advanced internet conferencing has gone several steps further offering a web conference software that can be easily installed.

Whether you want to be stay in touch with your partners, employees and clients, you can easily make it possible with internet conferencing. So, download the software, click on the install button and and log in to your PC to participate in a web-seminar. Moreover, internet conferencing operates on any operating system such as Linux, Mac and Windows.

2) Quality Audio: The flexible and full featured web conferencing generally contains features such as instant messaging tasks, voice chat and web video conference with multiple participants. The best part of the conference service is the top quality audio offered by the software. While organizing a web conference you can include unlimited number of attendees. You can use headsets and microphones for internet-based conferencing.

3) Deliver Presentation: You can even deliver presentations and share applications and other documents with your participants. A participant can control your computer, sitting in a remote place, in case you allow him access to your computer.

Now, while you are planning to select a service, make sure that the above mentioned services are included in the product features. With all the above features you can easily select the best online conferencing sofware in accordance with your needs and preferences. Besides, you can even check the price of the service and decide about the affordability. Generally, most of the web conferencing services today are of similar quality due to the fierce competition, however, the features vary. Thus, have a good look at the given features and the rates before you make the final selection. You can even take a test through the trail period to know more about their quality. So, get the best conference service at the most cost effective price.

Vincent

5 Things You Should Know About When Choosing Webinar Services

John Jakobson asked:




Webinar services come with an array of options that you can choose to help make your virtual seminars more effective to the people who plan to view them. Some choices available will contribute heavily to making your web event into a success while others will have no bearing for your particular needs.

5 Things You Should Know When Choosing A Webinar Services Provider:

Choose Based On Your Audience Location

The size and location of your audience is a factor in your choice of a webinar services provider. Planning this allows you to weed out some of the providers you can’t use. In one instance, a meeting holder had already set up a webinar that was to be held in about 5 different cities across the United States at the same time. It was not until after the meeting had already started that it was found that 3 of the 5 cities could not be a part of the meeting, because the service providers software did not work in those cities.

Choose Based On Your Audience Size

Your audience size is also important to your choice. Many webinar providers tend to specialize based on audience size; some of them work better with large audiences and others better with small ones. Know which providers are better based on the size of your audience.

Understand The Services You Want

Webinar services should include these basics: Synchronized web browsing which allows everybody at the meeting to see what is on the main screen. Whiteboard features which allows the meeting to remain dynamic. Ease of document and presentation sharing, so that all can see files and presentations as they are presented.

The Audio Is Most Important

The technology surrounding this kind of service is still new and in the marketplace even the best systems have sometimes under-performed. A big area you want to make sure that your choice gets satisfactory reviews is in the performance of their audio capabilities. It must be clear and reliable. If other areas fail you would want some kind of assurance that your audio will not.

The Power of the Replay

Many of the best webinar services now offer automatic replay. What this means is that viewers don’t have to see the webinar broadcast in real-time. Instead, viewers can see a replay of the webinar at their own convenience. Why is this feature so powerful? If people are able to watch the webinar broadcast at a time that better suits their schedule, you will get many more people that will see the webinar. Not only that, but viewers also have the option of pausing the video, or replaying part or all of the video in order to understand key points better.

Now that you know what options to evaluate when picking a webinar services provider, you will be able to choose a company that offers features that best fit your specific needs. Make sure that you do not judge based on price alone though. The cheapest webinar providers may not have the technology available to ensure a error-free video broadcast.

Jesus

Webinar – Benefits and Applications

Lucas Mattioneli asked:




Webinar is short for of Web based seminar, which is a seminar conducted over the Web. The conventional seminars require many preparations and money is spent in the arrangement and organization of the seminar. A new way of conducting seminars is the latest technology called webinar where the seminar on the chosen subject is conducted on the web.

A webinar is a cost effective method of sharing useful information among a group of people without going into the hassle of booking halls, making seating and other arrangements, sending out invitations etc.

Webinars are convenient also because assembling a group of important speakers at a platform can be quite a bit of a task making booking with each speaker and making their travel and stay arrangements while they fly all the way to a place leaving their important work and researches just to attend a seminar.

A webinar can be a real learning experience for individuals where they can share useful and relevant information among each other and learn new technologies or theories that is relevant to their field of study. There can also be a live question and answer session where participants can point questions at the speaker and they can answer these questions further clarifying any persisting confusion in the audience’s mind. All this can be done on a live web based interactive communication through webinars.

The scenario described above can be arranged at the web without any major cost and with minimal effort and easy convenience of all parties involved. Also invitations can be sent online to specific people to attend or the webinar may be open to general audience so that any interested person can join in and gain knowledge of their subject of interest.

One other important use of webinar is to give subject based trainings to individuals of the field. Interested candidates may apply to available postings and get themselves registered to online training programs through webinars. This is a scenario where a single speaker gives training to a set of 10 to 12 participants of a specific field. At the end usually there is a question answer session. At the end of the designated course, certificates are issued to webinar attendants.

Another great application of webinar is in education. Many interested individuals through the web that may not be able to attend a conventional seminar due to its limitations of either money or time to travel.

Gilbert
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