Can you answer Keith Brown’s question about Conferencing?:

I want to start a weekly class: Webinar that covers a step by step process of internet marketing and affiliate sales. The Idea is simple. Customers/Prospective students come to my site and click on a link to join my class, they are asked for an admission fee and are prompted to download the relative content for that week, and then, on the scheduled time, they enter the class/webinar. Any suggestions? Is there Free software out there? How can I make this idea cost effective? Thanks!

Web Meeting Conferencing

Most business enterprises today are becoming more and more dependent on web conferencing. By availing of web conferencing, enterprises save on the costs of travel and accommodation. Moreover, web conferencing helps enterprises discuss important matters with clients in distant regions.

Communication technology has gone far to serve the different areas of business and development programs. Web conferencing is one of the present day media in the field of communication. All you need is a PC and an Internet connection to set up web conferencing with others. This is one of the modern ways that enterprises use to remain in touch with their people and their customers who are based all over the world.

Web conferencing saves the cost of people traveling to other parts of the world. As a result, it significantly contributes to substantial savings with regards to hotel accommodations and local commutes. Web conferencing is the only communication medium which supports all the three ways of conferencing that are currently available. These are the audio, video, and web conferencing.

It is only web conferencing which makes it possible to have real-time communication, two-way communication, one-way broadcast, and non-real time communication. Web conferencing is becoming popular amongst the business community, offering several benefits, and emerging as one of the most popular methods in which conferences are held.

Web conferencing has helped in bringing together to a central place, the concerned people who are geographically apart. Business houses have been investing in this modern communication system through which they are able to hold meetings with remote personnel and customers.

The communication system allows you to communicate with your employees, customers, and business partners from your home or office, instead of having to physically present yourself at the places where they are located.

Web conferencing helps you to update yourself on the progress of work that is being done at a place geographically separated from the place where you are, and provides you with the opportunity to collaborate with the people who are directly concerned with your business operation.

There are professionals that we know who are practically living out of their suitcases, taking showers in the airport, and are on the go most of the time. Web conferencing has provided them with the facility to be in touch with the world, while allowing them to spend quality time with their family.

There are consultants who work from home on projects that are assigned to them by companies on the other side of the world. Web conferencing keeps them in touch with their clients. Through this medium, the consultants are able to confer with their clients regarding project details.

The recent trend in distance learning also takes the help of web conferencing. Irrespective of where the moderator is located, the attendees who are in different parts of the world are provided with education through these distance learning centers.

Here too, the requirement of the students to attend the classes physically is done away with. Hence, there is substantial cost saving towards the development program being imparted through this communication channel.



Thanks to Ajeet Khurana for contributing this article to our Conferencing blog:

Best Video Conference Software

Due to the rise of audio conferencing, businesses have been having it easier. It is helping them reach out to geographically separated people. As a result, these establishments are also saving on cost and time. Quite often you have difficulties in scheduling your professional events. This occurs due to the rise of conflicting circumstances. These could be conflicts pertaining to schedules, geographically separated venues, time differences between countries, the time that it takes to travel, hotel accommodations, and other logistics related issues.

Take the example of distance learning. Here, students are required to reach out to the faculty if they want to attend professional development programs. How do they do this? In this modern age, video and audio conferencing have brought professionals to a common platform. Thus, conference calling has become an effective mode of communication. It is a fantastic aid in exchanging ideas for any professional development activity. Professionals today are gathering greater technical expertise by attending seminars which are held in different countries. And how is this being achieved? It is being achieved by the help of today’s communication technology.

On browsing the Internet, we can find many schools that are offering distance learning courses. Microsoft offers their Windows-based MCP training through distance learning. This has solved several problems, which would inevitably have appeared if professionals and other students had to physically be present at the classes.

Today, distance learning is helping those who are sitting on the other side of the world to acquire the appropriate knowledge in the subjects of their interest. And all this is being achieved because they have access to the required technology. Inter-active video, audio, and online media are being deployed today by many institutions to impart knowledge to adult students on various subject matters.

Within the communication technology available today, audio conferencing is considered to be a lower form of interactive technology. Nevertheless, audio conferencing is one of the top business solutions of today. Audio conferencing is extensively used in distant professional development programs and helps in communication over long distances.

Business enterprises have today spread their nets all over the world. Hence, they need to keep in touch. Professionals in those business houses are required to meet to carry out discussions and to make decisions. Sales conferences are increasingly being held by enterprises. Many of these conferences are conducted by audio conferencing. The business world is truly reaping the benefits of audio conferencing. Real time interactions, faster decision making possibilities, and a huge reduction in cost and travel expenses have made the audio conference call the darling of business meetings.

Audio conferencing provides us with the benefit of a substantial reduction in cost. This goes a long way in enhancing business processes, fostering better communication, and collaboration. It is general practice for many organizations to outsource their audio conferencing needs to service providers. This facility can be utilized by paying a fee to the provider company each time that the audio conferencing network is hired.

There are also service providers who offer pay-as-you-go services. An organization can also build its own audio conferencing system. This can be done by purchasing the equipment and implementing a teleconferencing network within the enterprise.



Thanks to Ajeet Khurana for contributing this article to our Conferencing blog:

Voip Conference Bridge

Can you answer wat_unavailable’s question about Conferencing?:

Any software, no matter the cost that is the best for creating virtual meetings between employees at remote location which all have high speed broadband connections. The maximum number of remote participants will be six.

Both Video and audio conferencing is needed however other services such as remote desktop connection and file transfer is not needed.

Can someone please help me. Also does anyone know the requirements to use and setup a system like this. eg. need microphone, webcam, internet 1.5Mbps, etc

Web Based Video Conferencing

As more businesses look for creative ways to reach new customers as well as cut costs of communicating, the subject of webinars often comes up. What is a webinar, and what benefits can it generate for a company?

To answer the question of “what is a webinar?” one need only look to a resource that has become common to businesses of all sizes during the past ten years: the Internet. The basic answer to “what is a webinar?” is that it is simply utilizing the Internet to share visual presentations and other documents with persons who are in various physical positions around the country or even around the world. The word webinar is derived from two root words: web and seminar. A webinar is a seminar using the web and web conferencing software. When a web conference is partnered with an audio conference call, the result is a powerful communications tool that can change the way your company does business.

A webinar can be a very simple affair that is used to convey information from corporate level to outlying locations. It may also be something much more complex that involves the ability for persons to work together on a common document, interact on a common project, or stream data out to a large number of locations.

It is important to think in terms of what this can do for your business. One of the most immediate benefits of a webinar is that it can eliminate a large portion of your company’s travel budget. While there will always be those occasions when a face to face meeting is a necessity, many business exchanges within your company can be handled with the use of a web conference. Meetings that once required travel by jet can now be handled via a web conference.

A web conference can also be used to connect with potential clients who are physically at a distance from your location. Even if your suggestion of holding the meeting via the Internet is first met with the question “what is a webinar?” a quick assurance that it is easy and would require less expense on their part will impress your customer. After all, you are using cutting edge technology to communicate with them and you are doing so with an eye to being respectful of their busy schedules. This is a win/win situation and it is an opportunity to raise their opinion of you and your company.

Webinars are an easy way to hold an ad hoc meeting with people in many different locations with almost no advance notice. As an example, assume you have a client that has just encountered a major problem. You know your company can bring them a solution. You simply prepare the necessary documents quickly, gather all relevant persons together for a webinar, and walk them through the solution. While this could be done with an audio conference alone, the added impact of visuals will often help drive home the effectiveness of your solution and allow your client to authorize your solution much more quickly. This could give you another opportunity to strengthen your presence with your customer.

Webinars are a tool that allows you to take persons on a tour of any web site you choose. Often, when you want to connect with a potential client who is too busy to set aside a couple of hours for a face to face meeting, you can get thirty minutes on an audio call and a session on the web. You can prepare some slides or a document to illustrate what your company can do for them; or if you have a really informative company web site, take your prospect to your company web site and point out a few facts that are prominently posted.

While we are several years away from a time when people will no longer ask “what is a webinar?” the answer will always vary, depending on what types of communication are most desirable to the person who makes the query. If it is documentation, then that is the main thrust of the response. If it is finding information on the web, the web-touring feature will be part of the answer. Should the main concern be finding time for meetings, then the time efficiency and cost savings of webinars will come to the fore. Whatever the need that is foremost in the mind of the person asking the question, there will be found the most appropriate answer to the question “what is a webinar?”



Thanks to Greg Roy for contributing this article to our Conferencing blog:

Live Webcasting