Web conferencing
Web conferencing is used to hold group meetings or live presentations over the Internet. In the early years of the Internet, the terms "web conferencing" and "computer conferencing" were often used to refer to group discussions conducted within a message board (via posted text messages), but the term has evolved to refer specifically to "live" or "synchronous" meetings, while the posted message variety of discussion is called a "forum", "message board", or "bulletin board".
In a web conference, each participant sits at their own computer, and is connected to other participants via the internet. The most basic feature of a web conference is screen sharing, whereby conference participants see whatever is on the presenter's screen. Usually this is accompanied by voice communication, either through a traditional telephone conference, or through VoIP, although sometimes text chat is used in place of voice.
A webinar is a seminar which is conducted over the World Wide Web. It is a type of web conferencing. In contrast to a Webcast, which is transmission of information in one direction only, a webinar is designed to be interactive between the presenter and audience. A webinar is 'live' in the sense that information is conveyed according to an agenda, with a starting and ending time. In most cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen, and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speakerphone. The word 'webinar' is an example of Portmanteau, combining web and seminar.
Contents
1 Features
2 History
3 Standards
4 See also
5 External links
Features
Other typical features of a web conference include:
Slide presentations (often created through PowerPoint)
Application sharing, in which participants can cooperatively manipulate (say) a spreadsheet on the presenter's computer
Web co-browsing
Annotation (allowing the presenter to highlight or mark items on the display)
Text messaging
File sharing
Polls and surveys
Most web conferencing software allows conferences to be recorded for later playback.
There is a growing trend for web conferences to incorporate VoIP and live video via web cams. Hence, the boundary between web conferencing and videoconferencing is blurring and may eventually disappear.
Web conferencing is most often sold as a service, hosted on a web server controlled by the vendor, either on a usage basis (cost per user per minute) or for a fixed fee (cost per "seat"). Also, some vendors make their conferencing software available as a licensed product, allowing organizations that make heavy use of conferencing to install the software on their own servers.
An important capability of Web conferencing software is Application sharing, the ability for one party in the conference to share an application (such as a web browser, spread sheet, etc.) from their desk top with every one else in the meeting and pass the control of the application to someone else in the meeting.
History
Real-time text chat facilities such as IRC appeared early in the internet's history. Web-based chat and instant messaging software appeared in the mid 1990s. In the late 1990's, PlaceWare created the first true web conferencing capability and Microsoft soon introduced NetMeeting followed by dozens of other vendors. In 1998, IBM (via Lotus Software) acquired DataBeam to create Sametime. In 2003, Microsoft acquired PlaceWare and renamed it Microsoft Office Live Meeting and began phasing out support for NetMeeting.
As of 2006, the market continues to expand as web conferencing becomes a more widely accepted alternative to face-to-face meetings requiring travel, and as a richer form of communication than voice-only telephone conferences.
Standards
Web conferencing technologies were not standardized for many years, a significant factor in the lack of interoperability, platform dependence, security issues, cost and market segmentation. In 2003, the IETF established a working group to establish a standard for Web conferencing, called XCON: Centralized Conferencing Working Group. Mechanisms for privacy and security are important requirements for the resulting protocols.
The deliverables of XCON, listed as part of their charter include creating:
A basic floor control protocol. This was published in [2006] as RFC 4582: Binary Floor Control Protocol (BFCP)
A mechanism for membership and authorization control
A mechanism to manipulate and describe media "mixing" or "topology" for multiple media types (audio, video, text)
A mechanism for notification of conference related events/changes (for example a floor change)
CONFiance is an implementation of the XCON framework and BFCP licensed under the GPL and Academic Free License.
How to Use Web Conferencing to Improve Your Business
Globalization is more than just a buzzword. In business terms, it means that a company can have its key officers spread across the globe. It means having a CEO in Detroit and a chief engineer in Karachi. Under those conditions, it can be very impractical to have important business meetings if it requires stepping into an airplane every time. But thanks to the technology of web conferencing, all it takes to do a meeting is to sit down in front of your computer. Web conferencing is fast becoming a key tool for today’s global businessmen.
What web conferencing does is to allow several people to have a meeting over the Internet.
It doesn’t matter if some of the others are an ocean away, as long as everyone is connected to the conference at the same time. The fact that you can have such international gatherings without having to fly anyone anywhere translates into thousands of dollars saved in travel expenses.
Another great advantage of web conferencing is the ability to have real-time meetings on a shared screen, which means that all the participants see the same screen at the same time. So all of them are updated with the same information, ensuring that everybody is on the same page.
Web conferencing also enables real-time communication between participants, using either text chat or voice. Anything that has to be said can be relayed directly to the whole team, instead of using third parties, and any issues or problems can also be dealt with as a group.
A presenter can also use PowerPoint in web conferencing to give a slideshow to all of the participants. A presenter can also point to and highlight important items on the shared screen. Other useful functions include the ability to share and edit applications in real time, or share files, or browse the Internet as a group.
More advanced web conferencing programs even integrate video conferencing into meetings. Although voice and text chatting is fine for most communication, there is nothing quite like being able to speak to one another face-to-face. Business often requires trust and solidarity, and it helps if you can see the person you are consulting or sharing responsibility with. Video conferencing is especially useful when conducting international business negotiations.
Given all the ways that web conferencing can be used in business, you should consider implementing it at your company.
You may save a great deal in costs and move your company forward in step with the rapidly-changing arena of international business. Of course, there are always some occasions when you want to meet people in the flesh and shake their hands, rather than typing them a smiley as you sit a thousand miles apart. But as business becomes more and more of a world-spanning phenomenon, web conferencing is shaping up to be the future of boardroom and international meetings.
Web conferencing is used to hold group meetings or live presentations over the Internet. In the early years of the Internet, the terms "web conferencing" and "computer conferencing" were often used to refer to group discussions conducted within a message board (via posted text messages), but the term has evolved to refer specifically to "live" or "synchronous" meetings, while the posted message variety of discussion is called a "forum", "message board", or "bulletin board".
In a web conference, each participant sits at their own computer, and is connected to other participants via the internet. The most basic feature of a web conference is screen sharing, whereby conference participants see whatever is on the presenter's screen. Usually this is accompanied by voice communication, either through a traditional telephone conference, or through VoIP, although sometimes text chat is used in place of voice.
A webinar is a seminar which is conducted over the World Wide Web. It is a type of web conferencing. In contrast to a Webcast, which is transmission of information in one direction only, a webinar is designed to be interactive between the presenter and audience. A webinar is 'live' in the sense that information is conveyed according to an agenda, with a starting and ending time. In most cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen, and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speakerphone. The word 'webinar' is an example of Portmanteau, combining web and seminar.
Contents
1 Features
2 History
3 Standards
4 See also
5 External links
Features
Other typical features of a web conference include:
Slide presentations (often created through PowerPoint)
Application sharing, in which participants can cooperatively manipulate (say) a spreadsheet on the presenter's computer
Web co-browsing
Annotation (allowing the presenter to highlight or mark items on the display)
Text messaging
File sharing
Polls and surveys
Most web conferencing software allows conferences to be recorded for later playback.
There is a growing trend for web conferences to incorporate VoIP and live video via web cams. Hence, the boundary between web conferencing and videoconferencing is blurring and may eventually disappear.
Web conferencing is most often sold as a service, hosted on a web server controlled by the vendor, either on a usage basis (cost per user per minute) or for a fixed fee (cost per "seat"). Also, some vendors make their conferencing software available as a licensed product, allowing organizations that make heavy use of conferencing to install the software on their own servers.
An important capability of Web conferencing software is Application sharing, the ability for one party in the conference to share an application (such as a web browser, spread sheet, etc.) from their desk top with every one else in the meeting and pass the control of the application to someone else in the meeting.
History
Real-time text chat facilities such as IRC appeared early in the internet's history. Web-based chat and instant messaging software appeared in the mid 1990s. In the late 1990's, PlaceWare created the first true web conferencing capability and Microsoft soon introduced NetMeeting followed by dozens of other vendors. In 1998, IBM (via Lotus Software) acquired DataBeam to create Sametime. In 2003, Microsoft acquired PlaceWare and renamed it Microsoft Office Live Meeting and began phasing out support for NetMeeting.
As of 2006, the market continues to expand as web conferencing becomes a more widely accepted alternative to face-to-face meetings requiring travel, and as a richer form of communication than voice-only telephone conferences.
Standards
Web conferencing technologies were not standardized for many years, a significant factor in the lack of interoperability, platform dependence, security issues, cost and market segmentation. In 2003, the IETF established a working group to establish a standard for Web conferencing, called XCON: Centralized Conferencing Working Group. Mechanisms for privacy and security are important requirements for the resulting protocols.
The deliverables of XCON, listed as part of their charter include creating:
A basic floor control protocol. This was published in [2006] as RFC 4582: Binary Floor Control Protocol (BFCP)
A mechanism for membership and authorization control
A mechanism to manipulate and describe media "mixing" or "topology" for multiple media types (audio, video, text)
A mechanism for notification of conference related events/changes (for example a floor change)
CONFiance is an implementation of the XCON framework and BFCP licensed under the GPL and Academic Free License.
How to Use Web Conferencing to Improve Your Business
Globalization is more than just a buzzword. In business terms, it means that a company can have its key officers spread across the globe. It means having a CEO in Detroit and a chief engineer in Karachi. Under those conditions, it can be very impractical to have important business meetings if it requires stepping into an airplane every time. But thanks to the technology of web conferencing, all it takes to do a meeting is to sit down in front of your computer. Web conferencing is fast becoming a key tool for today’s global businessmen.
What web conferencing does is to allow several people to have a meeting over the Internet.
It doesn’t matter if some of the others are an ocean away, as long as everyone is connected to the conference at the same time. The fact that you can have such international gatherings without having to fly anyone anywhere translates into thousands of dollars saved in travel expenses.
Another great advantage of web conferencing is the ability to have real-time meetings on a shared screen, which means that all the participants see the same screen at the same time. So all of them are updated with the same information, ensuring that everybody is on the same page.
Web conferencing also enables real-time communication between participants, using either text chat or voice. Anything that has to be said can be relayed directly to the whole team, instead of using third parties, and any issues or problems can also be dealt with as a group.
A presenter can also use PowerPoint in web conferencing to give a slideshow to all of the participants. A presenter can also point to and highlight important items on the shared screen. Other useful functions include the ability to share and edit applications in real time, or share files, or browse the Internet as a group.
More advanced web conferencing programs even integrate video conferencing into meetings. Although voice and text chatting is fine for most communication, there is nothing quite like being able to speak to one another face-to-face. Business often requires trust and solidarity, and it helps if you can see the person you are consulting or sharing responsibility with. Video conferencing is especially useful when conducting international business negotiations.
Given all the ways that web conferencing can be used in business, you should consider implementing it at your company.
You may save a great deal in costs and move your company forward in step with the rapidly-changing arena of international business. Of course, there are always some occasions when you want to meet people in the flesh and shake their hands, rather than typing them a smiley as you sit a thousand miles apart. But as business becomes more and more of a world-spanning phenomenon, web conferencing is shaping up to be the future of boardroom and international meetings.
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