Web Conferencing 101

Continued...

4. Collaborative team- or group-based work environments. These kinds of solutions can also include on-line virtual classrooms in several forms. The most sophisticated of these solutions include both real-time and asynchronous modes with audio, video, messaging and conferencing built-in. While some of this software is in use over the internet (again, some collaborative workspaces have been developed based on blogging platforms and even forum software is sometimes used this way), the more resource intensive versions are generally used on dedicated networks and intranets with high bandwidth. Many of these applications are oriented more toward in-house corporate uses.

So, do you suppose this covers it all? Just those four areas reflect a huge growth of the available modalities for conferencing and meeting over only a few years ago. Remember the old landline conference call? Once it was a major deal to be able to add a third person to a phone call. Now you can spend months just researching available solutions.

And this really doesn't even touch systems such as desktop video conferencing, the extensions of phone conferencing and the interaction of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services with all forms of web conferencing. Attending teleseminars in foreign countries, once prohibitively expensive for many, is now an accessible alternative with low-priced VoIP gateway services that allow fixed price calls to any landline or mobile phone.

As internet service continues to increase in speed and decline in price, the utility of these kinds of conferencing solutions will continue to expand. The growth of the cybersphere and the elaboration of purpose driven and affinity communities on the internet will continue to drive the development and integration of conferencing and communication software and services. In a very real sense conferencing software is at the heart of the new realities that the explosive growth of internet usage in every corner of the world is creating. These are social applications and they are changing how people live, interact and view each other.

There is yet another form of widely used "conferencing" software which is rarely mentioned in this connection. Multi-user, real-time, online games of all types from role=playing to live gambling (play poker with your friends, live roulette, etc.). Some of these systems are highly sophisticated and a lot of people love them. Their attraction lies not only in the ability to vicariously be someone (or something) else or to do things that may not be available locally, but in the social interactions and the communities that develop. While surfing is pretty much an unsocial activity, people are social creatures and the popularity of all types of solutions offering interactive contact and a sense of community reinforces this.

Marketing use of audio conferencing in the form of teleseminars and pre-recorded audio streams have undergone tremendous growth in the last year alone. Bandwidth still limits the quality of the video that's often used with pre-recorded audio to fairly static material. But this is changing as compression and streaming technologies improve. The major breakthrough that's still to come is the technology to effectively and affordably do, first, one-way live high quality video and beyond that live interactive multi-way video over the internet. If it seems like a difficult, perhaps impossible task, think again about what’s happened in the last five years. And the future is arriving faster all the time.

About the author:

Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. For more information on web conferencing, VoIP, conference calling and related subjects visit http://altaglobal.com - find more on wireless and cellular subjects at http://www.altaglobal.org and check http://www.altaglobal.net for networking and security. Copyright 2005 Richard Keir