The Webinar Blog

A Look At IVT Studio

Interactive Video Technologies (IVT) asked if I would like to do a mini review of their IVT Studio webcasting product. I agreed and in short order found myself on a conference with Phillip Whalen, the President and CEO; Greg Pulier, the CTO; and Ysette Witteveen, the VP of Marketing.

I quickly realized that I had to reset my framework for evaluating IVT Studio. While it is technically able to drive live webcasts in real time, those capabilities are very basic and limited by design. The company has a separate product for live webcasting, called MediaPlatform. IVT Studio is not intended for live events and I won't try to gauge it on those terms.

IVT Studio is targeted at business users who want to create, publish, and allow playback of prerecorded presentations without needing to get an IT department involved. As such, it competes with products such as Adobe Presenter, Brainshark, and other software that allows you to record slides, narration, and video for online playback.

To use IVT Studio, you download and install the production software on a Windows-based PC. You can take video inputs from a standard PC webcam or you can hook in a more professional video camera through FireWire or a commercial studio digital feed. The software lets you view your recorded video image next to the slides you are displaying, so that during your recording process you can see exactly what your eventual audience will see. For some people this feels awkward and intimidating, but it's a good way to make sure you are staying in frame and in focus during your presentation!

As part of your production process, you can add audience polling questions, video clips at the beginning or end of your presentation, rolling credits, a Table of Contents to allow direct access to various parts of your recording, and you can create screen captures to display things such as software demonstrations from your desktop. There are also design templates that let you create custom playback frames with your company name, colors, and logo.

You can choose which formats you want to publish in, including Windows Media (WMV) or QuickTime in high or low bandwidths as well as audio only, Flash, or podcast-friendly mp3 or mp4.

IVT advertises "one click publishing" to their streaming media servers, which avoids the problems of setting up your own hosting area and planning for potentially heavy load on your servers. You have to be online during the entire production/conversion and publishing process - there is not an option to publish to your computer and upload later. Of course if you choose not to use IVT's servers, you can configure your publishing button to use your site as a destination. One advantage of using IVT's servers is that they automatically capture registration information and statistics on viewing usage for your videos.

There are some limitations and a few features I wish were more fully developed. Slide shows do not support PowerPoint animations or transition effects between slides. Admittedly, you could pre-produce your slide show as a Flash video and use that, but it seems like a lot of extra work. The video player does not support a "thumb scroll" bar to move back and forth to any desired time point in the video. Instead it uses skip forward and backward buttons that jump in 30-second increments. Polling only supports single-answer questions rather than allowing "select all that apply" kinds of questions. And while you can designate a "correct answer" for a quiz, the user cannot see any feedback based on his or her choice. The results are only available in reports for the administrator.

When watching the company's introductory overview video of the software using their own tool, I found that the screen capture content was rather fuzzy and that there was a strange transition effect when moving from a screen capture segment back to "talking head" video. The video would briefly display in full screen and then shrink back down to its proper position in the player frame. The WMV version played very cleanly on my Windows XP computer, but the Quicktime version of the same recording was fuzzier and had significant audio dropouts. This could easily be an artifact of my player configuration... I don't use Quicktime much.

There is also no way to export viewing statistics to a local file in IVT Studio. That functionality is reserved for the larger events package in MediaPlatform. Studio statistics are only available for viewing online.

The software seems like a good way to do basic video, slide, and audio production of recorded content. Controls are built to be very simple and easy to use for nontechnical presenters. I like the ability to add a customized playback frame and table of contents, as well as easily offering several playback formats. The biggest advantage of course is the use of IVT's media servers, which handle high load situations so that many users can view your content simultaneously without degrading performance.

I'm looking forward to seeing the IVT MediaPlatform next, so that I can report on their ability to support live large-audience events.

 

Technorati Tags: IVT , IVT Studio , IVT MediaPlatform , Interactive Video Technologies , webcasting , webcast , online media

Adobe Support Frustration

I like Adobe Acrobat Connect. The Professional version has a lot of advantages for enterprise conferencing use. I even appear as a frequent guest speaker on Adobe's public educational webinar series. But fair is fair, and it is time for Adobe to face up to a glaring deficiency in its offering. Technical support for the product is woeful.

Mind you, what is available is pretty good. The online documentation for how to accomplish common tasks is clear and well written. The problem comes when that documentation doesn't satisfy your needs as a user.

Let's start with the main login page for the hosted product. The single "Help" link on that page takes you to a page titled "Macromedia Breeze Support Center." The first paragraph on the page has a link to "the Breeze Support Center."  Huh? The bottom of the page proudly proclaims that it was last updated on 25 July 2003. Maybe they could take a look at updating the company and product name. Following the offered link gets you to the "Acrobat Connect Support Center." There you will find the documentation that is available, with links to other resources. These include an FAQ with all of 6 entries (one of which is "How do I cancel my account?").

A search box at the top of the page lets you look through the online knowledgebase for the product. I did a blank search to see how many entries were available. I got 67 results. Then I noticed there is a selector for which product you want to search under. It has entries for: Acrobat Connect, Breeze, Breeze Meeting, Connect Enterprise Server, Acrobat Connect Professional, and Adobe Connect Events. You'd better be very familiar with Adobe/Breeze naming distinctions to run an advanced search!

Your next resource is a community forum. Unfortunately this contains only 14 entries, so you are unlikely to happen upon a tidbit matching your question.

No problem... Adobe has a page with telephone contact information specifically for "customers using Acrobat Connect in North America." I called it. I was greeted by a dispatcher who asked for my name and customer ID. I said I didn't know my customer ID... how do I look it up? They asked if it was my first time calling support and I said yes.

"Oh, then you need to call Customer Service first and request a customer ID. Then you can talk to support."

So I was transferred to Customer Service. After asking me a few questions, I got assigned a customer ID. Then they transferred me back to Support. Once again I supplied my name and the new customer ID number, along with the name of the product I was calling about.

"What is your product serial number?"

"What? Where do I find a serial number?"

"It is on the CD label of your product."

"I don't have a CD. I'm using a hosted service."

"No CD? Really? Hmmm... (pause, pause, pause) Okay, I am going to transfer you to a technical engineer. Please hold."

And at that point I stayed on the line for 25 minutes, listening to truly awful 70's-era bubbly pop-jazz. I finally couldn't take it anymore and hung up.

This is unacceptable, Adobe. I shudder to think of this scenario in a live event situation where something was going wrong. You need a way to deal quickly with event hosts and participants who are having troubles.

Part of the decision process in selecting a technology vendor involves support. 'Nuff said.

(Reference link for children of the 70's who grew up with the glory days of Saturday Night Live. Lily Tomlin frames things unambiguously for you.)

 

Technorati Tags: Adobe Connect , Adobe support , vendor selection , web conference , web conferencing , webinar , Macromedia Breeze

Fix Your Landing Pages

It's not every day I tell my readers to go out and spend $500 immediately. This is one of those days.

The words "insanely great" come to mind when describing the newly released second edition of the Landing Page Handbook from MarketingSherpa. I received a review copy from the company (I have no professional connection with them) and went through the 272 spiral-bound pages in a marathon reading session last night.

The book is targeted at professional marketers and designers who build destination pages for offers, registration, and other calls to action. Thinking of it from a webinar angle, this book will help you get people to register for your events by building better information pages and registration link-through pages, better registration forms, and even better invitation emails (although that is not its purpose, many of the guidelines in the handbook translate directly to invitation design).

MarketingSherpa is single-minded in its focus on measurable studies and results as applied to marketing practices. The Landing Page Handbook demonstrates this approach by detailing statistical studies, surveys, and outcomes from real companies showing measured effects of changes in landing page design and construction. This is not just some compendium of rules of thumb or brainstormed tips that "seem like they should work." It is a collection of specific pointers backed up by quantitative lifts in conversion rates from companies that implemented them. There are many examples spread throughout the book of before and after screenshots of landing pages that were tweaked by companies to achieve better results.

There is so much content that it might seem overwhelming at first. But as I read through it, I kept thinking that each clearly labeled guideline was a debate settler in itself. The next time you find yourself arguing with a designer over which color should be used for the action button, open the table of contents and find: "Chapter 2 - Color:  Button graphics." Then turn to page 74 and settle the issue. Contents are segregated down to single paragraph entries sometimes, and the labels are unambiguous. The table of contents really does the duty of a full index... With 363 content entries, you'll never have difficulty finding the exact page you are looking for to address a topic.

At first, I started writing down representative examples of the kinds of things you can learn from the handbook. I was going to pose some rhetorical questions for you that are answered in the guide. Things such as:

• Should you lay out a list of selections horizontally or vertically?
• How many columns are optimal on a form? How wide should they be?
• Are radio buttons or check boxes more effective?
• Are there differences in behavior between male and female form visitors?
• Which is better: Short copy with links or long copy with scroll bars?

Eventually I gave up on this exercise. There were simply too many to keep jotting down.

Keep a copy of this guide in your office. Give a copy to your design team. And as the book says many times, test, revise, and test again when you build your pages.

One final footnote for web conferencing vendors: The default registration forms you create for your customers violate most of the guidelines in this handbook. You are causing your customers to lose potential attendees. Redesign your registration forms. Do it in your next release.

The Landing Page Handbook is available directly from MarketingSherpa on their website. Use this link for information and ordering.

Technorati Tags: Marketing , MarketingSherpa , landing page , webinar , registration , invitation , web design

Insight24 Opens New Syndication Channels

Insight24 has two new ways to promote recorded webcasts, podcasts, and videos that are registered on their network. These haven't been announced yet, so you are getting an early scoop.

The first addition to the network is a dedicated "channel" on YouTube. It gives ON24 (the parent company) the opportunity to feature selected video content on YouTube under their own Insight24 branding, instead of having to submit it as just another user-generated video clip in the general collection. Interested viewers can subscribe to the channel to automatically see when new videos are added. The YouTube address for Insight24 is http://www.youtube.com/Insight24

The second addition to the syndication lineup gives owners of websites and blogs a way to display a menu of recorded webcasts and podcasts from the Insight24 library. The publisher can specify selection criteria, such as videos from a particular company or all videos categorized under a certain topic area (such as Marketing or CRM). Then content is automatically updated on their site as Insight24 gets new recordings.

I can see publishers using this as a way to provide more content and value to their readers (as ECT News Network does today), or individual companies could potentially use this as a way to showcase their own recorded content without having to build and maintain a dedicated links page. I'm not as sure about the value to bloggers, but it might make sense as a subordinate page to give readers a way to access associated information of value to them.

I asked about flexibility and customization in the displayed content, and I was told that publishers will be able to specify several criteria that define what is shown and how it is displayed. If you are interested in including recordings on your site, you can contact Insight24 at a special email address they have set up.

Technorati Tags: Insight24 , ON24 , YouTube , syndication , webcast , podcast , marketing , recorded event

Continuing My Look At Microsoft Live Meeting 2007

I still can't act as a presenter using the Meeting Web Access (MWA) console. Recent tests included uninstalling all antivirus software from my machine and running Live Meeting from the Administrator's account. Although Microsoft tech support is still examining the issue, I've pretty much given up on using the web console as a presenter, since it won't load a required ActiveX control. I have made it work on another machine, so there is a local conflict somewhere with my computer, but after spending about four hours of total time on the phone with four different Microsoft engineers, we are no closer to understanding what is happening or how to fix it. Suffice it to say that Microsoft doesn't recommend presenting from MWA anyway. You lose several pieces of functionality.

Bypassing that little diversion, let's install the full local client and see how the product really works. As mentioned here and elsewhere, the client install is alarmingly large for a hosted web conferencing solution. The download file is 15.8MB and running on my upgraded "turbo" speed cable modem, it took 3.5 minutes to copy down and another minute to install. That isn't a huge amount of time out of your day, but to a casual meeting attendee trying to join at the last minute, the perceived annoyance is greater than you might think. And Lord help those on slow Internet connections!

The install file is a Windows executable, so attendees on Macintosh, Solaris, or Unix/Linux have to join using MWA instead. In my first post on the subject, I mentioned that Unix and Linux are not officially supported. I also mentioned that I asked tech support what functionality is lost by attending via the Web console. It turns out I got an incomplete answer from them. They neglected to mention that MWA attendees can not see slide animations or transitions. They also see slides in lower resolution/clarity than with the Windows client. They can't upload files to the meeting space, can't reconfigure the display by docking command panes, can't use keyboard navigation short cuts, can't get localized text, can't use webcam or Microsoft Roundtable video, and can't use console-based audio commands such as muting. I searched all over the online documentation for this information and couldn't find it. I finally got a very helpful comparison chart from a Microsoft solution specialist, which let me quickly see the differences between the access methods.

I uploaded my standard PowerPoint torture test, which is only 14 slides, but is filled with big, detailed graphics, lots of fonts, and tricky animation. The upload and conversion process took 45 seconds, which strikes me as reasonable.

The basic display console is nicely uncluttered, using toolbars and a typical command bar with dropdown commands grouped under functional headings.

Most of the commands open a dedicated window or "pane" for working with the specified functionality. Microsoft did a great job on the interface for managing the customizable display. You can work with the pane where it appears under the command bar, you can drag it to any arbitrary location on your desktop to use as a floating window, or you can dock it on the left margin, right margin, or bottom of your console window. Everything scales and readjusts nicely. This is very slick indeed.

Slide display was perfect in my torture test. It properly rendered all animations, slide transitions, graphics, and nonstandard fonts. Microsoft has upgraded its conversion and display algorithms in Live Meeting 2007 and they are noticeably sharper on a good monitor running at high resolution.

I am a big fan of annotating slides to focus the audience's attention. This is an area where subtle choices in implementation can have a tremendous impact on usability. You'll find that all the major enterprise web conferencing vendors allow you to mark up a slide, but they each have different interfaces. I was terribly disappointed when Microsoft acquired Placeware and changed it to Live Meeting. The first thing they did was mess up Placeware's excellent annotation interface. I'm happy to report that Live Meeting 2007 fixes their previous errors and the annotation controls are better than the original.

You can easily choose colors for each object and hold down the shift key to force straight lines. Microsoft does away with little-used options such as filled containers and multi-colored highlighters. Writing text on a slide is much more flexible and useful now. You can choose a font and enter multi-line information without having to make a separate text object for each line. You can click on any object and move it to a new location on the slide or right-click on it for options such as copying or deleting it.

I can think of two things I would change, but these are minor annoyances. Placing an arrow, checkmark, or X on the slide is accomplished with a cursor shaped like a rubber stamp. There is no obvious focus point on the stamp, so you can't fine-tune exactly where your object will appear. You might be off by a few pixels from where you want it to show up. It would be nice if the cursor gave you a pixel placement reference. The other annoyance is that you can't resize an outline square, oval, or circle. If you get the dimensions wrong, you have to delete it and redraw it. Neither of these is a big deal, but they would make life a little easier for us hardcore doodlers.

Navigating through your slides is easy, with multiple ways to accomplish the task. You can display a thumbnail gallery of your slides and click on one to instantly display it. You can use up and down arrows in the margin of the console window. You can right-click on the slide in the main display window and choose the previous, next, or named slide from a list.

I was glad to see that Microsoft retained one of my favorite features, which is a way for attendees to give instantaneous feedback by changing a little color flag in their console window. You can assign arbitrary meanings to each color and as a presenter you can choose to open a view of the audience as a cluster of small colored squares. This is a remarkably intuitive way to sense the mood of the entire audience at a glance, and can help you know when you need to speed up, slow down, or speak louder for instance.

There is plenty more functionality -- I haven't even scratched the surface here. But in order to avoid turning this entry into a novel, I'll continue with other aspects of the software in a subsequent post.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Live Meeting , web conference , web conferencing , webinar , web meeting , Placeware

Webinar Wire Opens For Business

I am pleased, proud, and pumped to announce a new resource for everybody associated with web events. Webinar Wire just went live today with yours truly acting as editor. The site was created by Aperio Networks, who already bring you Conferencing News, the CN Key People Directory, and EventSpan.

Aperio and I decided to work together on this project as a way to focus attention and collect community news and views on web events. As opposed to the usual corporate or personal blog, Webinar Wire presents a public forum for contributions from anybody who works with event-based web conferences. We are making the distinction from information about ad-hoc or small group collaborative web conferences, which have a different set of requirements and technologies.

Webinar Wire lets you reach a very large audience that might not find your company blog. We want to hear from technology providers, event service companies, event speakers and moderators, producers, and end users of webinars and webcasts. Tell the world about new offerings, share tips and tricks, ask for help with problem situations, or sound off with your personal opinion about web communications.

I'll be continuing to post here in The Webinar Blog... Especially detailed information about web conferencing technologies and vendors. The new community site isn't the right place for that. But I'll also be adding information, opinions, and guidelines over on the Webinar Wire site. Go check it out!

 

Technorati Tags: Webinar Wire , webinar , web conference , web conferencing , webcasting , web meeting , Aperio Networks , Aperio , EventSpan

Live Meeting Web Access - Still No Luck

Here's another exciting update in my attempts to test Microsoft Live Meeting 2007 and its Meeting Web Access (MWA) mode. As a quick recap, this is the mode that presenters and attendees can use if they are not on Windows machines or if they don't want to download the 15MB installation file and install the local client application on their computer.

To upload a PowerPoint into the meeting room, the software wants to load an ActiveX control. On my test machine (Windows XP Professional with SP2), the file uploader refuses to install, leaving me unable to upload and display a slide presentation in my meeting.

I have now spent many hours (yes, I am being literal) on the phone with various Microsoft technical support personnel. I started with the Live Meeting support team, who said their application doesn't seem to be at fault (strange, because I can load every other ActiveX control I can find for testing).

They turned me over to the XP support team, thinking that my user profile might be corrupted so that the controller can't write to my personal temp space. After a lot of testing and profile management, we concluded that everything was fine there.

Next I got bounced to the Internet Explorer team, who ended up having me uninstall everything that has ever been associated with IE, delete all cached and stored objects, reset all settings to the factory default, and even try it while running in Windows Safe Mode.

Through all of this, Live Meeting refuses to install its uploader control. Now the tech rep wants me to physically uninstall my antivirus software (instead of simply disabling it). I'm a little confused by this, as the antivirus software isn't even enabled in Safe Mode, so I don't see how it can have any effect. But as Sherlock Holmes once said, "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Eventually I'm afraid they are going to tell me to install Vista to fix the problem, at which point I'll simply give up the testing.

For fairness' sake, I want to remind my audience that I have another computer where the control installs without a problem. So it is a local conflict. It's just annoying that none of us can figure out what it might be!

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft , Live Meeting , MWA , webinar , web conferencing , web meeting , web conference