The Webinar Blog

Get Those Votes In For Best Webinar Days

Participation in my survey on best webinar times is still lower than I would like. We need lots of data to make a good generalization about public preferences. But I'll tell you this... Participation from the US Eastern time zone is more than double the participation from the Pacific time zone. What's the matter with you in California, Oregon, Washington, etc? Too laid back to take part?

It only takes two minutes or less to complete the short radio-button form. It doesn't even ask for your email address... You won't get on any lists.

The great thing about this survey is that the results could make your life easier! If companies know when people want to attend their webinars, they can schedule them based on your preferences rather than theirs. I'm already seeing a few surprising trends.

C'mon... make your voice heard. Every vote counts. It's an election year -- Start practicing now!

Take the survey online at www.webinarscheduling.com

 

Technorati Tags: webinar,web conferencing,web conference,web seminar,web events,survey

Webinar Scheduling Survey Available

I just put up a post on Webinar Wire announcing availability of a survey designed to find out whether common assumptions about webinar scheduling are accurate or not. I urge you to go and follow the link to take the survey. It only takes one minute... maybe two if you are really detail oriented and want to add a comment.

I get the question all the time: "What are the best days and times to schedule public webinars?" Most everyone in the industry tends to give the same answer. "Mid-week. A little before lunch for the West Coast, a little after lunch for the East Coast." That's why you get so many invitations with events competing against each other in the same time slot. It forces you to pick and choose which one you will attend at the expense of others.

Now I'll tell you a dirty little secret. None of us really knows if this answer is verifiably correct or not. It's based on some common sense assumptions... People may take a Monday or Friday off for a long weekend. People are too busy getting into their work week on Mondays. People are scrambling to finish up projects on Fridays. Too early or too late a start time misses people who work flex hours.

But to test the theory is almost impossible as a statistically valid exercise. You would have to run the same event for the same audience using the same invitation at a variety of different times and see which date/time slot got the best response. Except that you'll tend to get a drop-off in registrations for whichever slots you offer as follow-on opportunities after the first show. That's because the really interested parties sign up for it as soon as they see it. And then they don't have to sign up again. I watch this happen all the time, as I'll give a public webinar with fantastic response. Then I'll offer the same webinar a month later on the same day of the week and time slot, promoted the same way. It gets fewer registrations. Because I've exhausted part of my potential audience. If I tried the second showing on a different day and time I might assume that it was the fault of the time slot, when actually that was not the determinant in response rates.

If you can't run valid experimental tests, you fall back on asking a sample of the population. And that's what I'm doing. If we get enough people responding, we'll be able to validate our assumptions and maybe get some surprises. Perhaps people are ready and willing to close out their work week with a webinar on Friday afternoon? I don't know any company willing to try running one then on the off-chance it might be successful.

If you are a webinar vendor reading this, I hope you'll promote the survey to your customer base as well. There is no branding on the survey and it doesn't mention Webinar Success, Webinar Wire, or anyone else. I do not ask for names or emails from respondents, so there's no chance of being added to a list. This is a true altruistic exercise for the public good. I'll share the findings publicly and we can all start scheduling events with more confidence that we're matching the preferences and availability of our public.

Technorati Tags: webinar,web conferencing,web conference,web seminar,event scheduling,web events

ShowDango Provides Webinar Indexing

Showdango is online with functionality to let visitors search, sort, and click through to upcoming webinars and webcasts. It's still in beta mode, and I usually try to wait on reviews until I know a site is completely stable and ready for prime time, but the site's creator gave me permission to write about it on my blog.

I figured it was a good time to give my impressions, since KillerStartups.com put up a mini review and I added a comment that spurred at least one angry response.

I'm all for the basic functionality offered by showdango (the branding is lowercase only). I have long been an outspoken proponent of the need for a centralized search portal for web seminars. I even created my own version as a side venture a few years ago, but it never blossomed and I let it expire with the hope that others would take up the concept and make a better go of it. Apparently CartoSoft had the same thought process and is trying the same technique of building the website as a "side project" (the comment on KillerStartups mentions this, so I don't think I'm giving away privileged information here).

Functionality is fairly basic at this stage. Event producers can register and then submit upcoming webinars to the listings database. Paid subscriptions are available that give providers a highlighted background and featured status in the listings. Visitors to the site don't have to log in... It works in the same way as most other specialized search engines. You can do a lookup based on keywords or you can choose to see listings in four labeled categories (Arts, Business & Marketing, Science, Technology) or the catch-all of "Other." You can also ask for events that have been posted recently or for events that are coming up within certain time periods (today, the next week, next month, next year).

Events are listed with a title, category, tags, short description text, date/time, and cost. Times are listed in whatever time zone the submitter used and there is no conversion function, so you need to do the math yourself. The title of the event links to whatever landing page the provider specifies... usually a registration page. There are also buttons to add the event as a calendar entry in Google Calendar or Outlook-compatible calendars with an ICAL entry. I am having a problem with version incompatibility on my computer... It won't open the ICAL appointment. This is apparently a known problem with certain implementations of Outlook and ICAL appointments, but I hadn't run across it before in my use of calendar appointments.

I'm a little disappointed by the cosmetics of the site. Hyperlinks lack visual cues to tell you what is clickable among the text items. For instance, it is not immediately apparent that you click on an event title to go to the event's landing page. And there are messages sprinkled throughout the site that say "click here to register" but only the word "here" is hyperlinked, even though it looks the same as the rest of the sentence. You end up moving your cursor around the screen, waiting to see when it changes from arrow to hand. I found the run-on nature of the listings a bit confusing at first -- Events are separated by a blank linefeed, which doesn't provide a lot of quick visual separation.

What got me in trouble in my comment on KillerStartups was my contention that the first thing your eye is drawn to on the site is big black boldface type at the upper left saying "The world's first webinar index." When I first corresponded with showdango's creator a little over a month ago, I pointed out that he was preceded by my attempt (a dead site, so not worth arguing about), EventSpan, Finervista, and Insight24. I have reported on each of those other indexing ventures in this blog. You will find recorded webcasts of mine on Insight24 (which concentrates on recorded content, usually in conjunction with paid services for client promotion and syndication). Finervista is primarily a web-crawler, looking for events automatically. I also do a lot of listings on EventSpan, which has the best set of features for my uses and interests. I mentioned some of them in my comment to show what showdango has to do to compete successfully in the space. For this, I was accused of selling out and writing a blatant sales pitch/PR blurb for EventSpan.

I'm going to veer off the subject of showdango for a moment to do a sidebar disclosure of my business relationship with EventSpan, just because it seems to be necessary and I have zero to hide. EventSpan is owned by Aperio Networks, which also owns Conferencing News and Webinar Wire. I edit and contribute to Webinar Wire. Should Webinar Wire ever turn into a profit center, I will make some money from it for my work. So far, it's a community service project. I sometimes get my stories or upcoming events featured on Conferencing News if they seem to be of value and interest to the conferencing community at large. That's a decision they make with no input from me. I have no association with, control over, or financial interest in EventSpan. I am a satisfied user and that's it.

That said, back to showdango. Just as there are many different generic web search engines, there is space for competing special-interest search engines. Each has to find its own niche and compete for business based on features, usefulness, attractiveness to its user base, and superiority over other offerings. Showdango is still in beta and may develop killer features that raise it above the crowd. But for now, that crowd needs to be acknowledged and I don't mind mentioning implementation comparisons and inaccurate marketing as I see them.

UPDATE, April 9: The fine folks at showdango responded quickly. They have changed the top of page tag line to "A pretty cool little webinar index". The prosecution withdraws its objections. Nice responsiveness and a fun sense of whimsy shown there!

Technorati Tags: webinar,webcast,search engine,webinar index,showdango,EventSpan,Finervista,Insight24,CartoSoft

Brainshark Offers Content

Brainshark recently unveiled an online service that lets users access recorded presentations by subject matter experts in various fields. It's called the Brainshark Content Network and is officially in beta (according to the logo at the top of the page).

I already use Brainshark's presentation recording technology to create and host on-demand presentations for my own Webinar Success website and for my clients. So it was easy for me to check out the new offering.

If you want to get your content listed on the site, you have to submit an application to Brainshark. Their team reviews your qualifications and approves you as a content publisher ("Subject Matter Expert" in their parlance). That helps to make sure that visitors to the site don't have to plow through spam submissions and have a better chance at finding quality material. Publishers sign a contract with Brainshark that includes a revenue sharing model. Each recording submitted to the network can be configured by the publisher to be free or to have a charge for viewing. You can also elect to make the content available for reuse and modification by others (usually at a substantially higher price, but it's entirely up to you).

I already had recordings that were appropriate for the network, so for me, the act of publishing them was as simple as clicking a checkbox on each recording's profile in my authoring account. I confirmed the title, description, and cost along with a category for search indexing. That's it. They were up and available to the public.

If you are not a Brainshark customer but feel that you have valuable material of use to the community, you can get the use of the Brainshark technology once you are approved as a publisher. I took a look at the tutorial for creating a presentation for newcomers to the technology and it is well constructed and easy to follow. You can get going with nothing more than a PowerPoint slide deck and a telephone. I prefer using digital audio files for a cleaner sound, which is permitted by the technology. It takes more work, but makes for a cleaner soundtrack.

Visitors can search for content in 13 high level categories or by keyword. So if you'd like to see my recordings, you can follow this link to immediately see my four short presentations (All of which are free. You're welcome.)

Brainshark is not trying to be a generic presentation listing and syndication portal for all presentations on the web. They leave that to sites like EventSpan. They are only hosting Brainshark recordings, which of course helps them show off their technology while giving some extra value to the user community. And if enough people are willing to pay for the value-add they get, it creates an additional revenue stream for both Brainshark and the content authors. Admittedly, this will have to turn into a high-volume site for that money to be significant. Most pay-to-view recordings have relatively low prices, ranging from $1 to $25. Brainshark handles the payment processing via credit card or PayPal and you always have a chance to preview the first few slides of a fee-based recording to judge whether it's worth the money for you.

Viewers can add ratings to presentations they have watched, although this feature doesn't seem to be getting much action so far. I might wish for a few advanced search and listing features, but those may get added over time. For instance, you can't order your listing by price or by reverse order on title or date (title is always A-Z and date always shows most recent first).

I'm going to be very interested in whether the Brainshark Content Network takes off. If it does, you'll be seeing more content from me!

 

Technorati Tags: Brainshark,Brainshark Content Network,on-demand presentations,recorded event,event portal

ReadyTalk Adds Event Management

ReadyTalk just announced the addition of event management to their web conferencing service. I got a chance to go through the new features with Mike McKinnon, the Social Media Director for ReadyTalk.

Event management distinguishes an ad hoc meeting from a more formal, structured web event. It allows you to schedule an event in advance, collect registrations from prospective attendees, send login instructions and reminder emails, track registration and attendance, and so on.

Many web conferencing companies offer separate solutions for events as opposed to impromptu meetings. WebEx has Event Center as a higher priced alternative to Meeting Center. Citrix offers GoToWebinar at a higher price than GoToMeeting. Mike was eager to emphasize the fact that ReadyTalk has a single web conferencing solution without added cost modules or options. All users of the service automatically get access to the Event Manager without requiring an upgrade or additional payment.

The basic functions required of web conference event management tend to be well understood, and the differentiation lies in implementation details. I'll try to skip over the obvious and concentrate on specifics of interest in ReadyTalk's version of the functionality. Suffice it to say that all the basics are well covered... You can schedule an event for a date and time in the future, send emails to registrants, generate reports, and customize landing pages.

You can create a new event from scratch or you can clone an existing event, making changes to details as needed. ReadyTalk lets you pick the time zone that your event date and time is expressed in on all generated pages and invitations. There is no facility to automatically convert it to other time zones or to list multiple time zones. Event duration can be specified down to 15 minute increments, but the event must start on a half hour mark... You can't override the time selection popup.

The Event Manager lets you schedule an event with web login information only, telephone audio conferencing information only, or combined web and phone. The scheduling screen reformats with your choice to cut down on unnecessary information. You can also choose to use ReadyTalk's automated PIN-access telephone conferencing or a full operator-assisted conference line. While you can add in an external toll number and toll-free number if you use a third-party audio conferencing provider, it's momentarily confusing to find the entry boxes under "ReadyTalk Operator Assisted."

ReadyTalk has access to a worldwide network to use for the audio side of things. I love the feature that lets you automatically include local toll-free access numbers for your choice of countries in your confirmation emails. Or you can check a box to include a link to a list of all access numbers in the world. Simple and integrated international access is a big plus for many enterprise conferencing users.

You get 2000 characters to play with for creating your event description text. ReadyTalk lets you enter this in a formatting entry field (you can change fonts, add bold and italics, create bulleted lists, etc.). But I noticed that there was no hyperlink button to easily enter a web address. It doesn't automatically convert addresses to a hyperlink or let you enter HTML tags, so if you want a hyperlinked phrase you have to copy it in from something like a Word document where it is already linked. The paste operation preserves embedded hyperlinks.

You can establish a security passcode for your event of 4-9 alphanumeric characters. The code is the same for all attendees... There is no functionality for assigning individual passwords to each participant (typically used for paid attendance functions to make sure registrants don't forward the login information to friends and colleagues).

You can add a logo image to your registration page and you can even hyperlink it to the web page of your choice. You can also specify multiple presenter names, bios, and photos.

You can customize registration questions to a certain degree. ReadyTalk forces required fields for Name and Email as the first two choices. I expressed surprise that Name was held in a single field, as this makes it difficult to export registration information to an external database or salesforce automation tool that expects separate first and last name fields. A bit of discussion on the issue resulted in a statement that they would change the registration field to two separate fields in the next update, probably in 30-60 days. After name and email, there are another 16 standard demographic fields that you can optionally display and/or make required. After that, you can add any number of custom fields in your choice of formats (text, drop-down menus, radio buttons, checkboxes, and multi-select lists).

What bothered me a bit was the fact that I could not reorder questions. If I use the preconfigured demographic fields, they show up in the order that ReadyTalk lists them. If I use my own custom fields, I can't change the order after the fact. I would have to delete everything above my desired entry and re-enter all the questions after it. By the way, this is a common limitation of integrated registration builders.

You get the opportunity to preview the complete layout of your reg page and make additional changes as desired.

Advanced event settings let you control several functional aspects. The first is to customize confirmation emails that are sent to participants. ReadyTalk formats the confirmation email and includes all the relevant information from the event scheduling details. You have no control over the display of this information. The only customization possible is to add paragraphs of text at the top of the invitation. The confirmation email is highly formatted for HTML display and I haven't had a chance to check what happens if a registrant accepts text emails only. There is a link to add the event to your calendar and a system compatibility test link is included as well. You can also specify up to five files that will be added as attachments to the confirmation email. That's a nice feature and not very common.

You can also choose whether you want an email notification every time someone registers and whether they should get an automatic confirmation message or whether you want to approve registration requests.

Most event management systems have a way to send reminder emails, and ReadyTalk does as well. You specify an absolute date and time for reminders to go out (rather than a number of days or hours before your event). If you want to send out multiple reminders, you need to wait until after the first one has gone out, then re-edit your event to change the reminder date. That's a bit more manual effort than I would optimally like. It would be nice to set up your event once and not have to worry about coming back to the management and setup pages.

I did admire the fact that you can create a post-event survey page with text, customized questions, and a set of files available for download by your attendees.

A final settings feature deserves special mention. While each event typically has a dedicated URL for its registration page, you can auto-generate an arbitrary number of registration URLs and associate each one with a named marketing campaign or source. So you might send emails to different lists and use a specialized URL to track the performance of each list. Another URL might be used for clickthroughs from a Web banner ad. And another URL would be used in a newsletter sponsorship. As far as the audience is concerned, they all see the same registration page you customized for the event. But you get tracking information that is invaluable for adjusting future marketing and promotion efforts. Too few conferencing systems have this feature, and I think it's a must-have for use in marketing contexts.

ReadyTalk will do an invitation email blast for you, which is a very nice (and uncommon) feature. You can upload a file of up to 1000 email addresses at a time and associate it with one of your defined campaigns (to auto-insert the proper registration link). You can do as many of those uploads as you want. You don't get the same detailed tracking information as you would get from a third-party emailing house, but you don't have to pay extra either!

ReadyTalk only tracks clickthroughs to the registration page. You won't get stats on the number of bad email bounces or email opens. By the way, ReadyTalk automatically adds an opt-out link at the bottom of all invitation emails and specifies that the email came from ReadyTalk at their street address. This complies with CAN-SPAM regulations, but means that you can't fine tune the customization to have the email perceived as coming directly from your company.

There is also a button that lets you send a message to all current registrants, in case you have to send out an update.

The system includes standard reporting on the number of invitees, registrants, and attendees, along with reports summarizing chat messages used during the event. You can view data on the screen and export it to a CSV file for loading into another application.

The last type of email that companies often configure is a post-event message. ReadyTalk lets you set up separate emails for attendees and no-shows. Again, I was mildly disappointed that you can only create these emails after your event has completed. This means another visit to the event management system. I prefer to do all my setup and configuration for an event at one time. But this is a convenience issue rather than a lack of functionality.

All in all, ReadyTalk has created a nice, usable interface that makes the product much more suitable for large structured events. My favorite features are the ability to set up international telephone access, create multiple URLs for tracking promotional channels, and the option to use ReadyTalk as a bulk emailer for your invitations.

Technorati Tags: ReadyTalk,Mike McKinnon,webinar,web conference,web conferencing,web events,event manager,event management