The Webinar Blog

Who's Your Daddy, Raindance?

West Corporation, which just bought Raindance less than two months ago, today announced that Gary and Mary West plan to sell the company to an investor group led by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Quadrangle Group. Never a dull moment around Raindance, eh? Chin up, boys and girls... at least they haven't announced plans to rename and rebrand the company (although I wouldn't rule it out). That's life in the technology world.

I worked in the same product group at a Silicon Valley software manufacturer for five years. Without changing jobs, I managed to work for five different company names during those five years. Actually it was six names, but I'm not counting a relatively minor suffix change. Every year, like clockwork, we would have to interrupt our normal product marketing activities telling a forward-moving story and instead spend a lot of time and money rebranding the stuff we already had. Ugh.

I noted that within seven hours of the announcement, the law firm of Ademi & O'Reilly had drafted a class action complaint against the company, saying they took too low an offer. Class action specialists are quick on the trigger!

I don't expect any effect upon users of the Raindance software. This seems to be purely a corporate financial maneuver. But nobody like change or uncertainty, and that's all they've got nowadays.

Technorati Tags: Raindance, West Corporation

Guessing Microsoft's strategy

Today we got another of the incredibly rare tidbits of information from Microsoft regarding its plans for Live Meeting and Live Communications Server (LCS). It now looks as though Microsoft will give up their plans for a general unified theory of web conferencing and instead offer it in two flavors... The traditional server-hosted model they bought from Placeware and a new locally-hosted model integrated into the Microsoft Office LCS package. Microsoft has been trying to figure out how to integrate the two systems for ages. In a CRN story on the subject way back in February of 2004, they talked about "full integration of LCS with Live Meeting" - but I'm guessing the technical challenge was simply too daunting. Placeware was written for a Sun Java / universal UNIX compatible base. Microsoft wants everything in C# and Microsoft Java, which is incompatible in several "interesting" ways (especially from a graphics and interfaces standpoint).

LCS of course is much more than web conferencing. As a matter of fact, I get the impression that web conferencing is going to be treated as an afterthought for the unified collaborative work package. In another article on LCS, CRN (which really seems to be into this story!) quotes an anonymous Microsoft source: “Do the math. The market for collaboration software is $4 billion. The market for voice is $40 billion. If you were Microsoft, where would you go?”

As far as I can tell, Microsoft seems to have all but abandoned direct sales efforts on the Live Meeting (Placeware) product, relying on pick-up sales from inbound calls. Their direct sales force has been slashed and relegated to combined sales channels with other products. In the meantime, WebEx continues to push the heck out of its hosted enterprise web conferencing activities. This should result in a completely obvious and predictable ceding of the hosted market to WebEx.

It's funny to watch this dance. Microsoft has long been the king of pre-announcements designed to make consumers hold off purchase decisions until a promised new offering finally hits the market. But in this case, the company can't seem to figure out their own strategy well enough to clearly communicate it to their potential market. In the meantime, WebEx continues to widen its lead on market share.

Technorati Tags: LCS, Live Meeting, Microsoft, Placeware, Live Communications Server, web conferencing, WebEx, webinar

WebEx Gets Bundled

WebEx and Sony just announced a marketing deal that should be big news for WebEx's market share. New VAIO notebook computers will come pre-installed with a WebEx icon on the desktop giving the owner a free trial of the software. Of course the trial is not a special offer, since anyone can get a free test account by visiting the WebEx site at any time (as you can with most any reputable web conferencing software). What's big is putting it right there under the nose of people who might not have considered it before. I'm not quite sure what Sony gets out of the partnership (other than a cash infusion from the WebEx sales and marketing budget!), but it sounds like a fantastic deal for WebEx.

Some of the VAIO's featuring the bundle have built in webcams and microphones in the chassis. This means that web conferencing users will find it even easier to make truly bad quality audio/video presentations from the convenience of their own cluttered cubicle or messy home office. I've said it before and I'll say it again... If you want to use video in your presentation, use professional services. The cheap stuff is fine for an informal "videophone" chat with a buddy, but you'll come off looking bad in a formal webinar.

Nice move, WebEx marketing department!

Technorati Tags: Sony, webinar, VAIO, web conferencing, WebEx

A Standard For Event Listing Data

One of the things I've had to deal with in getting the WebEventSearch.com site up and running is that there are no standards for what information is included in webcast/webinar announcements nor for how it is expressed. This makes it impossible to share the information across sites electronically, sort and classify events automatically, or perform automated searches through the information.

In creating a standard search utility for webcast events, I had to define a set of fields and category values to use for all listings. This allows users to perform searches on fields such as event date (which can be converted to their local timezone) or topic category.

I want companies with many events to be able to bulk-load them into the WebEventSearch.com database to allow universal searching from a single access point. To do this effectively, we need a standard for defining and listing the event information.

I plan to create an XML schema definition that all companies can use to list and feed events. If you work with multiple event listings and would like to help define and refine the standard, contact me via email at kmolay[at]wsuccess.com. I would welcome outside perspectives.

Technorati Tags: search, search engine, web conference, webcast, webinar, XML standards

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Here's a grabber of an opening sentence from a new SecureTest report: "SecureTest reported yesterday that web conferencing sidesteps every security barrier an organisation may have in place..."

The article points out that if you use desktop sharing and remote control through a web conferencing provider, an inside accomplice can give a confederate access to the corporate LAN or WAN, bypassing all firewalls and external security checks.

The interesting part is that desktop sharing software that uses HTTPS encryption defeats the organization's own security sniffing programs. A data stream in a web conferencing session obfuscates the data being transmitted and doesn't generate a log of access actions, so the company would have no way to see or log thefts that occurred.

Once this gets publicized, I think you are going to see a call for greater control and visibility from corporate IT security departments on the outbound data streams in an external remote access session. It could throw a monkey wrench in the use of such systems to let help desks and support departments access their clients' desktops to diagnose trouble.

Technorati Tags: firewall, security, web conferencing

Promoting Your Event Recording

I just saw this press release from Cimatron Limited. They used a successful webinar as an excuse to promote themselves, show that they have good content of value to their market, and get additional viewers to come see the event recording. Good job!

But they could have been more effective in three ways. Let's take a look and learn.

First, the press release continually refers to the webinar in the past tense. "The webinar was hosted by...", "The webinar presentation included an eight-step...", "Rich Dorans described in the webinar how...", "This was an extremely informative session..."

By using past tense, you cue your readers that the event was in the past and they missed it. Old news and missed opportunities are not compelling to an audience. You want instead to talk about your webinar recording as a current offering. You could change every sentence above to present tense and make the webinar sound alive and available.

Secondly, the press release waits until the final sentence to mention that interested parties can view a recording of the webinar. It sounds almost like an afterthought. This should have been up at the top and probably should have been the lead point of the press release. If the release is structured so the company is announcing availability of a highly successful and valuable resource, it suddenly becomes a real news item, rather than a self-congratulatory debrief on something that happened in the past. How about something like: "Cimatron Gives Executives On-Demand Access To Highly Successful Tool Shop Optimization Seminar" [Okay, that's a little clunky, but you get the idea.]

Third, the sentence mentioning availability of the recording says "Tooling executives... can view a recording of the webinar by signing up on the Cimatron Technologies, Inc. website at www.cimatrontech.com."

There are two things wrong here. The first is that you are announcing a psychological barrier right in the sentence. Don't say "by signing up" -- it gives people a reason not to go to the site. "I'm not signing up for anything! I don't want to be spammed!" Let them click through and then see that they need to give their name. At that point they have already invested themselves and made the first move, so they are much more likely to continue with the process.

The second problem is the link. You are sending an audience interested in a specific item to a generic company home page. Sure, Cimatron did a good job of highlighting the event recording on their home page with a nice picture box display ad, but they should have sent interested readers directly to the event page from the press release.

I'm guessing that one of the reasons they didn't use a direct link is that the recording is being hosted on ON24's server site with a ridiculously long URL address under the ON24 high-level domain name. This is one of the few situations where I would advise using a coding trick called an HTTP Meta Refresh to redirect people to an alternate web address. Usually it's a bad idea because users can't use the BACK button on their browser and some search engines don't like them. But in this particular case, it's an appropriate use.

Cimatron could host a miniature HTML file (let's call it toolshop.html). The content consists solely of a redirect to the ON24 real address for the event. There is also a manual link in case somebody uses a browser that doesn't support the automatic refresh. Here's what it looks like:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Cimatron Webinar - Tool Shop Optimization</TITLE>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="0; URL=http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=lobby.jsp&playerheight=580&playerwidth=748&eventid=21050&sessionid=1&partnerref=amweb&key=3CF3F45D1A5CE1D8298E5CEAC281DE3C&eventuserid=5974418">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<A HREF="http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=lobby.jsp&playerheight=580&playerwidth=748&eventid=21050&sessionid=1&partnerref=amweb&key=3CF3F45D1A5CE1D8298E5CEAC281DE3C&eventuserid=5974418">
Click here to view the Tool Shop Optimization webinar</A>
</BODY>
</HTML>

I have hosted this file on my server at the following address: http://www.wsuccess.com/toolshop.html

Try clicking on that link and watch what happens. Now you have an address that is short and sweet, is listed under your domain name, and takes the audience straight to the event they want to see.

With those few changes, Cimatron could really boost the results they continue to get from their sunk investment in time and money to create and record the webinar.

Oh, and I should put in my standard plug here... You should also list your recording on www.WebEventSearch.com so people can search for it online even if they somehow miss your press release!

By the way, I know nothing about these Cimatron folks and use this example purely because it was a real case and handy. I commend them for getting that original attendance for their event and for following through with additional marketing/PR activities around it. I hope they don't think I'm berating them in any way!

Technorati Tags: redirect, web conference, webcast, webinar

First Impressions of The Second Derivative

Last week I attended a webinar by Peter Cohan, founder of The Second Derivative. Peter and his company focus on a niche area of the presentation world, the art of the demo. He advises companies and presenters on how to make demos more effective and beneficial to the bottom line.

Since Peter is an experienced presenter, he knows that the his job is not done when the webcast is over. He sent out a follow-up email to the participants and included some additional materials of interest to people who would register for such an event. He had a description of services that his company offers, which he didn't have to hard-sell during the event because he knew he would have a chance to hit it later. He gave a specific call to action, inviting his audience to come to his website and get an assessment of their demo prowess in a self-serve questionnaire. And he marketed additional services and offerings in terms of benefits to the audience.

I asked him if I could make some of those extra resources available to you as readers of The Webinar Blog. Many of the guidelines for presenting a quality demo obviously apply to the larger world of online presentations. He graciously agreed to let you read or download the documents.

The first document you should take a look at is The Content-Free Buzzword-Compliant Vocabulary List. Peter's observations perfectly match my own frustrations in this area. I do a lot of work with high tech marketing, and if I see another presentation or speech talking about "seamless integration" and "robust best-of-breed" software I'm going to scream. Saying something is powerful and scalable is unhelpful to your audience. Give them specifics on what your product can do (preferably in a way that sets it apart from what your less capable competitors can manage).

The second, more information-packed document is Stunningly Awful Demos - The Great Demo! Top Ten List of What NOT To Do. Nine of the ten points in the document apply equally well to online webcasts and webinars. I have talked about most of these in previous blog entries, but it's nice to get them all bundled in one easy to read reference guide.

Thanks for sharing, Peter!

Technorati Tags: demo, Second Derivative, buzzwords, web conference, web conferencing, webcast, webinar

Pennsylvania Gives Webcast Viewers The Bird

And thus we demonstrate the power of a catchy title. Sometimes you don't want to just lay out a boring descriptive sentence describing your upcoming event. It is possible to play with readers' expectations and try to grab their attention. Just make sure your content isn't complete spam and unrelated to their area of interest.

Oh, is there some kind of content to go along with that provocative posting title? There most certainly is. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania Game Commission are holding a live webcast on Wednesday, May 24. What will they show viewers? Young peregrine falcons born in a nest at the state office building being banded for identification.

And just so you can say you learned something today, a young falcon in the nest is referred to as an "eyas."

Technorati Tags: falcon, eyas, webcast

An Early Look At OnSYNC

No, this isn't about a boy band. It's a new web conferencing technology from SpiderWeb Communications. I just talked to SpiderWeb's president, Dave Segal, and got a demo of their software.

SpiderWeb started out as an iLinc reseller, but has decided to branch out and grab a slice of that giant web conferencing pie themselves. Their current website is more geared towards the old iLinc offerings, but Dave tells me the new website design should be up and running within the next few weeks (which I will automatically extend to "some time this year" - as I am an old cynical hand at the web development game). Dave, I hope you get rid of that annoying digitalized talking head on each page!

The OnSYNC technology is completely browser based, with no downloads or client-side software to install. It relies on Macromedia Flash technology, specifically FlashPaper. That makes it compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux systems that support Flash in their browsers. You shouldn't have a problem with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or any of the other big names.

I thought the interface was reminiscent of the Macromedia Breeze idea of having many individually movable, closable, resizable panes that handle different functions. One of the big features of OnSYNC is its integrated support for two-way live audio and video over your computer. So each participant can have a webcam display and computer microphone to do full duplex communications (think Skype). The synchronization and frame rate of audio and video in our little 2-person demonstration was very good.

I would say that the current implementation is fine for interactive departmental meetings and other fully collaborative conferencing, but isn't ready to fulfill the demands of outbound webinars. The software has no integrated event registration and many of the features tend to be "all or nothing." For instance, you can turn on display of attendee names for everyone or turn it off for everyone, but you can't leave them visible for a presenter and invisible to audience participants. Same thing goes for the Chat window. Either everyone can talk to everyone else, or nobody can talk to anybody via Chat.

To use PowerPoint slides, you need to purchase the Adobe FlashPaper product to convert your slides to Flash images on your desktop. These are then uploaded to a central server space. SpiderWeb plans to include server-based conversion in an upcoming release so that people won't have to buy and install another product just to show their slides. PowerPoint slide transitions and animations are not retained when showing them online. There is an annotation overlay that lets you highlight slides with boxes and arrows and such.

Dave couldn't yet show me polling as a feature. He claims the engineers have finished the unit functionality, but haven't bundled it into the product yet. Soon... Soon...

SpiderWeb sells license rights to the software on a per-server basis. So you can pay a single fee and have as many sessions or users as your server can handle, with no additional per person/per minute charges. Dave says that when using webcam video, a typical server can manage several hundred participants and without video, that goes up to a thousand or more.

I think this is likely to be a direct competitor to GoToMeeting from Citrix. Given their growth and success, and recent surveys showing explosive growth in the collaborative web conferencing space, that looks like a good place to be.

We'll check in from time to time to see how SpiderWeb and OnSYNC develop.

Technorati Tags: Macromedia, OnSYNC, Flash, web conference, web conferencing, webcast, webinar

Where are your press releases?

I'm tied in with search keywords to scan for anything related to web conferencing, webinars, webcasts, podcasts, web seminars, and so on coming from the major wire carriers and Google. I see lots of press releases about investor calls and financial results webcasts (because corporations have to publicize those).

But I am astonished by the lack of press releases related to common marketing and product-related webinars. I know companies are producing these events, but they seem to be keeping notices just listed on their own websites! Very shortsighted. People coming to your website to check for events are a tiny self-selected portion of the general population that could benefit from your material. You need to reach out to that vast untapped audience.

A press release for this kind of event is not designed to elicit press coverage. It is there purely to get you listed and crawled by automated search engines. It can be nice and short, basically just the details of the date and time, a description of the subject matter, and most importantly -- a clickable link to the event information/registration page.

And while you're doing that, since you have all the information in one place already, why not list your event on WebEventSearch.com at the same time? It's free and provides yet another all-important incoming link to your registration page. The name of the game in Internet publicity is links and search prominence. Forgive my bluntness, but you're crazy if you don't take advantage of every easy opportunity to make your event visible to the Internet audience through search engine awareness.

Every time you create a new webinar, webcast, streaming feed, podcast, or web-based seminar series you should be issuing a small press release to Market Wire, Business Wire, PR Newswire, or some similar news carrier that is scanned by the search engines. Your audience is looking for you. Help them find you.

Technorati Tags: press release, web conference, web conferencing, webcast, webinar