Conferendum is a web conferencing vendor based in Germany. They just announced a new service that should appeal to many small businesses and even some larger companies. The basic concept is that Conferendum will let you use their web conferencing software to run pay-per-view events. They handle the online registration and payment process. You manage the content and the delivery. You pay nothing up front. Conferendum simply takes a 25% cut of whatever revenues your event brings in and sends the rest to you.
This implementation addresses a kind of call I get every so often. “I am a consultant (or trainer or knowledge expert) and I usually conduct paid local seminars or training sessions. I want to try taking my service to the web, but I have no idea what the response will be. I don’t want to spend a bunch of money on technology costs up front that I might not recover. And I don’t have web programmers who can build payment processing systems. Is there a service that will let me try out paid classes on the web in a way that is easy and practical for me?”
This is the first service I have seen that truly goes after this kind of application. But it gets even more interesting, because you can elect to charge by the minute instead of by the event! The application that comes to mind is support calls. You might charge someone for every minute they are in a session with your support engineer. I don’t think it would work too well for a structured event, as people would be itching to disconnect at the earliest possible opportunity in order to save a little cash.
But come to think of it, you might run a long multi-topic session over the course of a day with many different speakers and subjects. Then you could charge viewers only for the parts they actually watch. That’s not a bad idea!
The implementation of the pay-per-minute approach leaves some questions. Participants have to pre-pay funds into their personal account. The funds are then drawn down as they watch an event. I’m not sure what happens if they hit zero while the event is still in progress. If they don’t use all their prepaid minutes, the funds stay in their account ready to be used against a future event, but they have to pay service fees if they want to recover the unused portion.
Conferendum seems to be serious about addressing multinational requirements as well. Events are charged in dollars and Euros, and you can elect to receive your payment in either currency. The company supports 19 different languages, has dial-in telephone numbers available in 30 countries, and offers a feature that is absolutely unique in my experience… Dedicated translation rooms.
Translation rooms send an audio stream to a dedicated interpreter, who can simultaneously speak the translated language. The interpreter’s audio is broadcast to participants attending in that translation room. If an audience member in a translation room wants to ask a question, the interpreter is linked in to the main conference room to enable reverse translation. And participants can easily select any translation room from the main web conferencing console frame.
This isn’t a review, as I have not tried out the service. But assuming it works the way they say it does, Conferendum has given businesses some options that were previously too difficult, impractical, or expensive to work with. I love seeing innovation in the web conferencing industry!
