The Webinar Blog

Comparing Web Conferencing Software

Jim wrote in and asked “What’s a good source to compare the various web conferencing applications before choosing one?”

This is a question I have addressed in the past, but it’s worth talking about again, as it is one of the most repeated queries on this blog. The short answer is that I don’t know of any trusted, all in one source for comparing web conferencing applications on an equal basis.

The closest you’ll get is Publicare’s site: webconferencing-test.com. It gives you some criteria they selected for making a rating system and points you toward some very usable software.

Problem number one (for my blog focus) is that Publicare chose to “focus on online conferencing solutions for smaller and medium-sized companies and the self-employed.” These tend to be less expensive solutions designed primarily for peer-level collaborative meetings. That is a valid niche, and I’m not knocking their choice of focus. But you need to be aware that it leaves out web conferencing packages targeted at large structured web seminars or training sessions where the focus is on presenters providing information to an audience.

Problem number two is that all rating systems have a built in bias towards the criteria that the tester chooses to emphasize. Those criteria might not meet your priorities for product selection.

Problem number three is that many of the big web conferencing vendors have multiple versions of their software. Adobe, iLinc, and WebEx are just some of the big recognizable names that license distinct versions of their software designed for small events, large events, eLearning, or support. Which version do you choose for your comparison?

Problem number four is that you are dealing with a moving target. The vendors update their software all the time. With web conferencing commonly licensed as a hosted SaaS solution, the programs can (and do) get upgrades whenever the vendor feels like it. These are sometimes not even announced publicly!

Problem number five is that there just isn’t a strong business return for the poor shlub who is thinking about doing the work. If you accept advertising from the vendors on your site, your testing objectivity comes into question. You spend an enormous amount of time testing and writing up results, then spend the rest of your life retesting and updating and answering challenges from vendors and users. And every new piece of software that comes along wants you to add them to the review list. It’s a major commitment if you plan to take it seriously.

I wrote up a blog post a year ago on “My Favorite Webinar Technologies.” That was a snapshot in time, and it is now out of date. I have been using omNovia quite a lot lately with excellent results, and it would be high in my list. InstantPresenter got a major update, and I like it much more now (coming in first place for fee-based events). I haven’t tested iLinc lately, and I know they have had updates. Connect Pro actually slipped a bit because of some slide conversion problems that I found frustrating.

I try to keep this blog updated with mini-reviews of various webinar products from time to time as well as key announcements when I find out about upgrades that affect usability. But I’m the first to say that I don’t use a structured approach and it’s not very useful for vendor to vendor comparisons. Given that this is a non-revenue activity for me, I’m afraid the haphazard nature is likely to continue. In the meantime, let me point you to a series of articles I wrote on Webinar Wire where I talk about some of the major webinar features and how vendors implement them in different ways. You can go to the site and do a search on “features”.

If you find a comparison site I don’t know about, please let me know and I’ll publicize it for everyone to use!

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web meeting,online seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcasting,webcast

Creating Exceptional Lead Gen Webinars

MarketingProfs is offering a free white paper written by Joel Granoff entitled “9 Management Practices for Exceptional Webinars.” This paper is a must-read for enterprise marketers (particularly B2B) who plan to or currently use webinars to gather sales leads.

I can’t praise the paper highly enough. In only 26 pages of clear, readable text, Joel gives incredibly valuable information that can be applied immediately to your company’s marketing webinar programs. He starts with some basic background demographics on the companies studied in a marketplace survey. One of the statistics I found interesting is that 72% of respondents said they have been conducting webinars for three years or less. This shows both the rapid uptake in webinars as a business tool in recent years and the incredible potential still untapped.

As Joel moves into his nine key management practices, I found myself nodding in agreement at each of his practical recommendations and suggestions for integrating webinars as part of a complete business sales/marketing program.

He wraps up with some specific checklists to help guide you through the process of evaluating technology vendors, managing the registration and lead tracking process, and calculating ROI for your webinars.

Go. Download this white paper. Do it now.

[In case you were wondering, I have no connection with MarketingProfs or Joel Granoff. They didn’t contact me about the paper and have no idea I saw it or am writing about it. I saw it promoted in a public press release. Boy, are you cynical!]

Technorati Tags: MarketingProfs,marketing,Joel Granoff,lead generation,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,webcasting,webcast,web conference,web conferencing

Web Conferencing News Roundup

This is one of those weeks when many web conferencing vendors coincidentally came out with newsworthy announcements and developments within a short time. When that happens, I like to call special attention to the burst of activity with a news roundup. Of course you can always follow press releases and articles hand-picked to reflect items of interest to our little community on the Webinar Success Industry News page.

Mediasite by Sonic Foundry occupies an interesting niche in the web conferencing space. It is particularly well suited for “simulcasting” a local presentation (particularly classroom training) to a remote audience. The company released version 5.2 with updated features for managing the recording process during the capture of a presentation, the ability to use uploaded video clips, and keyword searching through captioned presentations to find a particular point in a recording where the content references an item of interest.

Elluminate has also been placing a lot of focus on distance learning and education applications of its web collaboration technology. The company acquired Edtuit, creators of LearnCentral – a social learning network. This gives Elluminate a broader platform for clients who want to bundle structured and ad hoc web conferencing sessions with collaboration and networking features designed specifically for education and training.

ViVu officially released the first commercial version of its video-oriented webcasting and collaboration product, offering the ability to support extremely large video-enabled audiences.

ReadyTalk’s new embeddable media player (released earlier this month) won a People’s Choice Award at a Colorado technology association conference.

iLinc was recognized as “App of the Week” by AppExchange for the usefulness of its iLinc for Salesforce direct integration of web conferencing information such as event registration and attendance with the Salesforce CRM database.

Arkadin announced a new pricing model that simplifies budgeting for combined audio and web conferencing services from the company.

Web meetings conducted with Saba Centra can now be accessed using an Apple iPhone.

And finally, I’d like to mention a piece of news with importance that may not be immediately obvious to my American readers. The Indian government just changed a policy affecting web conferencing vendors. Firms offering teleconference and web conference services in India can now be 100% foreign owned (after approval by India’s Foreign Investment Promotion Board). Previously, companies had to show more than one-quarter investment ownership by Indian concerns. This will help open the massive Indian market to more American companies, and possibly smaller vendors who could not afford to create India-based subsidiaries. Premiere Global forced the issue, and stands to be the first web conferencing provider to benefit. Web conferencing adoption in India and China is still in infancy stages relative to the huge business market potential. Vendors should be salivating over any improvement in their chances of grabbing a piece of this pie.

These are exciting times for web conferencing and collaboration!

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web meeting,online seminar,online meeting,web collaboration,online collaboration,webcasting,webcast,web conference,web conferencing

Your Presentation Slides Still Stink

Dave Paradi just published the results of his fourth survey on which PowerPoint presentation characteristics annoy audiences the most. Here are the top five – in order of unpopularity – culled from more than 540 responses:

• The speaker read the slides to us
• Text so small I couldn’t read it
• Full sentences instead of bullet points
• Slides hard to see because of color choice
• Overly complex diagrams or charts

Dave goes into more detail on his survey and the results, and will be following up on his blog with a discussion of respondent comments.

Professionals in the presentation industry have been evangelizing against these common design and delivery flaws for years. Apparently to no effect. See how easy it is to make your webinar presentations stand out from the garbage that your audiences dread, yet have come to expect? Even after all these years, you still have the opportunity to be cutting edge and a trendsetter, simply by ceasing to treat your slide show as a “Books On Tape” performance.

Presentation slides should lend visual emphasis and support to your vocal presentation. If your slides tell the entire story, the audience doesn’t need you. They certainly don’t need to spend 60 minutes listening to you read something they could read much more quickly.

Each slide should distill and quickly convey a single idea at a glance. You can probably explain the concept in the title area alone! Use visual cues to build a connection to your verbal material. If you use data to support your message, do the inferential work for your audience... Instead of showing them data, show them information. Clearly and obviously highlight the point the data supports.

Raw numbers, tables, and detailed graphs have a place in the business world. They are necessary for doing due diligence, learning how to draw conclusions, and acting as archival reference information. But in a group presentation, they distract and detract from the power of your message.

A well-written white paper has great value. But slapping it onto a bunch of PowerPoint slides doesn’t make it a presentation, and doesn’t transfer the value to a live audience. They deserve better. You can do better. Let Dave’s dissatisfied minions be your guide!

Technorati Tags: Dave Paradi,PowerPoint,presentations,webinar,web seminar,webcasting,webcast,online seminar,online presentation,web conference,web conferencing

InstantPresenter Integrates PayPal

It has been ages since I looked at InstantPresenter web conferencing. Back several years ago, I thought it was a little underpowered compared to the competition. I’m happy to report that they have been making improvements behind my back, and it’s working very nicely now!

The immediate reason I took another look was a press release stating that InstantPresenter had integrated payment processing directly into the software so that you can charge for your webinars and webcasts. This is still extremely uncommon in the web conferencing technology space, and I wanted to see how it worked.

It turns out to be simplicity itself. You need to have an active PayPal account already set up and verified for accepting payments. That’s free and easy to do directly through PayPal. PayPal has become the de facto payment processor of choice on the Internet, and it lets customers submit payments without sharing their private financial information with you.

As you schedule an upcoming webinar in InstantPresenter, you simply indicate whether you want to charge registrants. If so, you type in your PayPal account identifier (your email address) and set up the charge amounts. InstantPresenter was clever enough to allow you to create up to three discount codes and associated prices. You can also charge a different amount for watching the live webinar versus accessing the recording later.

As customers register for your event, they are taken into the secure PayPal system to pay, and they get an automated confirmation from the system. The full payment amount goes directly into your account… InstantPresenter does not skim any amount for themselves (although PayPal does).

This makes InstantPresenter immediately attractive for small businesses, consultants, and trainers who want to charge clients for their expertise, but do not have the time, skills, or resources to build online shopping carts and API connections to web conferencing software. It should be a big hit (and I hope will inspire other vendors to set up similar functionality).

I’m not going to go through a detailed review of the rest of the functionality here, but I can report that the software now supports PowerPoint animations and slide transitions (yay!), allows customizable registration forms and post-event surveys, and with a small optional fee you can bridge third-party teleconference lines to the streaming audio to give attendees their choice of how to listen. You can also let registrants choose their own login password for a webinar, which can help cut down on unauthorized access to paid events.

The system runs in Flash, and I’d like to give special recognition to whatever software engineer programmed the initial connection screens for InstantPresenter. They have the best, clearest explanations I have ever seen for how to handle browser prompts for allowing access and clicking confirmations. I can’t imagine an attendee being confused or frightened by the security access prompts that we are all slaves to now.

InstantPresenter is definitely worth putting on your short list when evaluating webinar technology vendors. If you are charging for your events, it should be one of the first ones you test.

Technorati Tags: InstantPresenter,webinar,web seminar,web meeting,online seminar,online meeting,webcasting,webcast,web conference,web conferencing

ViVu Concentrates on Group Video Webcasts

ViVu is a new webcast technology company that just announced investment funding to get its first commercial release to market. I had a chance to work with the software in a video chat with the company’s management team, and also did a bit of testing using the free trial on their website.

The central focus of ViVu is on connecting audiences where everybody has a video and sound connection. The software has a unique interface that lets you see thumbnail images of an entire room full of participants, even when that number is in the hundreds or thousands. It displays a view that is supposed to be analogous to what you would see when standing on a stage looking out into a crowded room. So the first rows are larger and clearer, with farther rows smaller and less distinct. But unlike in a real auditorium, you can click to focus on any row. You can also see when someone has a question or requests the floor and optionally open their microphone.

The software is Flash and Java based, running in most major browsers and operating systems without the need for downloads and installs. However participants are given a popup suggestion to load a High Quality Streaming Video add-in, which takes a few minutes to download and install. This raises the smoothness and responsiveness of the video.

When I initially installed the HQ encoder in our demonstration video chat, I saw good smooth quality on my high speed cable modem connection. But in further tests at home, I ran into problems getting a quality video feed to my second computer. Images showed a great deal of pixilation and about a 1.5 second lag in motion responsiveness. I couldn’t get the checkbox option to load the HQ encoder, so it’s unclear what was happening. [UPDATE: There was a control button for installing the HQ encoder on the host computer that I didn't find when trying out the software. It looks like an electrical plug with a red X on it and is unlabeled. I thought it would end the session! I have tried loading the encoder during a session and ran into some error messages during the install followed by an inability to show any video. I'll work with their support tomorrow and report on the resolution. UPDATE 2: It looks like my problem was a Vista security block that kept their install program from running automatically. They sent me the install file and I was able to run it from my desktop as an administrator. Everything is working and the video with the HQ encoder installed is much faster and smoother. No pixilation in the image. The video lag between North Carolina and California was approximately one second.]

One quirk that quickly grew exasperating was a random tendency to flash a title bar in a big bold strip across the speaker’s video. By default it just says “HOST”, although you can change it to the person’s name (or any other fun title you want to make up). The title bar comes and goes, and is always tremendously distracting. [UPDATE: ViVu says they are making changes to this behavior.]

In addition to live audio and video, ViVu lets you upload graphic files for display, recorded video clips, and PowerPoint decks. I uploaded my PowerPoint Torture Test and found that the converter they use had a few problems. It misconverted some text fonts and one gradient fill on a shape. The converter also ignores animation effects and slide transitions, so you need to plan on using a static image presentation. I was slightly annoyed that as the presenter, I saw overlay controls on top of my slide content. You lose visibility of an entire band along the bottom of your slide, along with some space at the top. I’d like to see them move those controls off the active content area of the slides. This does not affect the audience’s view however. [UPDATE: I'm really red-faced about this one. I simply didn't check an option box to retain animations during the upload process. With the option selected, slide transitions and animations worked very well! It also fixed the color gradient conversion problem I noted in the static upload. There was a commonly-seen problem with not converting certain text fonts, but overall it did a very good job. Sorry about that, ViVu!]

The software lets you publish polls for audience response in either single answer or “choose all that apply” formats. You can list up to five choices. Once again I had some difficulties in getting the poll to appear on my second computer in a meeting. When you run into troubles of this sort, it can be a bit frustrating, as there is no online help either in the meeting or on the company website.

I also tested out the screen sharing capabilities, which are limited to showing your entire desktop – There is no facility for selecting a single application or user-defined area. In my testing, lag times were 15 seconds on most movements, making them extremely impractical for most types of live demonstrations. [UPDATE: ViVu says this is most likely because I was running both the host and attendee computer off the same home router, overloading my local circuitry. I'll try a remote network test when I can. But I have to say that this is my standard test procedure for web conferencing technologies. UPDATE 2: I tested screen sharing with another network. Lag time was approximately four seconds, which is much better. Not as good as the best in the industry, but that is not the company's focus, and it is good enough for occasional use.]

There is an open chat functionality, letting all participants view and type messages. You cannot switch it to a “webinar mode” (my term), where only presenters and facilitators can see incoming messages.

As a host, you have the option of scheduling a meeting for a specified date and time or starting one on an ad hoc basis. You can send invitations and optionally require attendees to use a password.

The CEO, Sudha Valluru, said that they have stress tested the technology with a simulated 10,000-user meeting, so scaling should not be a problem. [UPDATE: Bad reporting here... That was not a stress test, but a live event with 10,000 participants for the AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford. UPDATE 2: There were 10,000 participants cumulative over the entire multi-day event. Maximum simultaneous connections were a few thousand, and ViVu says they saw no signs of performance degradation.]

Licensing models include monthly unlimited use subscriptions (listed on their site as $49.95/month) and enterprise licenses, which allow branding and customization as well as larger numbers of hosts and participants.

As I noted, this initial launch includes some of the inevitable teething pains found in complex software solutions. But once ViVu gets some additional support resources online and smoothes out some of the rough edges, this should fit in nicely with the growing business interest in video-centric conferencing capabilities.

Technorati Tags: Vivu,Sudha Valluru,webcasting,webcast,webinar,web seminar,web meeting,online meeting,video meeting,video collaboration,videoconference,web conference,web conferencing

ReadyTalk Upgrades Web Conferencing

ReadyTalk announced Conference Center 4 today. This is the latest release of their hosted web conferencing/webinar service. There are a few features in the upgrade that are definitely worth discussing. I have to warn you that I’m working from their announcement and website rather than giving you a first-hand review of my own experiences playing with the new features. So we’ll take everything they say at face value for the moment!  :)

To get a minor issue out of the way first, they finally took care of a feature implementation that used to make me roll my eyes in exasperation. Attendee registration for an event used to capture the registrant’s full name as a single field. They have now properly split it into two separate fields for first and last name. Congratulations… at last you can synchronize with your CRM systems or sort based on last name.

There are some single-click convenience features in the new conferencing console that let users get access to online assistance or reference documentation. I’m all for that. Easy access to help is one of the differentiators between conferencing vendors.

You can also download the audio portion of a recorded event, which can make it easier to do post-production editing, create audio podcasts, or fix slide problems. Always a good thing.

Attendee management got some upgrades, which makes me happy as an event producer. You can now review and change registration status for individuals associated with a webinar, moving them between pending, confirmed, and declined. But for me, the best new feature in attendee management is the ability to re-send a confirmation message to a single registrant. That seems trivial until you’ve worked on a big event and had to deal with people complaining that they never got their login information. I love being able to click a button and tell them that the message has just been re-sent. It makes it much easier to look for emails caught in spam filters or lost in overloaded inboxes. I wish every vendor had this capability!

Another great feature addition that doesn’t necessarily sound like a big deal is the ability to upload event registrants from a file. This lets you use your company’s own registration/payment system (“shopping cart”) or use a third party system such as EventBrite to collect registrations and payments. You could even accept registrations via fax or telephone. You export your registrants into a spreadsheet and upload it into ReadyTalk, and now you can use the automatic features of Conference Center to make sure they get their confirmation messages, reminders, etc. If you are a vendor and don’t have this capability, you need to add it. Trust me… many of your potential customers want to bypass your registration system for their webinars.

ReadyTalk has also added some automatic features for simulcasting event audio over computer speakers and a telephone conference line. My preference is to always allow attendees to select their preferred method of listening, and this interface makes it easy for them to choose. Unfortunately, it looks like this capability is only implemented when using ReadyTalk’s own teleconferencing service on an operator-assisted “Event package." It would be nifty if they could expand this so that you could use any desired teleconference provider. Oh well… One step at a time.

I saved the best for last though. You should go back to the first sentence in this post and click the link to Conference Center 4. You will see that they embedded a web player for archived event recordings on the web page. You can do the same thing with your own recordings. The player is quite snappy, and includes a feature I have never seen before: A visual “Table of Contents” built right in to the playback time scrollbar. As you move your mouse along the horizontal length of the scrollbar, it displays a small popup window of the slide image at that point. You also see little hash marks indicating each slide change. This helps you quickly scroll to the slide you were trying to find. There is also a full pop-up window with all the slides displayed in thumbnail images, so you can use direct access to jump to a slide of interest. I love that navigation aid, and I think your audience members are going to love it as well.

Nice job, ReadyTalk!

Technorati Tags: ReadyTalk,Conference Center 4,webinar,web seminar,web meeting,online seminar,online meeting,webcasting,webcast,web conference,web conferencing

Using Webinars To Engage Prospects

This week I am giving a public webinar on how best to use webinars for sales/marketing purposes. I’m focusing on how to be effective at engaging your potential sales prospects. The webinar is free, thanks to sponsorship by Adobe and the American Marketing Association.

I’ve been having a lot of fun putting together some new and unusual slides for this presentation. I think you’ll enjoy the experience. If you are free on Wednesday, why not join us?

Date: Wednesday, October 7
Time: 10am US Pacific / 1pm US Eastern (Click here for other time zones)
Duration: 60 minutes
Cost: Free
Registration Link: http://tinyurl.com/ya3oe8k

Technorati Tags: marketing,sales,prospecting,lead generation,Adobe,American Marketing Association,webinar,web seminar,webcasting,webcast,online seminar,online meeting,web meeting,web conference,web conferencing