The Webinar Blog

A Look At IVT MediaPlatform

People often ask me if there is a difference between web conferencing, webcasting, and webinars. In common usage among the press and public, the answer is probably no, but those of us in the business take a more specialized view. Web conferencing (when not used as a generic umbrella term) involves peer-to-peer collaboration, with all participants taking an active role in the meeting. Webinars establish a leader or leaders doing most of the presenting, but still with the expectation of interactivity and input from the participants. And webcasting reduces interactivity even further, with the primary purpose being to impart information from one or more presenters to a large audience watching and listening to the presentation online.

Typical audience sizes differ as well. Web conferences may have 2-15 participants. Webinars most often cluster somewhere around the 50-200 participant range. And webcasts may reach many thousands of viewers.

(Can I just head off the inevitable flame wars and stipulate that there are plenty of exceptions, plenty of overlap, and plenty of alternate definitions to these differentiators?)

IVT is a company firmly targeting the high end, large event webcasting market. Their IVT MediaPlatform product is an interesting concept, differing from the types of webinar-related software I usually cover. I thought it would be informative to look at some of the choices IVT has made with this offering.

First and foremost, MediaPlatform is not designed to be an off-the-shelf end user webinar tool in the mold of Microsoft Live Meeting, Cisco WebEx, Citrix GoToWebinar, or Adobe Connect Pro. It isn’t even meant to compete with ready-to-use webcasting packages such as Stream57, ON24, or Netbriefings. IVT sells MediaPlatform to the very largest enterprises with dedicated media production departments, but makes even more sales to event production companies… The types of businesses that traditionally arrange audio and video setups for large client events. IVT’s goal is to give these service providers a tool in their arsenal that can be customized and configured for the unique needs of each client and each event.

The guts of the software are familiar. It allows internet broadcast of live video (from a webcam or high-end video feed), audio (fed into a computer’s digital inputs), prerecorded audio/video clips, and live screen sharing taken from a video capture card on a PC and encoded to Flash.

What is unusual is the customization of the viewing and presentation environment. IVT opens the entire console operation to programmable functionality. A media professional trained in the use of the IVT configuration environment (a separate editing facility named Titan) can create templates that allow whatever operations are deemed necessary for the webcast. Windows for different content elements can be sized and positioned as desired. Functions can be included to quickly swap content elements or resize them under the control of the session administrator or the individual viewer. Programming can be arbitrarily complex, including full JavaScript capabilities.

Obviously IVT provides starting templates and standard setups to let their customers get going without facing a massive up front programming challenge. Standardized templates let administrators use a form-based wizard to replace simple parameters and content items for quick provisioning of an event. But if a user has a specialized need, it can probably be accommodated.

Event administrators can adjust settings all the way down to video frame rates and audio bitrates for each presenter’s content stream. That’s more control than you’ll find in most webcasting packages.

A webcast can be set up to broadcast using Flash, Windows Media Player, or RealPlayer. You can even choose to webcast a combination of stream formats and let audience members choose their favorite. IVT does favor Flash for the extra capabilities it gives them in swapping between presenter views (the event administrator acts like a video director, switching cameras and audio inputs at whim).

The idea of a pure webcast is that the most important goal is to let large audiences see and hear the content cleanly. To this end, MediaPlatform assembles the audio and video into an internally synchronized stream and sends it out without worrying too much about real-time synchronization. A viewer may see and hear things many seconds after the presenter has said it. So unlike the average webinar, you don’t want to rely too much on instant feedback from your audience. When you introduce an audience poll in MediaPlatform, their best practices say that the presenter should keep talking on his or her subject while the poll stays visible in a corner of the console. After some time has gone by and you feel that the audience has had enough time to hear the instructions, think about the poll and respond, you can refer to results. Similarly, you wouldn’t want to issue a request for typed-in chat feedback and then sit quietly waiting for responses. There could be a significant delay before you started seeing results. And it’s a bad idea to have audience members watch the video on the web but listen over a live phone connection… They would lose the synchronization of the audio and video.

I was pleased with IVT’s registration management (fully customizable of course), which allows source tracking, customizable confirmation emails, reminder emails, and ad-hoc communications. I also liked the audience question management, which allowed private or public responses and assignment of arbitrary categories to questions. This is a great way to let presenters signal a moderator to “Ask me this one” or “Ignore this one.”

Administrators can even control what functionality is given to each presenter through the use of login links that allow them to see or hide Q&A, polls, or other potentially confusing controls beyond their own presentation slides.

PowerPoint content is uploaded to IVT’s servers and is converted to still images. So there is no support for PowerPoint builds, transitions, and animation effects. Prerecorded video content can be uploaded from formats such as FLV, MP3, MP4, AVI, and WMV. It is transcoded to Flash for use in the webcast.

A major determinant of the perceived performance of a webcast comes from the content delivery network (CDN) used to get the data from the originating server to the viewers’ local networks. IVT has relationships with some of the big CDNs like Akamai, but can also tie in to a customer’s preferred CDN.

I want to keep The Webinar Blog focused on its namesake… software and applications of webinar technology. So you won’t see too many posts dealing with products for small collaborative meetings or massive webcasts. But every once in a while, it’s nice to take a look at the wider world of web collaboration to compare and contrast solution strategies. IVT MediaPlatform gives an indication of the specialized concerns that go into planning and producing a very large web event, and gives professionals in that space a highly flexible platform for achieving their goals.

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

Web Conferencing Is Going Wide

“Going wide” is used in the film industry to indicate a distribution strategy that puts the film in many theaters in many cities. Some films open first in limited release in just a few key cities as a test to see whether audiences respond well and spend their hard-earned bucks. Then the studio executives feel justified in the extra marketing expenses and print costs to support more geographies.

In many ways, web conferencing has been in a sort of limited release mode for more than a decade, centered on the United States. No disrespect to conferencing software vendors in other countries. Yes, I can name several vendors based in the UK and Europe. But they are still very few when compared to the many dozens based in America. And while the American vendors have always had some revenue from international customers, the bulk of their business has come squarely from the home turf.

I had taken a break over the holidays from my daily webinar news updates, and just did a marathon session of playing catch up. I was struck by the synchronicity of several releases concentrating on global web conferencing growth. Check out these titles:

BSNL [India] launches new reduced tariff packages for Web-Conferencing services

ACT Conferencing Expands Operations in Latin America

Arkadin Expansion into Korea to Become the Global Conferencing Service Provider with the Largest Footprint in Asia Pacific

Frost & Sullivan: Environment Policies and Virtualisation of Workplace Drive the Uptake of Web Conferencing Services in Europe

Timico [UK] launches Meet Me Now service

And there is this tidbit from a Frost & Sullivan report on web conferencing in Asia-Pacific:

“Revenues [from web conferencing software and services] in Asia-Pacific rose 24.9 percent in 2008 and are expected to grow a further 26.3 percent this year. Growth … is expected to peak over the next two years, clocking growth rates of 27 percent in 2010 and 2011.”

This should be a heck of a year for global growth in web conferencing. We’re finally going wide… open up that international marketing budget!

 

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

Tips For Better Marketing Webinars

Hmmm… Two promotional alerts in a row for webinars this week. Sorry about that. I’m working so hard on content, preparation, and practice for my stacked up public seminars that I’m having trouble writing new tips and tricks articles for the blog.  But hopefully that is offset by the information and education you can gain by coming to the live sessions.

On Thursday (December 10), I’ll be part of a panel of webinar experts all trying to talk over each other about how to make your marketing webinars more effective. This is being hosted by ReadyTalk (the web conferencing technology provider) and panelists include people from Frost & Sullivan, the American Marketing Association, and Ryma Technologies.

I’ll tell you right now… There’s not going to be a lot of visual content, so set your expectations accordingly. But we’ve been working on the topics and information we’re covering and there’s a wealth of good tips for you. It will be conversational and casual, and should be a nice change of pace from the promotional stuff you get all too often in webinars. None of us has slides promoting our companies or trying to get you to buy our services. It’s pure educational value.

The session is scheduled for one hour, it’s free, and starts at 11:30 US Pacific / 2:30 US Eastern. Click here for other time zones.

You can register by clicking this link, or you can copy and paste the following shortcut into your browser: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/krm1rncat7y8 

Hope to see you there!

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

Training Webinars 101 – Last Chance To Register!

On Tuesday, December 8 I’ll be giving a free public session on considerations for moving your training online. This is a “101-level course”, which means I’ll be talking about basics and introductory concepts rather than in-depth “train the trainer” details. If you have wondered whether webinars are right for your educational sessions, this is a great way to learn about what is involved and how online training differs from in-room training. It is appropriate for both business trainers and academic instructors.

My presentation will last for one hour and starts at 9am US Pacific / 1pm US Eastern. Click here to see conversions to other time zones.

Register by clicking here, or if your feed reader doesn’t support hyperlinks, copy and paste this link into your browser: http://tinyurl.com/yz3eh85

 

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web training,online training,online seminar,webcasting,webcast,training

Telephone Conferencing For Webinars

This blog post is targeted specifically at “one-to-many” webinars such as marketing presentations or investor relations webcasts. Many of the points I raise will not apply to smaller, more collaborative peer-based web meetings.

In large session webinars, the majority of the information flow is outbound from the presenters to the audience. It’s simply impractical to let the audience members all chime in during the session. So if we accept that there isn’t going to be much two-way voice interaction between the presenters and audience, is phone conferencing still worth talking about?

I maintain that it is.

Whenever possible, I prefer to give my audiences an option on how they can listen to the presenters. They can listen over their computer speakers or dial in on the telephone. People have different personal preferences, equipment, and business considerations. Hopefully the web conferencing or webcasting software you use has a way to integrate telephone and computer streaming audio. This almost always entails having your presentation team call in on a teleconference line and then streaming the telephone audio into the webinar content so it can be distributed as part of the audiovisual information received by all attendees.

Given the ubiquity of teleconferencing in North America and the incredible number of providers you can choose from, is this just a simple commodity where you should go with lowest cost? Or are there actual differences in features and functionality that matter in a webinar? No prizes for guessing my answer… It’s the latter. Let’s take a look at teleconferencing features that can make your life easier when working with a public webinar. (By the way, I acknowledge that audioconferencing may be less common and less feature-rich in other countries. My experience is based on the American market.)

1) Multiple presenters. It is common to have anywhere from two to six people working on the presentation side of your event. These can include multiple subject matter presenters, a moderator, a supervising administrator, and perhaps some technical assistants who work on prioritizing and answering audience questions via chat. Watch out for teleconference systems that only allow a single host for a call. You need to let your entire presentation team join with higher privileges than the webinar attendees have.

2) Call joining. Most teleconference systems provide a single call-in telephone number for the meeting. They then step callers through a series of question/response challenges to identify them as presenters or attendees. A very few teleconference systems provide completely separate numbers for attendees and presenters. It cuts down on the number of steps callers have to go through before they get access to the meeting and I find that this also reduces the odds of presenters calling in and identifying themselves as attendees by mistake (something that happens with ridiculous frequency). The tradeoff is that it is easier to mix up the call-in numbers… You don’t know pain until you find you have sent out the presenter dial-in number to your entire audience!

3) International access. Obviously this only applies if you have international participants! If you do, this becomes a huge differentiator between providers. Check pricing structures from the various countries that may call in. Find out which countries have toll free access numbers and toll (direct dial) numbers. Many countries need both… It is common to find countries that ban toll free access from mobile phones for instance. Does your provider host an online reference page that lets attendees look up the most convenient access number for their location? Or will you have to create the list and host it yourself? Try calling an international access number and listen to the prompts. Are they in the local language or English? Will this matter to you? Watch out for prompts that say “Press the pound key” – Most foreign countries don’t refer to the crosshatch symbol as “pound”.

4) Barge tones and announcements. Make sure you have a way to turn off “barge tones” (beeps indicating when people join and leave the call) and announcements of each caller. These features may be useful for small meetings, but can destroy a large public webinar. The call mechanics should never call attention to themselves. You want no distractions from the information flow.

5) Private presenter subconference. Sometimes called a “green room” (an entertainment industry term), this lets the presentation team talk to each other without the audience hearing them. Absolutely essential for professional public audience events, since you don’t want early joiners hearing the team make final preparations or joking around. The convenience feature to look for is automatic entry into the subconference for all presenters when they dial in at the start of the call. Some providers force the presenters to dial codes to enter the subconference or force the call host to explicitly place them in the private conference. This creates more opportunities for things to go wrong. I like being able to press a single code at the end of the call to take all presenters back into the subconference for a private debriefing and wrap-up discussion.

6) Audience muting. You should be able to configure your call so that audience attendees automatically join the call with their lines muted and are not able to unmute themselves.

7) Call recording. Even though I record my full webinar presentation using the web conferencing technology, I like to record the audio call as a backup. This gives me the ability to digitally edit the audio file and to re-create the presentation if the webinar recording fails for some reason. The teleconference recording should have higher audio quality than the webinar recording (most webinar technologies heavily compress their recordings to reduce processing and file size). Look for the ability to get a lossless format digital file of the call – or at least an extremely high bitrate MP3 (192K or higher). If you use the green room subconference idea mentioned in item 5, you should be able to make your recording start and end automatically in conjunction with joining the presenters into the main conference and pulling them out at the end. The fewer commands you have to issue, the better.

8) Question management. This gets tricky on big events. If you want to let audience members ask questions over the telephone, it’s usually best to use your teleconference provider’s operator services to help you. You may be able to save money by running things yourself, but this needs practice and expertise as well as higher level capabilities in the teleconference software. You want attendees to be able to queue themselves to ask a question (the digital equivalent of raising your hand in an auditorium and waiting to be called on). Then a host needs to be able to open a specific queued line and indicate to the caller that they are live and on the air. Then the host needs to be able to mute their line again and open the next one in queue.

9) Call ending. Especially if you use a private subconference after your presentation, make sure you can force a disconnect on all attendee lines. As strange as it sounds, some attendees will stay connected, running up your costs, even though they can’t hear anything. Maybe they wander away and leave the line open. I’ve never understood it.

Use these guidelines to help you in your selection process along with close looks at audio line quality, pricing, billing/reporting details, and customer complaints found through Google searches on the company name. Finding the right audio conference provider can simplify life for the host, presenters, and audience members in your webinars.

Technorati Tags: audio conferencing,audioconferencing,teleconferencing,telephone conferencing,webinar,web seminar,webcasting,webcast,web conference,web conferencing,conference call