The Webinar Blog

WebinarListings Is For Sale

I got a note from Rachel Levy, the founder and CEO of WebinarListings, letting me know that she is selling the business. Rachel says she wants to focus more on social media and marketing consulting, her primary passions.

WebinarListings allows companies to add their upcoming webinars to a searchable database. The information page that Rachel created says they have listed more than 3800 events since their site launched, with over 200 upcoming webinars listed at the present time.

The sale of the business includes the contact list that Rachel has built up of webinar hosts and attendees. There is also a large social media base following the company’s account names on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Those accounts are for the business rather than Rachel personally, so they could be valuable as a way to reach a new market segment for a buyer.

I have been impressed by Rachel’s personal attention to updates, newsletters, and promotion of the service over the last year and a half. I don’t know what will happen to WebinarListings itself, but I’m optimistic about her prospects in the world of social media marketing!

If you are interested in researching more about the company, visit their information page:

http://www.pitchengine.com/pitch/162519/

It includes Rachel’s email address. I am not involved in any way and can’t help you with questions.

 

Technorati Tags: WebinarListings,WebinarListings.com,Rachel Levy,webinar,web seminar,web event,online seminar,online event,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing

Adobe Connect Not Supported On New Mac OS

Apple released Mac OS X Lion (version 10.7) this month. Adobe Connect presenters may want to hold off on upgrading to the new operating system. According to a tech note in the Adobe knowledgebase, the Adobe Connect Add-in “is not officially supported for use with Max OSX Lion.”

Incompatibilities include sharing screens in a web meeting, uploading files, and some unspecified audio issues. Attendees should not have a problem viewing a Connect meeting from Lion as only presenters use the add-in.

 

Technorati Tags: Adobe Connect,Mac OS X Lion,OSX Lion,webinar,web seminar,web meeting,online meeting,web conference,web conferencing

ReadyTalk Publishes Webinar API

ReadyTalk put out a press release today announcing availability of a public API (Application Programming Interface) for its web conferencing product. An API allows programmers to create custom integrations with other software applications.

One example might be to bypass ReadyTalk’s registration system in favor of your company’s own “shopping cart” that sells registrations to upcoming webinars. You could pass a customer’s data to the ReadyTalk system and insert them as a registrant into the webinar, at which point they might receive their confirmation and reminder emails directly from the ReadyTalk software.

Many other scenarios are possible. The value of an API is that it lets programmers make their own decisions about what functions they want ReadyTalk to handle and what they want their own systems to take care of.

Only a few web conferencing vendors publish a public API for their software. It can be very useful and opens the door to possibilities for advanced integration with third-party products as well as letting customers do their own programming. The flip side of the coin is that it locks ReadyTalk into a reliance on the existing programming structure where the APIs pass data in and out. The company loses the ability to make arbitrary changes to their own code, since they can’t do anything that could break a customer’s interface calls.

In ReadyTalk’s case, they had really made this locked structure decision already with integrations to Eloqua and Salesforce. Since the programming calls were already built and had to be stable to support those integration projects, it makes sense to open up the interface structure to the rest of the world.

A little more information is available in a PDF datasheet describing the integration concept, but you need to contact ReadyTalk directly in order to get access to the API documentation itself.

 

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

omNovia Suffers Customer Data Loss

omNovia suffered a malfunction on the cloud servers that store their customers’ archived recordings of webinars and web meetings. Some customers lost their recordings completely and others found problems such as missing audio on playback.

The problem does not impact all customers or all recordings, but the company is unable to proactively identify which files may have been affected. omNovia customers should check their recording files to ensure proper operation.

omNovia’s official statement about the problem can be found by clicking on this sentence.

This points out the inherent danger in relying completely upon any single storage location for critical data, whether on your local PC, on your company’s servers, or on a vendor’s servers. The problem with recording methodologies that are locked in to the vendor’s format and can only be played from their servers is that the customer lacks the ability to copy the file to a backup location.

A few other web conferencing vendors take a similar approach to omNovia, forcing all recordings to live on the vendor’s server locations, with no ability for customers to download the files. If you have critical recordings that have to stay in existence for legal reasons or business continuity, it may be worth the extra time and effort to use a screen capture tool such as Camtasia to record the playback of your session so that you have an emergency failsafe backup.

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

Review: Switchable PC/Phone Headset

Since I seem to be on a hardware review kick lately, I thought I should add initial impressions of a new headset I am trying out.

The equipment in question is a two-piece set (separate purchases) of the headset itself and a switching amplifier/connector box. The key benefit to this upgrade is that I can use the same headset for PC and telephone communications, with no replugging needed.

The heart of the package is the GN8050-TCA headset amplifier. Depending on where you search, you will see the manufacturer listed as Jabra or GN Netcom. As far as I can make out, Jabra is the headset division of GN Netcom.

The amplifier follows the now-ubiquitous design aesthetic of black and gray plastic… Very cheap looking. The main controls on the front of the case are a mute/talk rocker switch, a phone/PC rocker switch, a sliding controller for your telephone receiving volume, and a tiny scroll wheel for your PC receiving volume. Behind those controls is a lid you can raise to access two more controls: A three-position selector that controls power-saving behavior and a potentiometer rotary post that controls your transmit volume.

As if those controls weren’t enough, there is also a nine-position selector on the side of the unit that controls its interface with different telephones. You just flick it around at random until you find the best audio quality for your phone.

The GN8050 comes with two AA batteries, but I bought an AC wall adapter as another accessory. Never trust your webinar to the uncertainty of remaining battery power! A plastic riser bar juts up from the rear of the unit to hold your headset.

You plug your phone line and phone headset into the amplifier and then run another wire into the mini-plug connectors on your PC for MIC and HEADPHONE/SPEAKERS. There is no USB connection. I chose to use a Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Amigo USB soundcard rather than the direct inputs on my PC. Those plug connectors almost always have terrible sound quality.

The amplifier has a quick-connect cable that goes to your choice of Jabra headsets in their 2100 line.

I chose the GN Netcom 2115 as my preferred headset. Which model you choose is a matter of personal preference. I like two earpieces (binaural design) and I went with the Sound Tube version over the noise-cancelling boom mike. Noise cancelling can be quite useful in noisy environments such as cubicles, but my office is quiet and I prefer to keep additional sound filtering circuitry out of the loop.

The microphone swivels all the way from front to back, so you can wear it on whichever side of your head is best for you. The phones are mono rather than stereo, so it doesn’t matter which ear gets which earpiece. By the way, this makes the headset impractical for use with games where you need spatial audio cues, but is fine for voice communications on webinars.

You will notice that the entire setup uses hardwired connections rather than wireless. Wireless is much more convenient and keeps your desk uncluttered. But I don’t trust it for webinars. I want sound isolation with less chance of radio interference and dropouts. So this solution meets my tastes.

Because the amplifier connects through the headphone/speaker plug on your PC, you may need to buy a cheap Y-connector cable if you want to rout your audio output into the headset and a pair of speakers simultaneously. That’s what I did.

On to my impressions.

• Sound quality has been very clean and clear in the first few days of use. I will want a lot more practical field-testing with different people before I’m ready to commit, but so far I have not noticed any fuzz, popping, or muffling on receive or transmit.
   
  
• The mute switch is silent, introducing no audible click when engaging or disengaging. But there is a tiny sub-second lag when you change the mute setting. It ramps the volume up or down over maybe 0.25-0.5 seconds, probably to avoid an abrupt change in the sound on the call. This is different than the instantaneous mute I am used to, but I don’t think it will be significant or noticeable in practical use.
   
  
• The headset is lightweight and comfortable. The spring-loaded headband is not too tight on my oversized noggin and does not press against the earpieces of my eyeglasses. However, I am not happy with the feel of the earpiece cushions. They are a padded “leatherette” material (huh?) that slides easily on the ear. The cushion rings feel small, sitting against the outer ear surface rather than encircling it. The slightest motion (even yawning) can shift the position of the earpieces and move them away from your sweet spot in listening position. Once the earpieces move, the mike moves, so you lose your perfect mouth position as well.
   
  
• The sound tube for the microphone is inflexible and cannot be positioned as variably as I would like. You can’t change the overall length and you can’t bend the tube. You can lever it out away from your face (useful to take a sip of coffee), but you can’t lever it closer than a certain distance because of a hard stop on the earpiece connector.
   
  
• There is no lapel clip provided for the headset cable. I view that as a necessity to keep the wire from rubbing on your shirt or getting looped on something it shouldn’t. I pulled a clip off my old Plantronics headset and used that.
   
  
• I am not happy with the mute selector switch design. You cannot quickly glance down at the amplifier and tell whether you are muted or not. The rocker detent is very subtly off the horizontal, and while you can feel it, you can’t see the current position. My old Plantronics amp had a colored indicator that was unambiguous and instantly communicated your status.
   
  

This kind of audio gear is resold by many different vendors for an astonishing variety of prices. I recommend doing some searching online to find a good price from a reputable vendor.

Overall, I would sum up as follows:

Nice design idea. As far as I know, this is the first unit designed for dual phone/PC use. Sound quality seems good on first impressions. The headset is comfortable, but does not hold position securely enough. I wish the GN 2115 had more flexibility in microphone placement. Lack of a visual indicator on the mute switch is a design flaw. Lack of a lapel clip and an included wall adapter is a disappointing example of penny-pinching decisions from the vendor.

Compared directly to my previous Plantronics setup, the GN/Jabra solution wins on convenience, maybe ties on audio, and loses on feature design.

ADDENDUM: I'm coming back to this article with some additional findings. 

It was disconcerting and scary in my first webinar with these to find that even though my selector switch was set to telephone use, I was hearing sounds from my computer coming through my headphones! I quickly ripped the plug out of the computer. I later talked to a very nice and responsive gentleman from Jabra (great customer service... He called me after I submitted an inquiry on their website form). He told me that the computer sound continues to be fed into my headphones, but is not transmitted out to the telephone audience. All I have to do is turn the computer volume wheel on the amplifier down to zero and I don't hear that anymore. Now it's only slightly inconvenient to have to change the volume settings every time I switch between phone and PC. What a strange design feature!

I also found out that there are alternative earpieces that can be snapped on and off the headset. The Jabra site is useless at telling you this, telling you which pieces go with what, or telling you the dimensions. I ended up ordering two different replacement earpads from ZipSprocket.com. Part number 0400-139 are small foam pads that sit directly on the ear. They are even smaller in diameter than the leatherette pieces I complained about above, but I found them to be more comfortable. They sit more securely in place and they make less noise if they slide on the ear slightly.

Part number 0440-149 are larger diameter leatherette padded ear rings. They are the same design as the originals, but a centimeter wider in diameter. That doesn't sound like much, but they are infinitely more comfortable and more secure on my big ol' ears. Either replacement part is recommended over the default earpads.

 

Technorati Tags: Jabra,GN Netcom,GN8050,GN2115,headset,webinar,web seminar,webcast,webcasting,web conference,web conferencing

News And Views From The Webinar World

I don’t know what is different about this summer, but I am seeing absolutely no slowing in client webinars. I used to notice a significant drop-off during “the vacation months.” Maybe everybody is so scared of losing their job that nobody takes vacations anymore! Consequently I am totally overwhelmed with client activities and I’m just going to jot down a few random observations of late. These certainly don’t represent well researched or substantiated reporting. Let’s call it a stream of consciousness post.

• I found out that Adobe Connect can experience difficulties when uploading and converting PowerPoints in the PPTX format. You may see a warning/informational message stating that some effects might not translate correctly. Follow a link to their help system and it recommends re-saving your work into the older PPT format. I had a situation where my PPTX uploaded with significant cosmetic errors… Text inside shapes was shown flipped 180 degrees, text spacing was incorrect, and a “peek in” animation came out as a “fly in.”
   
  
• omNovia has been experiencing problems lately with playback of “Recast” recordings (their proprietary recording format, stored on their servers). One symptom I noted today was loss of all audio on playback. Their engineers are working on a fix, but no timeline is available.
   
  
• The recent Cisco layoffs announcement seems to be focused on divisions other than WebEx. I had reported on speculation a month ago that Cisco might sell off WebEx, but CEO John Chambers said last week that “Collaboration will be the driver of productivity. Data center/virtualization/cloud is the most network-centric architecture. Architectures are the way you tie products together. And video is the next voice.” He said there are 20 million meetings per month hosted on WebEx and that Cisco is “putting video into everything we do architecturally.”
  
  Still, George Notter (an industry analyst with Jefferies & Company) said today “We’d argue that M&A deals and new product initiatives like umi, WebEx, the Cius tablet, Andiamo/MDS 9000 and UCS are similarly misguided. We would be surprised if Cisco – over the long term – can make these businesses generate interesting returns for shareholders.”  [ed: So plenty of pressure and intrigue still remains!]
   
  
• PresenterNet issued a press release announcing the ability to store presentation materials on their servers for shared access by multiple presenters in web conferences or webinars. They went a little far in saying they are “the only web conferencing vendor to enable this capability,” since other vendors do have this feature, but it’s a good thing to offer and quite handy.

Do you have an item the world should know about? Send me an email!

Technorati Tags: webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting,web meeting,Adobe Connect,omNovia,WebEx,Cisco,PresenterNet

Cheap Webcast Lighting Solution

Last month I wrote a review of a specialized desktop lighting solution from Videssence. I found that the lights cast an excellent camera-friendly white light, but they had a few drawbacks. The light source was very bright and came from a small area, leading to reflection problems on my eyeglasses. They were also difficult to position flexibly enough to give me oblique lighting angles that wouldn’t reflect back into the webcam. And finally, they were $249, which might give pause to the average individual consumer.

Today I’m going to tell you about a solution for webcam lighting that falls completely at the other end of the spectrum. Thinktank Technology makes a product called the “30 LED Swivel Light.” It is made in China, it’s ugly, it’s made out of cheap-looking plastic parts, and it runs only on battery power, with no option for a plug-in adapter.

It’s also ridiculously cheap and incredibly flexible for use as a desktop lighting solution. I loved it when I tried it out with my webcam.

I could describe it, but the pictures should do the work for me. You insert three D-cell batteries (not included) in the base, making it very stable, since the rest of the assembly is lightweight plastic. There are two “wings” containing 15 LEDs each. A simple push button lets you toggle between Off, One Wing On, or Both Wings On.

Each wing can be swiveled about 178 degrees, from pointing straight down to pointing almost straight up. The wing also has a ball and socket joint that lets you rotate it at your chosen axis position. See… I told you it is hard to describe in words. Suffice it to say that you can point the lights just about anywhere you want them to shine.

With new batteries in the lamp, I found the light to be incredibly bright. You don’t want to look straight at it. But when angled to be off-axis from my glasses, I found that I was easily able to avoid reflections into the camera while completely eliminating screen reflection on my glasses from my monitor (I have a large screen monitor and even with the brightness turned down, reflections can be a problem).

The light was bright enough so that I had to turn down the brightness controls on my webcam. But even with all that luminosity, the light was well dispersed over a large surface so that I didn’t end up with a glaring point source reflection. Each wing is about 2.5 by 4 inches. With both wings extended, that gives you a 10.5 inch stretch of total light area (including the dead spot in the middle for the axis and connectors)

The LEDs run cool of course, so you can cover the wings with wax paper or parchment paper if you want extra diffusion or a little dimming. The color temperature seems to be rather white-blue without much yellow-red component. It certainly is not a true full-spectrum light, but that is no surprise.

I have some desktop speakers placed to the side of my monitor and I found that the lamps sat happily on top of the speakers to get them at or above my eye line. The height from the base to the swivel bar is around 8 inches, and with a wing swiveled all the way to the top, it extends to a maximum height of close to 13 inches.

If you are a camper or a survivalist, it doesn’t hurt to have yet another battery-powered lamp around the house. and there is a carrying handle on top so you can flip the wings down and make a rather convenient handheld lantern. Of course if you do a lot of webcasts or very long sessions in front of the camera, replacing batteries will become a hassle.

I got my lights when they were on super sale at one of those internet “Deal of the day” type sites. But even at regular prices, this is a budget solution. Just use Google Shopping Search with a key phrase of “30 LED Swivel Light.” I find prices ranging from $15 shipped up to about $21 shipped. If you are patient, you may be able to see them come around again on one of those bargain sites, but that’s a crap shoot.

Here are before and after shots taken with my webcam. First with just available room lighting. Heavy computer screen reflections on my glasses, a hot spot from the overhead light, and my white shirt looks gray:

Now with the Swivel Lights sitting to the side of my monitor and on top of my speakers. This puts the wings just above my eye level. Higher would be better, but let's go with what we've got. 

Now the shirt is a bit overexposed, but the facial lighting is good and the monitor reflections are overwhelmed by the lights. The tip of my nose shows you the origin of the old cliche about women "powdering their nose." A bright light shining on your nose will reflect. Use a bit of powder if your video image is business critical for an external audience. My backdrop is a little too close behind me, so I have prominent shadows. I could put a "fill light" on the floor shining up at the backdrop or I could move it farther back to combat this.

Technorati Tags: Thinktank Technology,LED lighting,webcam,webcast,webcasting,webinar,web seminar,online seminar,web conference,web conferencing,desk lamp,desk lighting

Webcasting To A Room

The vast majority of webinars I get involved with assume that each audience member will login at his or her own computer. This makes it easy to run polls, solicit feedback, and make use of other audience interaction aids. But what happens when you want to webcast your presentation to a group of people sitting together in a room? Planning, setup, and execution become even more critical than usual. Let’s review some of the things to consider in this situation.

1) Eliminate polls. Polling features in webinar products are only useful if each attendee can submit their answer so that cumulative results can be seen. In a group audience format, your attendees can’t answer the poll and an awkward silence emerges. (Seems obvious, doesn’t it? I have seen presenters make this mistake!)

Workaround 1: Fancy audience polling devices can be rented and handed out to attendees in the room. Results are tied into a web display. This takes extra money and setup coordination.

Workaround 2: Conscript someone in the room to be your room monitor. Ask your question and ask for hand raising or clapping responses. Have the room monitor report back the results to you. Clunky and not very accurate.

Workaround 3: Incorporate more “silent challenges” into your presentation. Ask audience members to think to themselves how they would answer the question or deal with the situation. Tell them they can check their thought against your recommendation. Give them a moment of silence before you reveal your answer.

 

2) Reduce requests for interactive feedback. In “normal” webinars I encourage lots of typed chat. I’m always asking people for their comments as we go along, and I recognize contributions. In a large room, you can’t do that. Plan to be more one-way in your information flow.

Workaround 1: Use your room monitor to look for raised hands and let him/her call on people. The monitor may type in the question/comment, they may repeat it into the telephone, they may invite the person to come down front to ask you the question, or they might use a “runner microphone” to get the audience member on the air.

Workaround 2: Same idea, but hand out slips of paper to the audience and ask them to continually pass their questions up front to the room monitor. You get a lot of paper rustling and distractions this way.

Workaround 3: In a small conference room setting (maybe 15 people maximum), you can let them use a speakerphone in the middle of the table to talk to you.

 

3) Reduce reliance on screen shots, web tours, and live product demos. Computer applications are designed for people sitting in front of their computer monitors. They are almost always too small and densely packed to be visible to people sitting far away from a front projection screen in a room.

Workaround 1: Reduce your screen resolution before using screen sharing. For an auditorium environment, I would go all the way down to 640x480.

Workaround 2: Use software functionality to zoom your display. Browsers have a page zoom setting. Microsoft Office applications and PDF files do too. Zoom to at least 200% size.

Workaround 3: Crop screen shots into small sections and expand each section on your slide so it shows up big and visible. You can start with the overall picture to establish context, but quickly overlay it with the blowup sections so people can see what you are talking about.

 

4) Use a wired connection. Most hotels, conference centers, and public rooms rely on wireless for internet connections. They are notorious for having weak or inconsistent signal strength, overloaded bandwidth from too many guest connections, or other problems. Pay for a wired connection to be run to your display computer in the room. It’s money well spent.

 

5) Watch out for audio feedback. This is a killer. Your audio as the presenter will feed out over the room’s public address (PA) system. If you plan on accepting audio from the room as well (so you can hear what people are saying), you will likely create a feedback loop that produces an ear-shattering high pitched tone.

Workaround 1: Have a tech rehearsal with a dedicated audio engineer on site. Block out two hours for this. Test, adjust, test again. This is no place for amateur rigging.

Workaround 2: Have your room monitor use a computer or telephone headset to talk to you. They are much less susceptible to room feedback.

Workaround 3: Don’t take audio from the room. Have your assistant communicate with you via typed chat messages only. Make sure they know to give you a cue when it is time for you to start your presentation! You can’t hear the introductions or room chit chat.

 

6) Use multiple computers on both ends. I prefer to have one computer in the room logged in as an attendee. This is plugged into the projection display and nobody touches it. Then you have your room monitor or onsite assistant logged in on another computer as a presenter. He/she can type messages to you and act as a backup if the primary display computer fails. As a presenter, you should always try to have two computers for failsafe backup, but it is also nice to leave one set up to display messages and control functions while the other is purely dedicated to showing your content. It makes it easier for you to concentrate.

 

That should get you started with some of the most important factors. Good luck!

 

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

Shrink Your Webinar Materials

A typical scenario I get involved with as a webinar producer/coordinator is to collect PowerPoint files from one or more presenters. I combine them into a single large file and make cosmetic changes. Then I send out the new file for approval and changes. I upload it into our web conferencing product. I make a PDF version of the slides for distribution and perhaps upload that for downloading by the attendees.

Then someone makes a last minute change. More emailing, uploading, and downloading. File sizes often run into many megabytes – especially if the presentation uses plenty of graphics (as it should).

Reducing the sizes of those files saves valuable time and makes everyone’s life a little more convenient. Microsoft and Adobe both offer ways to compress images in their document files, but it involves several manual steps, and the results can be unpredictable. Sometimes the compression is minimal, and sometimes the graphics come out so grainy and visually compromised that you would never want to use them.

For several years I have been making use of a software product called FILEminimizer, made by a Swiss company named balesio AG. Actually FILEminimizer comes in several different versions, targeted at different types of files. They recently came out with a new version of their FILEminimizer Suite, which added PDF compression to the compression previously available for Microsoft Office and graphic files. I like it so much that I thought it deserved a blog post. (NON-DISCLAIMER: I have no business relationship or financial interest in balesio or its products. I am nothing more than an individual user. I received no incentive for writing this and balesio has no idea I am doing so.)

FILEminimizer works the way it should. It’s completely intuitive. You open the product on your desktop and drag files into the “to be optimized” list. A slider bar lets you decide how much compression to apply, with common-sense choices such as “Visually Lossless” (for upload to your webinar program) or “Visually Lossy” (for quick review purposes). You can also configure the compression with different levels for different file types. Hit the “Optimize Files” button and compression is a quick process.

 
                            (Click to expand image)

 

Compressed files are saved under a new name (with your choice of suffix to indicate the compressed version), so you always have your source file intact. The compressed files are in the same native format as the original (a PPTX source makes a PPTX output), so your recipients don’t need to unzip or use any special software to view them. The software saves the new versions in your choice of the source directory or a special output directory. And it shows you the old and new file sizes along with the percentage reduction.

I have had a couple of instances where I needed to contact balesio support. They were quick to respond, made me believe they cared about my situation, and took care of the things that needed to be taken care of. I have been very satisfied as a customer.

The price (US $108 for an individual license) may seem a bit steep for something you can do for free in other ways. But the speed, convenience, quality, and choice of compression levels is absolutely worth it for me. If you work with these kinds of files a lot, it may be worth it for you too. I would certainly recommend trying their 30-day free trial to test it out.

Only two things currently annoy me about the product. First, you have to pay extra for updates, upgrades, and technical support. Second, the Windows context menu feature does not work correctly on Windows 64-bit operating systems. If you right click a file and choose “Open with FILEminimizer” it opens the FILEminimizer window, but does not put the selected file into the optimization list. You have to drag it manually. I wouldn’t be happy to see that small bug get fixed and know that I have to pay another premium of 20% of the purchase price to make the product function the way it is supposed to.

Technorati Tags: balesio,FILEminimizer,FILEminimizer Suite,file compression,webinar,web seminar,web conference,web conferencing,webcast,webcasting