You may be paying attention to a "March Madness" phenomenon that has something to do with tall people throwing rubber balls into nets, but as far as I'm concerned, March Madness refers to the nonstop string of webinar vendor announcements concerning conversion to HTML5. This makes three posts in a row covering such news.
The latest addition to the fray comes from Webinato. An announcement on their website promises HTML5 operation by the end of 2017 and a new interface they refer to as Storyboard. This sounds like a reimagining of a feature already in production on their current platform that allows presenters or organizers to specify a sequence of presentation elements and then rapidly switch between them. You might have a couple of slide decks, a YouTube video clip, a poll, a survey, and an uploaded video clip to show in your webinar. The storyboard concept lets you click through the list to bring up the proper content window and start it playing for attendees.
The one bullet on the web page that interests me the most is the first item, which says "Entirely HTML5 & Web Based Platform." So far I have not seen an example (from any vendor) of screen sharing that relies only on HTML5. If somebody manages to create such an implementation that does not require the presenter to install a local application, it will be a coup and a major step forward in proving HTML5 ready for full collaborative functionality.
This is going to be a very different industry by the end of the year… At least from a technology perspective. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Make sure you have upgraded your web browser to a version that supports HTML5 and WebRTC!
