Internet Conferencing – video web meetings

Jimmy Sturo asked:




Setting up an internet-based videoconference is now easier than ever. With the right software, you can say goodbye to traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles to attend a meeting that only lasts only an hour or two. You can also instantly see friends and family as often as you want without ever paying for an airline ticket again. Ready to get started? Here are some pointers.

Choosing Software

Freeware, such as instant messengers and chat portals, can do the trick if one-on-one videoconferencing is all you are after, but if you need the videoconference for professional meetings and presentations, you will need more powerful software that allow you to deliver your presentation to multiple audiences wherever they may be. There are dozens of online conferencing solutions enable you to perform large- scale presentations and reach literally thousands of people from your computer.

What can such software do, exactly? Aside from letting you transmit your presentation in real time to al the audiences you need to reach, powerful videoconferencing software also allows you to get interactive. Your viewers can ask you questions and even answer surveys that you can use to further the discussion.

Most software also have pre-event tools to help you prepare your presentation, such as scheduling modules, viewer list management, document uploading, and many others.

Costs

Advanced internet video conference software costs a lot of money, but because it can allow you to conduct real-time video conferencing, file sharing, and other collaboration services, the cost is more than worth it. Used correctly, video conferencing can exponentially increase your productivity and yield immediate cost savings for your business.

Considerations

Be sure to invest only in software that does not require your viewers and participants to download additional software or plug-ins. The idea is to make it easy for the participants. Spare them the stress of having to set up for your presentation.

Sue

Shakir A. asked:




Video conferencing is the technique of meeting in a group over a network employing video and audio transmission technology and equipment. Armed with information about video conferencing businessmen, technologists, scientists and government heads started to explore ways to bring the world closer together and enable meetings of many people located in different parts of the globe. Video conferencing is the process of being able to see and interact with a group of people located at any point of the world at the same time.

Increased information about video conferencing has enabled even small businesses and organizations to communicate virtually face to face and not being in the same room at the same time. Businesses find this the most convenient way to interact with partners across the globe. Medical service providers such as surgeons have been known to use their information about video conferencing to provide invaluable advise to doctors treating patients half way across the globe. Doctors can view the patients and advise their colleagues about the treatment that must be administered to the patient. Surgeons have been known to conduct operations in distant countries through video conferencing; they observe the operation being conducted by a surgeon and advise him through the conferencing. This would not have been possible in the early 1990’s as the video quality was very low and the connectivity of the video conferencing was not too good either.

Today the general man-in-the-street can use video conferencing software like any professional. Desktop video conferencing has brought the world closer and bridged the divide of the oceans for many a family. Information about video conferencing has given expansion opportunities for education and communication like no one ever expected. Someone somewhere has availed of the benefits that information about video conferencing has provided to the world. This is a technology that has achieved a lot in a few years and still has a very long way to go. Video conferencing enables scientists on the earth to communicate with astronauts in space, Generals to observe the activities on the frontlines, Doctors to monitor the progress of patients from distant lands, scientists to take part in crucial experiments from different countries at the same time and the old grand parents to have a look at the newborn grandchild just a few minutes after birth.

The information about video conferencing that you need is available all over the Internet. You need to know what video conferencing is, what you can use it for, what is the technology available to you and what is the equipment you need to set up video conferencing. In the past there was just the ISDN line linking the Internet across the world. Then there was the limited video compressing technology that could enable video transmission across the Internet. Businesses and organizations were unable to put video conferencing to its greatest use as they were bound to the limited technology at the time. The more their information about video conferencing technology advanced the better equipped they became to put it to wider use.

Barbara

Tom Cruz asked:




With the many advances in technology and the power of the Internet, businesses can save
lots of money and make more contacts with web conferencing. This conferencing allows
you to hold meetings online without having to leave your office. You don’t have to bring
all the participants together in one place as each person attending the conference or
meeting can stay in his/her own office and connect via the Internet and phone. These
types of conferences are very cots-effective, which is why they have become the main
way large corporations now connect with their partners and subsidiaries.

When you conduct a conference on the web, you actually hold a live meeting by giving
presentations online. You can have discussions with the participants, make power point
presentations, by allowing all participants to see the same screen, talk on the telephone or
type in messages.

Even if you are just building a business, you can take advantage of conferencing with
potential partners in this way. For example, you can send a person a link to an online
presentation and have that person watch the presentation from their home or office
computer. Then you can follow up with a phone call or an email. Training seminars often
take place through online conferencing today, thus saving companies huge amounts of
money. There is still interaction between the moderator and the participants, the same as
there would be in a face-to-face meeting, but it may take the form of text messages.

Another advantage of holding conferences online is that you can record the sessions and
listen to them later if you want to review anything. One thing you have to remember with
online conferencing is that you do have to speak slowly and clearly so that your listeners
can fully understand what you are saying.

Esther

Nathalie Fiset asked:




These past few years, we have seen the emergence of a new technology called Voice Over Internet Protocol or VOIP. This marvelous development allows people to transmit their voices through the internet, transforming their headsets and computers into telephones. You might think that this is redundant, considering that most internet connections today use something akin to a phone line. However, you haven’t heard about the benefits of web phone conferencing yet.

People today make use of different web phone meeting services in order to make sure that they are able to communicate properly and effectively without having to pay the costs of a long-distance telephone call. As you may probably know, the biggest problem that people have with using a phone to hold a teleconference is that the costs tend to vary with distance. With the development of VOIP, however, you only need to pay a fraction of the price for the connectivity.

There is one problem with this technology, however, and it lies on the fact that we are talking about a relatively new development here. People who are expecting to find the same type of quality and clarity in using online phone conferencing may end up disappointed. This is because there are still some bugs that need to be worked out in order to allow people to have the same experience as using a phone.

There are, however, some factors that make people favor internet phone meetings using VOIP over conventional teleconferences. These factors, added to the savings, make web phone conferences quite irresistible to customers. Let’s take for example that this technology allows people to use the connection for other types of communications while they are on the phone.

On a normal teleconference, people can hardly multi-task. The limited technology only allows them so much leg room in order to do their jobs. With the internet teleconference, people are able to do various things such as document editing, slide show presentations and even sending video messages. This is because the entirety of the resources of the internet is not used to project voice alone. This means that you can save a lot of time and effort using internet phone meeting technology.

There is, however, another limitation to be considered. You have to remember that there are a lot of people who depend on eye contact in order to transmit their message and give it emphasis. When you go with internet phone conferencing, it can only give you an illusion of having eye contact. Why is this? Well, with online phone conferences, people are given the idea that they will be able to communicate using web cams.

Although the usage of cameras can be a very significant improvement over merely depending on speech for communication, a lot of people are turned off because the experience is not quite what they expected. When they make use of video and web phone conferencing, they might expect an experience that’s very much like talking in person and therefore, lack the necessary preparations to help them emphasize messages without use of their eyes.

When you make use of internet phone meeting services, you might end up not being able to prepare properly for a meeting simply because you have been convinced by different science fiction movies to expect too much from such. If you, however, wish to make your conversations more meaningful, then it would be better if you looked into the screen when listening and look into the camera when you are talking. This may seem inconvenient but it’s also very effective.

VOIP is seen as quite advantageous by people in the sense that this piece of technology allows them to coordinate meetings better. With your conventional teleconference session, people have to identify themselves by voice and had to take turns talking in order to be clearly understood. However, with the emergence of phone web conferencing, people can now talk quickly and have their opinions noted without identifying themselves by name. This saves a lot of time. Of course, it still helps if people took turns speaking.

Phone web conferencing is quickly becoming a staple part of business today. It follows in the footsteps of other accessories which proved their worth to be necessities. This makes one wonder what people will think of next.

Shirley