Webinar Wire

The Week In Review

Posted by Ken Molay February 7 2008 12:42 PM EDT

I thought I would take the opportunity to jot down some thoughts and impressions about random news and notes from the web conferencing industry this week.

For those of you wondering about the status of the vendor survey I created to identify overall usage patterns, I have full or partial entries from many technology vendors both large and small. Companies such as Adobe, WebEx, iLinc, Intercall, ON24, vCall, and MeetingOne are represented, along with many others. I have been hoping I could get someone - anyone - from Microsoft's Live Meeting product group to contribute, but so far I've had no luck there. I'll close it off soon and do an analysis of responses. But there is still time to add your data. Even if someone else from your company has contributed, you can add data about a particular geography or type of usage you are more familiar with.

I had to smile when reading this article by Mae Kowalke on TMCnet. She starts with "Web conferencing is a recently introduced technology that lets companies conduct online meetings over the Internet." She contrasts it to discussions conducted using text message boards and tells readers that a user joins a conference when he or she sits at a computer and "logs in." (The quotation marks are hers.) It's easy for us in the business to forget that people exist who are just discovering the concept. A little beginner's primer never hurt anyone.

Bad news from iLinc on their third quarter earnings call. Total revenues decreased eight percent from the same quarter last year and they had to substantially downgrade their guidance for their fiscal year ending next month. They are now projecting anywhere between break-even and a half-million dollar net loss.

Acquisitions and consolidation in the industry proceed apace. This week Copper Conferencing announced that they took over The Conference Depot. My grin from their website is the paragraph subhead that boldly states "WebEx and Go to Meeting - Not the Best Choices." Take that, competitors! (But they should probably format GoToMeeting in the proper brand spelling.)

We don't see enough news about web conferencing companies based outside of North America. So I was heartened to see a press release from Netviewer, a German web conferencing technology provider. They will be debuting new services, capabilities, and partner integrations at CeBIT (the annual European technology conference that dwarfs any other tech show you've ever heard of - and that includes CES).

Yugma also sends word that they have become a Skype-certified application and that they upgraded their overall screen sharing speed and performance. Looks like it's time for another round of my infamous torture test!

And to finish up, how can I overlook the fantastic series of articles submitted right here on Webinar Wire by Mike McKinnon of ReadyTalk? Mike has given us a treasure trove of useful facts and tips about ways to go about all aspects of web conferencing. Thanks, Mike!