Webinar Wire

InterCall Finishes Off Raindance

Posted by Ken Molay November 26 2007 6:52 PM EST

Although the software lives on (for the moment), InterCall sent out a notification message last week to Raindance account holders letting them know that Raindance Meeting Edition and Raindance Seminar Edition will be changing their names to InterCall Web Meeting. The old Raindance logo and all mention of the name will be replaced by InterCall branding.

Nothing unusual there... It's to be expected after an acquisition. What amused me was this sentence in the email: "Over the next month you'll continue seeing and hearing less about Raindance and more about InterCall." Is it theoretically possible to hear less about Raindance? I scan everything I can find in news feeds, press releases, blogs, and articles about web conferencing on a daily basis, and I haven't seen a mention of that software since the acquisition back in April of 2006. Talk about going out not with a bang, but a whimper!

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Improving Audience Focus

Posted by Cecilia Vilches November 23 2007 1:38 PM EST

Being relaxed and comfortable as a webinar presenter is important. But do we ever think about relaxing our audience?

Many people attend a webinar in the same way that they deal with any other computer application. They lean towards the screen with one hand on the mouse and the other on the keyboard. This can have two negative effects on audience members: It encourages multitasking on other applications and it builds tension and discomfort in the back, neck, arms and hands.

Why not put your audience at ease by starting your presentation with a suggestion to “sit back and enjoy”? If your conferencing software has a full-screen display mode, try using that and treat the presentation like a movie. Lean back, let go of the mouse and keyboard and take the opportunity to put your feet up!

We can’t control how individuals will behave in a remote setting, but we can take steps to let them know that the presentation should be an enjoyable and comfortable experience.

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6 Tips for a Successful Virtual Event

The folks at Conferencing News reported on the launch of the iLinc blog, (thanks for that) and in their post, asked that we talk about EventPlus, our proprietary web-based event management software. 

For many of us in the web collaboration industry and most of you utilizing our products and services we have all heard for years now the cost-saving argument of using collaboration tools versus traveling to live seminars.

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Web Events vs. Web Meetings

Posted by Ken Molay November 19 2007 12:37 AM EST

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The last year or so has seen a huge shift in the public perception of web conferencing. It used to be that the marketing push by WebEx, Placeware, Raindance, and others concentrated on the benefits of reaching many people at once... For training, information dissemination, and especially for lead generation. But now all you seem to hear about is small group collaboration.

WebEx gets press not for Training Center or Event Center, but for MeetMeNow. Citrix advertises the heck out of GoToMeeting, but you hardly hear about GoToWebinar. Microsoft tied almost all of their Live Meeting 2007 product announcements to how it fits with a fancy conference room webcam and their Unified Communications suite of hardware/software for interpersonal communications. Adobe made big waves by announcing Connect as an easy way to collaborate while viewing a PDF document.

Meanwhile, every week brings a new press release about a low cost or no cost alternative for simple screen sharing or slide sharing in a one-to-one or small group online meeting. The concept of web conferencing is being promoted to the masses so strongly as a collaborative meeting tool that I fear we are losing important momentum in the events space.

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Online Training Makes Dollars and Sense

When it comes to Webinars, the technology is just a tool. “In terms of getting people working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important,” said Bill Gates.

This is why some of the smartest organizations are using Webinars to conduct online training. This technology allows companies to use the best teacher to conduct training seminars to hundreds of employees in scattered locations.

Webinars also eliminate all the hard costs of an in-person meeting, including copies, room rental, refreshments, and more.

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How Long Should It Be?

Posted by Ken Molay November 15 2007 11:02 AM EST

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Today I am giving a public web seminar on how to make your webinars more effective. And I know that one of the questions from the audience will be: "Is there a recommended duration for a webinar?" It always seems to come up.

Most sales/marketing web events these days are scheduled to last 60 minutes. People have become used to blocking out that amount of time for attending an online seminar. It works just fine. But if you advertise a one hour event, you owe it to your audience to end on time. They have other calls, meetings, and appointments scheduled. Drifting over your time limit is disrespectful of their priorities.

You can tell yourself that while some of your audience will leave, the really interested ones will stay. The problem with this is that you engender ill will among the people who have to leave. They feel they are missing something. Probably something a lot more interesting than the ten minutes you spent up front on general introductions and overviews. After all, you are extending the session because you have a lot of interesting interaction going on or important information left to relate.

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Online events in South America: an Argentine overview.

Posted by Cecilia Vilches November 14 2007 9:00 AM EST

[Editor's note: I asked Cecilia to give our American vendors and audience a glimpse of what she faces when consulting with companies in Argentina on web conferencing. It is easy for us to overlook the differences in market conditions and usage patterns in other countries. Here is her high level
summary.]

Huge markets like Argentina would benefit from online events only after lack of awareness and vested interests are overcome. Most Argentine organizations, universities and citizens simply disregard the advantages in costs, time and opportunity that this new technology brings about. This disbelief is rooted in deep cultural traits such as resistance to change & learning and vested interests of the most influential companies and organizations in the "live" event industry. Their resistance to online events is not due to technical setbacks, as most Argentine organizations have high broadband connectivity and truly updated PCs.

For example, extremely busy Argentine oil & gas companies and steel mills would largely benefit from employees staying on-site to receive live online training.

Considering this scenario, online event marketers should evangelize, educate and guide with the right product and the right message to the right people in order to soften up this stubborn un-exploited market.

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Limitations Frustrate Webinar Users

Posted by Ken Molay November 12 2007 1:38 PM EST

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A while back, I watched a public webinar given by a well known industry guru. At one point in the presentation he said, "My next slide was corrupted by the web conferencing vendor, so I'll describe it to you." I thought that his choice of words and something about his tone indicated a deeper story there, so I wrote him a note and asked what had happened. He called me back less than an hour after the event ended. I guess he needed somebody as a relief valve who understood what he was talking about, because he launched into a passionate diatribe against web conferencing in general, and vendors he had worked with in particular.

"I hate giving these web seminars. I hate the level of bureaucratic doublespeak and lying by the vendors on a regular basis. I use a Macintosh. I ask these guys if their software works on a Mac and they are trained never to say No. It's never their fault when it doesn't work… It's always something about my configuration. Maybe it's your version of Safari, or your version of the operating system. Hey... I have a standard Mac with the standard operating system and browser that comes from the manufacturer. Nothing fancy here. If your software doesn't work with it, it's your fault, not mine."

I asked him about the slide problem he had and whether it was related to Macintosh problems. "No! I used a PC just so I could do the presentation. Then when I went through the presentation to check everything in our pre-event session I found that this slide came up with an alert related to something about Quicktime or JPG format. I said it worked fine when I viewed it on my machine and was told: Must be something wrong with your PowerPoint. So I said I would swap in a new version of the slide without that image. Oh no, you can't swap in a new slide 15 minutes before the event. In other words, their software had the restrictions, but I was the one who was going to look bad."

Notice that he turned specific problems with specific vendors into a general antipathy towards the entire idea of webinars. Web conferencing for public events is designed to be a public communication and interaction medium. If it doesn't work on the hardware and software that presenters and audiences already have in place, they are unlikely to change their systems. They are more likely to discard your application. And in the process, they will elect to avoid the entire problem the next time they need to find a way to communicate.

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Fix Your Landing Pages

Posted by Ken Molay November 9 2007 8:00 PM EST

It's not every day I tell my readers to go out and spend $500 immediately. This is one of those days.

The words "insanely great" come to mind when describing the newly released second edition of the Landing Page Handbook from MarketingSherpa. I received a review copy from the company (I have no professional connection with them) and went through the 272 spiral-bound pages in a marathon reading session last night.

The book is targeted at professional marketers and designers who build destination pages for offers, registration, and other calls to action. Thinking of it from a webinar angle, this book will help you get people to register for your events by building better information pages and registration link-through pages, better registration forms, and even better invitation emails (although that is not its purpose, many of the guidelines in the handbook translate directly to invitation design).

MarketingSherpa is single-minded in its focus on measurable studies and results as applied to marketing practices. The Landing Page Handbook demonstrates this approach by detailing statistical studies, surveys, and outcomes from real companies showing measured effects of changes in landing page design and construction. This is not just some compendium of rules of thumb or brainstormed tips that "seem like they should work." It is a collection of specific pointers backed up by quantitative lifts in conversion rates from companies that implemented them. There are many examples spread throughout the book of before and after screenshots of landing pages that were tweaked by companies to achieve better results.

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Citrix Acts Against Hate

Posted by Ken Molay November 8 2007 10:30 PM EST

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This press release from the Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) hit the wires today. It thanks Citrix Online (makers of GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and GoToMyPC) for pulling their radio advertising from Michael Savage's syndicated talk show after he went on an on-air rant denouncing Muslims, Islam, and the Quran.

Citrix worded their announcement very carefully and appropriately. They stated that they are in full support of every American citizen's right to free speech, but that the views expressed do not represent their own and that they had ended their advertising relationship with Savage.

Bravo. Everyone is indeed entitle to free speech. But we don't have to pay them for it.

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