Web conferencing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Web conferencing is used to hold group meetings or live presentations over the Internet. In the early years of the Internet, the terms "web conferencing" and "computer conferencing" were often used to refer to group discussions conducted within a message board (via posted text messages), but the term has evolved to refer specifically to "live" or "synchronous" meetings, while the posted message variety of discussion is called a "forum", "message board", or "bulletin board".
In a web conference, each participant sits at their own computer, and is connected to other participants via the internet. The most basic feature of a web conference is screen sharing, whereby conference participants see whatever is on the presenter's screen. Usually this is accompanied by voice communication, either through a traditional telephone conference, or through VoIP, although sometimes text chat is used in place of voice.
A webinar is a seminar which is conducted over the World Wide Web. It is a type of web conferencing. In contrast to a Webcast, which is transmission of information in one direction only, a webinar is designed to be interactive between the presenter and audience. A webinar is 'live' in the sense that information is conveyed according to an agenda, with a starting and ending time. In most cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen, and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speakerphone. The word 'webinar' is an example of Portmanteau, combining web and seminar.
[edit] Features
Other typical features of a web conference include:
- Slide presentations (often created through PowerPoint)
- Application sharing, in which participants can cooperatively manipulate (say) a spreadsheet on the presenter's computer
- Web co-browsing
- Annotation (allowing the presenter to highlight or mark items on the display)
- Text messaging
- File sharing
- Polls and surveys
Most web conferencing software allows conferences to be recorded for later playback.
There is a growing trend for web conferences to incorporate VoIP and live video via web cams. Hence, the boundary between web conferencing and videoconferencing is blurring and may eventually disappear.
Web conferencing is most often sold as a service, hosted on a web server controlled by the vendor, either on a usage basis (cost per user per minute) or for a fixed fee (cost per "seat"). Also, some vendors make their conferencing software available as a licensed product, allowing organizations that make heavy use of conferencing to install the software on their own servers.
An important capability of Web conferencing software is Application sharing, the ability for one party in the conference to share an application (such as a web browser, spread sheet, etc.) from their desk top with every one else in the meeting and pass the control of the application to someone else in the meeting.
[edit] History
Real-time text chat facilities such as IRC appeared early in the internet's history. Web-based chat and instant messaging software appeared in the mid 1990s. In the late 1990's, PlaceWare created the first true web conferencing capability and Microsoft soon introduced NetMeeting followed by dozens of other vendors. In 1998, IBM (via Lotus Software) acquired DataBeam to create Sametime. In 2003, Microsoft acquired PlaceWare and renamed it Microsoft Office Live Meeting and began phasing out support for NetMeeting.
As of 2006, the market continues to expand as web conferencing becomes a more widely accepted alternative to face-to-face meetings requiring travel, and as a richer form of communication than voice-only telephone conferences.
Web conferencing technologies have not been standardized, a significant factor in the market segmentation. In 2003, the IETF established a working group to establish a standard for Web conferencing, called XCON: Centralized Conferencing Working Group. The goals of XCON, listed as part of their charter include creating:
- A mechanism for membership and authorization control
- A mechanism to manipulate and describe media "mixing" or "topology" for multiple media types (audio, video, text)
- A mechanism for notification of conference related events/changes (for example a floor change)
- A basic floor control protocol
