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The New Kid On The Confrence Call Block -- What Is A Webinar?

By Richard Arnesdale

Using a conference call to hold a business meeting has long been one of the most time and cost effective ways of getting people together. Originally, these calls were made in 'audio' over the phone with developments later introducing new technologies such as video conferencing that allowed people to actually see each other while they talked.

The latest offering here is web conferencing where people can use the Internet to get together for various activities. One of the most common activities here is the webinar (web seminar) which is basically an online meeting/seminar between various participants who use the Internet to communicate rather than a traditional method.

In the early days of web conferencing the options here tended not to be live or in real-time as such. Originally many web conferences were held on discussion boards where people could participate when they were online or had a point to make. These discussions could be spread out over a longer period of time than regular meetings/conferences.

In recent years, however, it has become more common for web conferencing to take place live in much the same way as an audio conference call. The beauty of this conferencing solution is that each participant simply needs access to a sound enabled computer with an Internet connection.

So, for example, you can take place in a webinar by entering a site URL which hooks you up to the meeting. You can then watch and sometime participate in the core activity here. So, for example, a speaker could give a conference talk to many different people all over the world from his/her office and they may also be given the opportunity to participate themselves in their turn.

The advent of web cam technology revolutionized this kind of meeting. With a web cam in play here the speaker and the participants can be seen, giving this the same kinds of advantages as video conferencing. Participants can also get involved in other ways such as using web tools during the webinar to look at and even manipulate information, data and sites.

These kinds of conference calls are relatively easy to set up for yourself in an informal way especially if your company buys web conferencing software. But, many businesses nowadays are choosing to use a specific web conferencing company to facilitate their needs here.

These kinds of conferencing solutions give all kinds of businesses access to exciting new communication solutions. So, for example, your company could make a sales pitch or a software demo to a global client by holding a web seminar where you make your pitch and the Sales Directors of multiple countries could all tune in to watch.

This is also a good way of holding training seminars and courses. Given that technology nowadays allows the person holding the seminar to offer various interactive tools while they talk this is a cost effective and simple way to introduce new training without the need to get people in the same location.

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