a) Session recording
b) Polling
c) Feedback facilities
d) Live annotation and markup
e) PowerPoint presentation facilities
f) File sharing/broadcasting
g) Multimedia playback
h) Event management
The list could go on but my insider stand offers me a view that
is ahead of what most people will want or seek by at least one
or two years. So I will limit it to the above.
*Text Chat.*
"Once a darling of the "eCRM" craze, online chat is
experiencing sluggish growth due to an inability to satisfy
inflated expectations among early adopters as well as the
increase in service costs often experienced when it is rolled
out to all customers, for any inquiry. Text chat has a poor
capacity to convey information and has no capacity to detect or
convey human factors (e.g., emotions, buying mood,
satisfaction) without advanced text analysis."
Text chat is here to stay. What is happening is that people are
finally realizing chat's own role and most effective
application. While it is evident that chat proves to be highly
unsuitable for meetings with more than 3-4 people, it is also
not very useful when deep discussions and exchanges have to be
made. On the other hand text chat is absolutely invaluable when
providing a complementary communication tool to provide
detailed spelling of items, URLs, names of files, technical
specs, addresses, or specific step-by-step procedures.
Even during an effective videoconference the complement of text
chat can be invaluable as many times attendees will want to
submit questions on the spur of the moment, even while a
presenter is delivering a short speech, knowing that their
question will be picked up as soon as the presenter will deem
it appropriate. Text chat is also in many cases the only means
to provide instant feedback, uninfluenced by bandwidth
limitations.
This can prove very valuable when the other party with whom you
are Web conferencing is not aware of some technical problem
limiting her communications. Through text chat the other party
can easily prompt the user having difficulty to "turn on the
volume of the speakers", "quite all applications" or
whatever other appropriate action maybe necessary to take.
Finally, nothing could be further from truth when we read "Text
chat has a poor capacity to convey information and has no
capacity to detect or convey human factors (e.g., emotions,
buying mood, satisfaction) without advanced text analysis.".
Primitive text chat solutions may still suffer from such
limitations, but modern day chat facilities have a lot more to
offer in the way of providing the means and ease of use not
only to convey information quite well, but also to express
human emotions and feeling with astounding immediacy and
effectiveness.
For conveying information let me give you a few examples that
explain how text chat facilities can help in this direction.
a) Text formatting. This is a crucial feature which, if well
implemented can significantly facilitate the end user ability
to differentiate and highlight information appropriately.
b) Auto-URL detection. If I type a Web site URL, and email
address or an FTP destination my text is automatically
converted in an "active" clickable link.
c) Pasting images. If I can simply cut and paste small images,
thumbnails or screenshots into a text chat I am further
facilitated in making my information well understood.
d) Links to documents and resources. If inside the text chat
window I can create links to other parts, resources or
documents which are integral part of the live conference I have
another great advantage.
e) Emoticons. Emoticons are small colored graphic icons which
can express feelings, emotions, moods with much simplicity and
extreme immediacy. Yahoo Messenger and other instant messaging
and chat tools have long employed them. Emoticons are invoked
by a text chat user generally through a special key combination
or by direct selection through a visual catalogue. Emoticons
can be static, animated and can even make sounds or pronounce
words.
The use of emoticons provides for an extremely effective and
easy to use approach to express human feelings and emotions in
an online session. The ease of use and immediacy of this
approach allows participants to be able to express and signal
feedback and emotions in a much clearer and more natural way
than if they were provided with full video and audio
conferencing means.
f) Themes. Chat facilities can also benefit from the use of
pre-designed skins, prepared to facilitate and support specific
kinds of tasks or chat sessions. Such themes become therefore
effective task-optimized superinterfaces, that can much better
satisfy and complement the needs of specific online chat
sessions by providing complementary tools, style and custom
layout arrangements.
*Co-Browsing.*
"Co-browsing tools enable one individual (typically a service
agent) to control the Web browser of another individual
(usually a customer). Typically, co-browsing is used with
customers in three situations: guiding customers through
generally available Web content, such as product information;
assisting customers with an online transaction, such as
enrollments or orders; and pushing unique content to the
customer's computer through the browser, such as multimedia
demonstrations."
Fair enough. Those are indeed the most common applications of
co-browsing in a customer service environment. But once you
start looking at other opportunities available to you to
leverage co-browsing, customer service will look like a limited
area of interest for this type of facility.
As marketing will include more and more of educational and
support aspects in its best implementations, you should expect
to see a larger use of co-browsing facilities to educate and
showcase customers and partners about online services use and
operation.
Also referred to as Web-touring, co-browsing has been suffering
by one key technological limitation that has somehow limited
its effective application and acceptance by many users. During
a co-browsing session, while it is possible to navigate
"together" to selected Web pages, it is indeed NOT possible to
scroll and access specific parts of them in any synchronized
way. This does indeed limit severely the ways in which this
technology can be effectively applied.
At least two companies have been challenging this apparently
insurmountable obstacle and have achieved some remarkable
results in the process. One is Groove, a powerful real-time
collaboration tool which does not make use of a Web browser.
This is a highly innovative collaboration tool which sports
some futuristic features. Within high connectivity participants
and with latest generation PCs it does work wonders. Another
interesting newcomer in this arena is PageShare
(http://www.pageshare.com)
which provides effective
co-scrolling and co-filling to its standard co-browsing
experience. Though with their idiosyncrasies and limitations
both demonstrate that there is still a lot more to see in this
direction.
*Voice.*
"Despite strong hype about VoIP for use in communicating with
customers, the inability to achieve an acceptable quality of
service, due to the continued dominance of low-capacity dialup
Internet connections, has prevented VoIP from achieving any
real market presence as a customer interaction channel."
Here is the most interesting part of all. While the corporate
market plays down present offerings and patiently awaits a
breakthrough VoIP technology, the solution has silently arrived
behind their backs and is taking the non-corporate marketplace
by storm. While the news can be hardly keep at bay for much
longer, the large enterprise Web conferencing companies have
done indeed a good job at promoting and unmarketing VoIP as a
reliable choice.
VoIP is indeed a powerful reality available to anyone out there.
Long-distance telephone calls can be easily side-stepped even by
users on dial-up lines as slow as 14.4 Kbps! Multiple people can
meet and discuss with near crystal-clear voice quality, and
without the typical annoyance associated with voice conferencing
on the Internet (nothing like what you can do with Yahoo
Messenger or similar technologies).
An aggressive group of small companies has swiftly taken on the
task of integrating and marketing this new breakthrough
technology in several highly cost-effective products now
available online. Companies offering such unique technology
include:
Orbitalk http://www.orbitalk.com
Voxwire http://www.voxwire.com
VCOM Central / ITI Group http://www.itigroup.com
RoomTalk http://www.roomtalk.net
WebConference.com http://www.webconference.com
VoiceCafe http://www.voicecafe.org/
The cost for the above services is extremely affordable and the
integration of the specific voice technology is the key driving
force for all of them.
You have to try this technology to believe it. Then we can talk
again about it.
*Instant Messaging.*
"The strong use of IM by consumers has made it a viable channel
for customer communications that suppliers can expect to be
installed on a customer's computer. However, companies should
avoid using IM as yet another text chat tool, instead focusing
on the presence and location management features of IM."
Right on. Yes, instant messenger tools are most effectively
used to provide presence awareness facilities to dispersed
teams, groups and small networks of professionals and companies
working together. Instant messaging tools, once they start
providing more automatic filtering of contacts and messages, as
well as adding the ability to grant different level of rights
of access to different contacts, are going to become more and
more useful in the worklife of collaborative groups.
*Application Sharing.*
"Similar to Web co-browsing, application sharing tools enable a
service agent to use a software application on the customer's
computer, primarily for software support. Software vendors can
also share their applications with customers as a means of
enabling customers to try software before purchasing. However,
the most popular form of application sharing is sharing an
electronic whiteboard with a customer. Shared whiteboards are
primarily used in customer service to support more technical
and engineering service processes. Through 2005/06, we believe
application sharing and shared whiteboards will have only a
niche role in customer interactions, eventually supplanted by
various Web services (2007)."
Actually I see things moving in a different direction. Software
support, technical assistance and even very effective
demonstrations, tutorials and courses can all be delivered with
an effective application sharing facility. Some even use it to
deliver live PowerPoint presentations with good results.
Few companies have developed application sharing to a level
where it is performing, reliable and easy-to-use. Two names come
to mind first: Linktivity WebDemo and Glance. Both represent
excellent solutions for application sharing though at complete
opposite ends of the spectrum. While WebDemo is a sophisticated,
server-based, somehow complex but uniquely powerful suite of Web
conferencing facilities, Glance is a no-brainer one-click
instant screen-sharing service. Both have tremendous potential
and if you will try them out you will appreciate the higher
technological skills of these companies in bringing out
solutions unmatched by the big Web conferencing "enterprise"
vendors.
Whiteboards per se have no great appeal and a limited set of
applications when offered as such. It is rather the ability to
rapidly create and share screenshots of documents and
applications, that can be annotated and live-marked that is in
great demand from actual users. The ability to refine and
innovate in this area will provide a very interesting new market
for specialized collaboration and remote mentoring tools.
Remote Control.
"Remote control tools - tools that enable a remote party to take
physical control of a user's computer - have traditionally been
used by IT help desks and computer manufacturers. However,
remote control software is becoming very inexpensive, especially
with the inclusion of remote control services in Windows XP."
True. Remote control is becoming more and more accessible. The
critical issue remains the one of making it easy to use. As far
as I am concerned most tools available provided a winded
approach to activate it, and when this feature is integrated in
more complex conferencing systems one can easily get lost in the
multitude of commands and controls available. One-button remote
control facilities are on their way, thanks to good examples
like Glance and great reliable services like GoToMyPC
(http://www.gotomypc.com/)
and LoudPC (http://www.loudpc.com/).
My conclusions:
There is a lot going on in the e-conferencing and real-time
collaboration industry.
Very few have a comprehensive vision as most of the industry has
been focussing on the "enterprise" focussed solutions promoted
by WebEx, Placeware, Centra, Raindance, Polycom, HorizonLive and
many others.
A new breed of highly cost-effective conferencing and live
collaboration tools has entered the marketplace and proves to
have competitive facilities and some unique breakthrough features.
To remain competitive vendors will need to study and analyze
with more attention both the marketplace as well as the growing
number of competitors.
Final users of these technologies are bound only to benefit from
this highly dynamic and competitive situation. SOHO conferencing
tools may prove to be very effective solutions for many
professionals and small to medium companies, not just in the US
but in most Internet connected places around the world.
As many vendors claim expertise and leadership across the same
number of facilities, it remains vital to be able to personally
test such tools or to rely on qualified reviews that honestly
report about the effectiveness, reliability and value of all of
these tools.
*Want To Find Out More?*
More information on Web conferencing, real-time collaboration,
live presentation and e-conferencing systems can also be found
at these excellent resources:
.......................................................
a) Think of it
http://www.thinkofit.com
Headed by who is probably the world's foremost authority on
conferencing and collaboration software, David R. Woolley,
president of Thinkofit, has been a pioneer in online
conferencing for over 25 years. In 1973 Dr. Woolley created
PLATO Notes, one of the world's first conferencing systems and
the direct progenitor of Lotus Notes, DEC Notes, and many
collaboration systems. While providing of a window of
opportunity to his uniquely qualified consulting services Dr
Woolley provides an outstanding resource of Web conferencing
tools, systems and vendors unmatched by others.
Thinkofit is the reference unbiased reference resource to look
to when searching for Web conferencing vendors and technologies.
Probably the most valuable section on the whole Thinkofit Web
site is what you find at:
http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf/
index.htm
Here you find a well organized gateway to a set of nine separate
lists covering all conferencing and forum providers, books,
events and other resources available out there.
The richest section is the one devoted to Real-time Web
conferencing tools at:
http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf/
realtime.htm
Dr Woolley dutifully reports about new tools and technologies
released with a frequency of three or four new technologies
every month!
(http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf/
realtime.htm#new).
Though there is not normally more than a paragraph of description for
each tool included, it nonetheless provides for the most
exhaustive and up-to-date reference for this technology around.
As all of the above great amount of information is completely
free, Thinkofit provides also a number of professional
consultancy services to help organizations identify, select and
implement effective Web conferencing or real-time collaboration
solutions.
.......................................................
b) ConferZone
http://www.conferzone.com/
ConferZone is an online e-conferencing resource that tracks the
latest technology and trends in the marketplace. ConferZone
provides comprehensive, objective content so businesses can make
educated and sound decisions when purchasing e-conferencing
services or products.
ConferZone.com is a online reference covering Web conferencing,
video conferencing, audio conferencing and collaborative
conferencing. At ConferZone you can find lots of useful
information and resources including:
a) a good free white papers section at:
http://www.conferzone.com/resource/
wp.html
b) up-to-date industry news at:
http://www.conferzone.com/resource/
articlemain.html
c) e-conferencing events
http://www.conferzone.com/resource/
events.html
d) free monthly newsletter
http://www.conferzone.com/services/
conferzine.html
e) and a very useful directory of e-conferencing vendors:
http://www.conferzone.com/vendor/
index.html
ConferZone provides also a unique online service called
ConferGuide. ConferGuide is a searchable online database of more
than 40 Web conferencing vendors now accessible 24x7x365. For
USD $ 49 you get one month access to an exhaustive directory of
e-conferencing vendors and suppliers, providing all basic
information you may need for each company.
Now in its third edition ConferZone is proud to offer its third
annual ConferGuide 2003, an online guide to Web conferencing
companies. ConferZone publishes the online guide to help
business and meeting professionals streamline their research
processes, while saving valuable company time and resources.
Additionally, the guide assists them in making informed
decisions when implementing e-conferencing solutions.
ConferGuide 2003 features:
* An introduction to Web conferencing
* Current product and pricing information from more than 40 Web
conferencing vendors
* A glossary of industry terms
The guide can be purchased in one-month, six-month and one-year
access increments at $199, $399, and $599, respectively. The
guide can be accessed and searched an unlimited number of times
during the subscription period. ConferGuide 2003 can be
purchased at http://www.conferzone.com,
under the "Publications"
section at: http://www.conferzone.com/services/
conferguide.html
If you are a Web conferencing vendor and are not currently
included in the ConferGuide 2003, please contact ConferZone at
conferguide@conferzone.com
Founded in 2000, ConferZone is headquartered in Denver, Colorado
and is directed by Stephanie Franks.
.......................................................
c) Web Seminarian
http://www.webseminarian.com/
It is the ONLY Web site and e-mail newsletter focused solely on
Web conferencing. All others include video conferencing,
asynchronous conferencing, and other topics.
* It has a nice and practical section on Tips helping new and
experienced professionals become proficient users of Web
conferencing technologies quickly. Please check it out at:
http://www.webseminarian.com/tips/
index.html
* Web Seminarian provides a section on Corporate Customer
Stories that provides insight on how other companies have
solved their training, communication and conferencing goals
through the use of Web conferencing technologies.
http://www.webseminarian.com/stories/
index.html
* It contains reviews of many Web conferencing platforms. It
covers WebEx, Avacaster, Genesys, Egenda, Sonexis, HorizonLive,
Pixion, Placeware, MShow, Viavid, Raindance and several other
ones. Check them out at:
http://www.webseminarian.com/reviews/
index.html
* It provides up-to-date news from the industry and commentary
on major industry events and issues. Please see:
http://www.webseminarian.com/news/
index.html
* It has articles on key topics, such as recent research and the
Microsoft acquisition of PlaceWare.
* It has a companion newsletter that you can freely subscribe to
at: http://www.webseminarian.com/
* It also accepts contributions and articles from readers.
Web Seminarian has a sister company called Obidicut which
identifies specific ways your company can enhance revenue,
marketing, control costs and improve customer satisfaction
through Web conferencing. For more information please see:
http://www.obidicut.net/
.......................................................
d) e-Learning Centre
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/
Efficiently coordinated and managed by Jane Knight the E-
Learning Centre is one of the very best resources for online
tools and resources valuable to the distant communicator and
online trainer. The main focus is on adult e-learning, i.e.
e-learning in the workplace, in Higher Education and in
continuing professional development.
The E-Learning Centre provides a freely accessible and well
organized database catalogue of all e-Learning related tools
and technologies organized in many useful categories.
For each tool or technology a good description, features and
main characteristics are provided along with Web links and
direct contact information.
Particularly useful is the section on Products and Services
accessible at:
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/
vendors/index.html
Among other valuable sections and resources you can find on
this site I would highlight:
1) Library: This section contains a very large number of pages
with links to many different articles, white papers, research
reports, journal articles, resource collections, books, etc
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/
Resources/index.html
2) Showcase: Here you can find very useful links to examples of
interesting online courses, learning materials and other
e-learning solutions for university, school, corporate and
general learners.
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/
showcase/index.html
3) Events: A month-by-month listing of e-learning conferences
plus links to workshops, courses and seminars in the area of
e-learning.
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/
conferences/index.html
4) Centres: In this section you can find a number of specialist
"Centres" that aggregate related resources from across the
e-Learning Centre website.
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/services/ consultancy.html
5) eCLIPSE: This section is the e-Learning Centre's e-Learning
Intelligence Service: People, Systems and Environments. This
section provides links only to content produced by the
e-Learning Centre.
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/ Highlights/index.html
6) The E-Learning Centre also offers a unique E-Learning
Directory 2003 covering 150 suppliers of eLearning products and
services operating in 25 different European countries. The
directory is indexed by region, vendor category and industry
classification. This is a high-quality, bound, A4-size document
and updates and new entries are available online for free. The
cost of the directory is € 99.
http://www.elearning-directory.com/
You can read this article in the original issue of MasterView.
