What is Web Conferencing?
Web conferencing is a technology that allows people to communicate more effectively over the Internet. All participants of a web conference go to one web page where they are able to share audio, video, content, or a combination of these in real-time. Web conferencing has the benefit of allowing people to attend meetings or presentations when they can’t be physically present at the event. A web-based virtual environment allows you to display visual information to all participants in the conference. This can include video (from a web camera attached to a participant’s computer) and content information (e.g., PowerPoint slides, web sites, documents). Web conferencing applications often provide additional tools for visual communication, such as a virtual whiteboard or a chat window where participants can type messages to each other. The audio communication portion of a web conference can occur by teleconferencing using phones or over the Internet using a microphone attached to a participan
As a way of adding visual data to an audio conference, web conferencing offers a relatively inexpensive means of creating a virtual working environment with persons across town or across the world. Here are some basics about web conferencing technology, options, and applications. Envisioned as a companion service to audio conference calls, web conferencing first came on the mass market during the 1990s. Prior to that time, web conferencing had been considered a premium service that only the more prosperous companies and organizations could afford to use. However, technological advancements during the late 1980’s made it obvious that the Internet could support a simple presentation sharing environment that would be an ideal way to share, charts, worksheets and other data with persons while still using audio conference calls for the verbal communication. The earliest web conferences relied heavily on uploading and caching an application on the hard drive of every person who was slated to
First, let’s define our terms. For our present purposes, conferencing is a form of group discussion that uses text messages stored on a computer as a communication medium. It does not include various types of real-time, or synchronous, communication, such as “chat rooms”, voice-based teleconferencing, or video conferencing. A conferencing system is Web-based if it uses Web browsers and servers to provide most of its functionality. This is not as clear a distinction as it might sound. Most developers of conferencing software are hurrying to adapt their products to the Web, and the result is a lot of hybrid products that use the Web to a greater or lesser extent. Hence, the boundary between Web and non-Web conferencing software is a bit blurry. Systems that work with unmodified Web browsers and servers are of greatest interest, because they are the most easily accessible to the great mass of Web and intranet users. Any Web software that requires users to install a browser add-on, or even
Web conferencing allows multiple meeting participants to communicate with each other live over the Internet. Participants meet in a dedicated online conference center where they are able to share audio, video and files in real time. With web conferencing, you and your group can be located down the hall or around the world and still accomplish common goals without travel, expense, or technical hurdles. Participants in an IEEE web conference rely on easy to use, premiere industry technologies to share documents, presentations, designs and ideas, give web tours, and demos, provide training, offer technical support, and host other interactive events.
