Webinar: communication made easier

Webinar is one of the easiest ways to communicate with people online. One can use it to promote business, conduct official seminars, gather information, vote and many more. Unlike webcast or other conferencing services, web conferencing allows the audience to interact with the speaker.
This service is generally hosted by a vendor on a web server. Some vendors allow their clients to host the web seminars at their own servers. However, most vendors offer assistance to their customers and also to people who join the conference. Thus any form of technical problem, occurring at the time of the conference, can be handled by the vendors with ease. Thus, the client doesn't need to be worried about technical glitches at the time of conference.
Here are some features that make webinar a unique online conferencing tool:

1. Slide show presentation can be done through this conferencing service, and the specialty is that the pointer can be used at the Power point or keynote presentation. This ensures that the audience remains engaged while the presentation is being made.

2. Usage of Whiteboards enable the audience as well as the presenter to carry out any kind of annotation and highlights of the meeting. It can also be used for making notes and even marking the slides.

3. Videos can be used (both live and streamed video). Video files can be from full motion web cams, multi- media files or digital camera files.

4. Usage of VoIP helps in communication between the audience and the speaker.

Webinar allows sharing of screen, desktop and other application among the attendees and the presenter. Therefore, anyone can view anything, irrespective of the position of the person. Though not yet widely used, there is an application of screen sharing that allows participant to remote desktop control. It lets the participant to manipulate the presenter's desktop.

Website demonstration is being made easy by the use of this kind of conferencing online service. URLs, data, cookies, online forms and scripts can be transferred among the participants by any attendee. This can be done through web based clicks and logon features.

Live question and answering session can be conducted through these web based seminars. Text chats are also possible during this sessions. It is also possible to make it visible either among all the participants or keep it private among couple of people / few of the attendees.

This kind of conferencing online service helps in carrying out multiple choice questions, polls and surveys. Thus, the answers can be obtained immediately. Since the audience is live, the result can be deduced without wasting of time.

The web seminars are also possible to be recorded. This helps the organizers to view and distribute the video among the attendees. It can be recorded by both the vendor, client or both of them.

There are numerous software and vendors that are available online to conduct webinar. Some software are free and can be downloaded. However, in order to conduct better web based seminars, it is always advisable to buy appropriate software. Various types of customized features has made this tool user-friendly.

Vendors, offering the service, charge their customers either on per minute service or on the total number of participants. There is another type of payment method is also there, namely "flat rate". It is always advisable to conduct a research on the services provided by the vendor before selecting.

About Author:

Hope Dever is a feature writer on conferencing services. He is of the opinion that webinar is the most cost effective way to promote one's business or conduct meetings.