14 Questions You Might Be Afraid to Ask About download professional powerpoint templates

[Kierstead Lacourse]

While video conferencing and web conferencing are sometimes confused, the

reality is that web conferencing is a completely different animal, with far more

options available and a much greater range of functionality than video

conferencing. Web conferencing offers not just the opportunity to chat and

communicate via webcam so that you can see each person in your conferencing

link, but to exchange documents, share applications, access shared desktops, use

PowerPoint, whiteboards and other presentation features and even poll

participants.

It all started with PLATO...

Web conferencing is "the total package." Interestingly, the conceptual design

of web conferencing began long before there was a World Wide Web or Internet

structure in place. In the 1960's, the University of Illinois developed a system

known as PLATO for their Computer-based Education Research Laboratory (CERL). It

was a small, self-contained system supporting a single classroom of terminals

connected to one mainframe computer. In 1972, PLATO was moved to a new system of

mainframes that eventually supported over one thousand users at a time.

In 1973, Talkomatic was developed by Doug Brown. This was essentially the

first "instant messaging" program ever designed, with multiple windows

displaying typed notes in real time for several users simultaneously. In 1974,

Kim Mast developed Personal Notes, a new feature for PLATO that enabled private

mail for users.

In 1975, Control Data Corporation set up its own PLATO system in Minneapolis,

Minnesota, the first commercial use of multi-function conferencing system.

Within ten years, PLATO was being used in over one hundred sites around the

world, some with dedicated lines for full-time use.

In the late 1980's, however, microcomputers were becoming more reasonably

priced and the heyday of mainframe-based systems was over. Eventually the

original Control Data systems were shut down because PLATO was no longer

cost-effective. Control Data now has a few systems operating under the name

CYBIS.

PLATO's descendants

In the late 1970's, Ray Ozzie and Tim Halvorsen worked at CERL. Years later

they took some of the features of PLATO and greatly expanded on their

capabilities when designing one of today's most powerful web conferencing tools

-- Lotus Notes, released in 1989.

Lotus Notes was the first commercially released product that really took off

to offer user-created data-bases, document sharing, and remote location

communication under one umbrella. It created a "relationship based" environment

that took the corporation world by storm.

Other descendants of PLATO included DEC Notes, originally known as VAX,

written by Len Kawell. It is still used today on DEC's EASYnet and on Starlink,

a universal web conferencing community. NetNotes is a client-server system

designed to improve on the original DEC Notes, with WebNotes as an add-on for

World Wide Web access.

True WEB conferencing

The distinction between true web conferencing and systems conferencing is

difficult, however, to define. When the Web first became a contender as a valid

means of collaborative conferencing with document sharing, etc, many companies

took conferencing packages originally designed for intranet systems and

redesigned them. The results weren't always seamless. It wasn't until the

mid-1990's that true Web Conferencing software that was reliable was available.

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PLATO and other main-frame based conferencing systems were based on a

centralized structure, with all elements feeding into a central computer. This

structure saw the development of several types of conferencing software that

included Backtalk, Caucus, COW, Motet, Web Crossing, Podium, TALKaway and YAPP.

PlaceWare, arguably one of the most influential Web conferencing systems

developed, had interesting origins in the 1990's at the Xerox Palo Alto Research

Center, where it began as a multi-user game called LambdaMOO. PlaceWare was one

of the first companies to provide complete Web conferencing after the initial

release of PlaceWare Auditorium in 1997. In April of 2003, Microsoft purchased

PlaceWare, adding it to its newly formed Real-Time Collaborative Business Unit.

P2P shifts the focus of web conferencing

Another popular form of software was Groupware, essentially defined by Lotus

Notes. The difference between the centralized structure of PLATO-based systems

and Lotus is in the additional functions -- Lotus provided a host of other

options like scheduling and document sharing. Groupware software is more complex

than Centralized software and focus on work flow; that is, making sure

documents, graphics and templates are where they need to be. Popular Groupware

products developed in the 1990's included InTandem, Livelink, Lotus Domino,

Oracle InterOffice, TEAMate and WebShare.

As the price of home computers dropped, peer to peer (P2P) file sharing

became more and more commonplace over the World Wide Web, although primarily on

a user to user basis. That changed when members of Napster, then an illegal,

informally organized group of college youth and other music-lovers, began

sharing millions of music files among themselves. It began a revolution in the

use of the Internet that changes the way Web conferencing was eventually

perceived. P2P began to be seen as the way to host Web conferencing, rather than

through a single server. .

Groove took this peer to peer concept and applied it to Web conferencing. The

Groove technology, originally released in 2000, was upgraded to real performance

power with Groove 2.1 in 2002 and was impressive. The advantages of peer to peer

were immediately obvious -- once you loaded the software and were set up, you

never had to pay a subscription or user fee for an offsite server to store any

files, you will never lose all files in one central location, and you are set up

and good to go for life (or until the next upgrade, at least).

Another company download professional powerpoint templates that recognized the need for quality Web conferencing

software during these years was WiredRed Software, founded in 1998. In 2003,

they released e/pop, a real-time Web Conferencing suite with comprehensive

features for all aspects of industry -- it was the first installable web

conferencing software with no significant install time.

NextPage also offers P2P web conferencing and document sharing capabilities

developed out of the Napster movement. In fact, they use the example of Napster

file sharing and downloads to illustrate to companies the advantages of using a

peer to peer network over a centralized server.

What about UseNet?

In the 1980's, Usenet software was developed with specific protocols to

format and transmit messages. It also allowed messages to be passed from one

news server to another, replicating around the world rather than being stored in

any one location. It has become the standard for news readers on the Internet,

with Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer both having built-in news readers

for UseNet. .

For some, web conferencing can be achieved simply by taking advantage of

UseNet. Download free software to set up a news server, create a few local

newsgroups on it, and have your users access your server with their Web browsers

to create your conferencing site.

Most companies, of course, prefer to have a more professional package than

that, and ease of use and security are concerns that are addressed better by

companies who have specifically developed company or enterprise Web Conferencing

solutions. A good web conferencing package today contains voice over IP (VoIP),

co-browsing and application sharing at the minimum, with add-ons and other

features if needed, including polling, event management, PowerPoint

presentation, playback, recording and live annotation and markup.

Easynet, founded in 1994, is a broadband networking company based in Europe

providing primarily European businesses with Web conferencing capabilities. This

infrastructure based provider provides unbundled loop access to companies in

some countries as a part of a "leased line" program for conferencing.

VoIP is making noise

The latest frontier in Web conferencing is the practicality of using IP based

voice communications on a regular basis with Web conferencing. While Web

conferencing is considered desirable for document exchange, text messaging and

whiteboards and many other functions, many people still think VoIP technology

has poor quality overall, especially with so many people still using dial-up

connections. .

Actually, there are several contenders in the marketplace who have produced

excellent quality VoIP offerings in their Web conferencing packages, including

Voxwire, Orbitalk, RoomTalk, and VoiceCafe.

The future of web conferencing

One of the last stumbling blocks for web conferencing has been the

incompatibility between Macs and PC's. With the heavy preference for Macs by

those in graphics heavy industries such as architecture, advertising and

publishing, it has always been difficult to share documents and set up effective

Web