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Audio
and Web Conferencing Integration
Audio and web conferencing meets the demands of the marketplace
April 8, 2006
By: Alice Osborn
Today’s companies are staying competitive in their
respective marketplaces by using the highly interactive
features of audio and web conferencing. Through such global
conferencing providers as
Netspoke, and
WebEx and
InterCall, businesses can
improve their revenue, collaboration and customer
satisfaction -- all in a time-sensitive manner.
How audio and web based conferencing saves time and money
While using the web services combined with calling
features from these web phone conferencing providers,
business conferences automatically become more productive
and collaborative. Some of these benefits include:
- Tangible hard and soft savings, such as lowered travel
costs and increased in-office time
- Through the Internet,
simplified access to others inside and outside of the
organization is achieved with almost no advance notice,
because if someone wants to initiate the conference, only an
e-mail or instant message is required
- Greater
collaboration among people working on the same project who
work in different locations
- Conferencing increases access
to better training by more personnel
Conferencing tools and features
Web conferencing solutions fall into four categories:
general business communications, collaboration strategies,
project management, and training tools. A company must first
identify how it will be using its conferencing features and
then evaluate the conference technology based on its
functions.
In fact, conference participants can now experience a
more authentic conference because of how seamlessly the
conferencing system fully integrates into their familiar
presentation applications such as PowerPoint, Macromedia
Flash and Microsoft Outlook, which sets up meetings and
manages addresses online. Here are some examples of the
latest conferencing tools:
- Application sharing allowing the conference leader to
release a document to the participants in real-time
- Mood
indicators which enable participants to respond to
conference topics
- Live online polling to obtain quick
conference participant feedback
- A pre-meeting virtual web
waiting room where the conference leader places select
online participants
- Video and webcam integration allows
companies to broadcast a live video feed of the conference
presenters
- Live online chatting to permit conference
participants in different departments of the same company to
send open or confidential instant messages to each other
What’s behind the growth of these conferencing services
According to
Wainhouse Research, the video conferencing
sector, when combined with audio and web based conferencing
services, is expected to grow by approximately 12 percent
annually through 2007. Companies will increase their use of
these innovative conference services when they realize their
productivity increases dramatically because they will be
able to make timesaving decisions across time zones. Travel
and training costs are kept in line with budgets and
face-to-voice interaction inside the conferences decreases
miscommunications. Some conference service providers also
offer pay-as-you-go contracts to broaden their reach and
accessibility to smaller companies.
All of these beneficial services accommodate increased
productivity, sales, and communication when the time arrives
for companies to convene in their respective conference
rooms.
About the Author
Alice Osborn is a successful freelance writer and
contributor to Audio-Conferencing-Guide.com. Your definitive guide to everything you need to know about
audio driven communications, including audio conferencing,
conference calling services, and VoIP telephony for business
and personal use.
Also See:
[ How VoIP works -- busting
out of long distance rates ]
[ History of the
telephone -- from Bell to VoIP and beyond ]
[ Choosing the right headsets to
make daily communication easier ]
Home Page:
[ Audio-Conferencing-Guide.com ]
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