Before playing/viewing a WebEx recording – be warned! There has been a public announcement made by Cisco that their player that plays back recordings made from a WebEx event has “vulnerabilties”.  Exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the system of a targeted user.  To see full details from CISCO please click here: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20091216-webex.shtml.  For FortiGuard’s threat research and responses advisory click here: http://www.fortiguard.com/advisory/FGA-2009-48.html.

Cisco has released free software updates that address these vulnerabilities. Prior to deploying software, customers should consult their maintenance provider or check the software for feature set compatibility and known issues specific to their environment.

Many of our customers are moving away from doing a “live demonstration” portion of a webinar and instead play a video that was “pre-recorded”. There are definite pros and cons to each approach.

A live demonstration (application sharing) gives you FLEXIBILITY.

Flexibility to meet the needs/questions of the lives audience.

Flexibility to manage time allotment – being able to demonstrate more or less depending on what time is available.

Flexibility to “go back” and show it again or go in more depth if needed.

Flexibility to application share anything on your desktop.

A recorded demonstration gives you PEACE OF MIND.

Peace of mind that the presenter does not need to be on a “great internet connection” or even logged into the “network” during the live webinar.

Peace of mind that there is no “delay” in the “refresh rate” and thus the video will appear to run smoother.

Peace of mind that you know how long the demo takes, covered everything, and didn’t make any “mistakes”.

Feel free to post your comments and let us know your preference!

WMV Converter Console (left image), HFP Files (upper right image), Single WMV file with HFP content included (lower right image)

A Clear Skies’ customer recently asked why the WMV created by the “Recording Converter for Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007″ which you can download here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA101215971033.aspx was so big.  This was my reply:

I can see why you might be confused with differences in WMV file sizes.  First, all recordings are available in HFP (High-Fidelity Presentation) format and WMV format, directly from the Live Meeting recording page.  If you are logged in as an organizer in Live Meeting and have download recordings enabled, both formats will be available to you.  However, to see the WMV format as an option, you must be logged in using Internet Explorer browser.

Secondly, this WMV version is smaller because it only captures a flat image of the slides (and does not include builds and animations).  Although it also captures application sharing, it does not capture presenter video, multimedia video, or survey links (if applicable).

And lastly, the “WMV converter” that you used takes the HFP file which includes all the builds and animations, plus presenter video, multimedia video and survey links and converts it into a WMV file with everything still intact.

In general, file sizes increase in size with duration, application sharing, video, and presenter video used.  If you are not using rich multimedia and you can break out your builds into separate sizes, I would advise using the WMV file available from your LM download page.  It will have the smallest file that you need to host.

The Virtual Edge Institute is devoted to helping you plan and produce successful virtual events and meetings that attendees rave about.  Clear Skies was featured in a Virtual Edge article (http://www.virtualedge.org/articles/index/view?id=1651552:Article:4745).  We have pasted the article below:

VirtualEdge talked with Aaron Cole founder and CEO of Clear Skies Virtual Event Producers recently about what has become a common occurrence in the virtual event industry…experienced webcasting and event producers leaving to form new companies to service the growing demand for virtual event and meeting solutions.  Many of the startups have a similar story to Clear Skies, 10 plus years of working in the virtual event and meeting space; in this case, most of the team is from Microsoft Live Meeting where they did extensive webcasting and webinar programs.

“Our existing clients are more of the traditional brick and mortar types of companies versus tech companies and they don’t have the staff and expertise to produce webcasts and more sophisticated events in-house,” said Cole. “We offer a full service model where we provide everything from planning to production and management but there are cases where we just support specific pieces of the event as well.”

Companies are increasingly looking for consultants that have experience across multiple platforms and technologies because there are so many options and a wide variety of meeting types and needs. “We plan to remain platform agnostic so that we can offer our clients the best solution for their event needs. But that is a lot of work –keeping up to date on all of the solutions available—something our clients couldn’t do internally,” noted Cole. “We need to be the ones out there spotting trends and bringing them back to the client because they are just too busy running their business.”

What Clear Skies is looking for now is more interactivity and moving away from the webinar model where people show up, consume the content and leave. “This format had been working pretty well for clients in terms of generating leads but it is time to take it to the next level.”

At Virtual Edge, we think we’ll see more and more of these new firms being born and the continued expansion of digital agencies and event management companies into the virtual event space as their clients marketing and colloboration practices change forever.  See more about Clear Skies at Clear Skies Virtual Event Producers

In our routine travels on the web, we came across one of the best webinar platform comparison tools that we’ve seen: http://www.webconferencing-test.com/en/webconference_home.html . As you have probably discovered, finding a tool that offers an unbiased comparison of webinar technologies can be hard to find. Most of the time, webinar comparison charts are little more than a display ad for a particular platform, and almost all comparisons are sponsored by a specific vendor. Even worse, we’ve seen some comparisons which purposely exclude platforms that deserve to be ranked and tested – therefore leaving us to question the validity and usefulness of the comparison even more.

This comparison website has been assembled by a company named Publicare, an online marketing agency based out of Frankfurt Germany. Publicare has taken 22 web conferencing platforms and ranked them on a scale of 1-10, on various categories: User friendliness, Number and scope of features, Pricing/cost transparency, etc. In addition to a numbered ranking, Publicare posts comments about their testing of the product and provides links to the vendor website, or free trial. Publicare’s efforts have yielded a comprehensive, informed and useful comparison of platforms that can be of great benefit. First time users of Webinar technology will admire the overall ranking system to quickly identify various costs and strengths of platforms, while seasoned webinar jockeys can dig deeper to uncover specific features that may help determine future purchasing decisions.

We should point out that this comparison is aimed at the collaboration use-case of webinars – smaller, less structured environments where collaboration is key (note WebEx MeetMeNow 2.3 is tested, not WebEx Event Center; no distinction is called out between Live Meeting Standard or Professional for example). Our use of webinar technology – the “One to Many” model – therefore is not discussed or ranked. Furthermore, we feel it’s this focus on collaborative environments that has lead Publicare to not include some of the streaming platform providers who are doing business in the “One to Many” world, like ON24, Stream57 or TalkPoint. Finally, the creation and maintenance of this website is funded by affiliate partnerships – if a visitor visits one of the ranked platforms and happens to purchase the software, Publicare receives a small finders fee. Publicare is quick to stress that this financial support does not affect their rankings, but is simply a means to recover some of the cost.

Overall, this is a great comparison tool, and we are grateful to Publicare for their time and efforts. While the comparisons are not an exact match to our business model, they none the less provide valuable information and insight into an otherwise cluttered, and noisy marketplace. Take a look, enjoy, and let us know what you think.

I found the following article very useful in making PC fixes that improve the attendee experience instead of hearing “it’s your internet connection” or it’s a “bandwidth issue”.

Tweaks to Speed Up Internet Streaming Video
By Gaelim Holland

The birth of “Guerilla Video” sites, such as Peekvid.com, Alluc.org and Youtube.com have given users instant access to a plethora of free media files. Although streaming video technology offers instant access to video files, zero loading time is not always possible. There are many factors that attribute to your computer’s ability to start videos immediately. Other factors such as choppy PC video playback and slow video streaming also hinder your viewing experience. There are easy fixes to these problems. Sometimes choosing another site for the source of the video streaming or a lower quality version of the video can award you with instant play. These alternatives are not always available. However, there are a number of tweaks that help speed up your streaming video startup times, eliminate choppy PC video play and stop slow streaming video.

Before we start with the tweaks to speed up slow streaming video, lets get a basic understanding of streaming video technology in order to stop choppy video. Streaming video is a prerecorded video files that can be distributed as part of a live broadcast “feed.” The video signal is converted into a compressed digital signal and transmitted from a Web server. This server is able to be multicast the same file to multiple users at the same time. When you click on the on the video it is partially loaded before you can access it. This is known as “buffering”. This helps you to load and play the video instantaneously. Now lets take a look on how to cut down on buffering time, stop slow streaming video and eliminate choppy PC video playback .

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We have been busy ramping up, testing web-conferencing software, adding service offerings and much more! I hope you noticed our Helpful Gadgets page. The first gadget is a Broadband Speed checker. It tests both your download and upload speeds.  Other factors that may effect presenter and attendee experiences are transfer rates, networks, and latency.  It is also very important to note that your bandwidth speed is affected by what web-conferencing platform you use.  Why?  The short answer: Different web-conferencing platforms have different server locations.  The more servers they have, the more likely one is located closer to you physically.  The better the performance.  More on that later.

First in this post let’s understand what we are talking about. The next post will talk about how to improve performance. And finally, a post to talk about the “why this matters” and how this affects which web-conferencing software platform to use for your online event.

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I attended a webinar hosted on Adobe Connect and presented by Ken Molay, President of Webinar Success and author of The Webinar Blog. He had some very useful information and broke down Webinar production into 9 key steps/segments.  He estimated that typically a new event set-up takes 22-38 person hours to manage and 6-7 weeks to fully prepare.

Here are my quick notes to share (hour estimates in parentheses are based on brand new events/presenters, etc):

1. Plan Your Event (2 hours)
   1. Based on what you are trying to accomplish – this may change your selection and evaluation process
      

      Ken Molay

   2. Roles – Determine Event Staff
      1. Coordinator/Administrator
      2. Moderator
         1. Answering questions
         2. Technical Support
         3. Presenter does not split their attention
      3. Presenters
      4. Marketer
   3. Pick your Dates/Times
      1. Look at time zones
      2. Unlimited events in a certain time period
   4. Create Timelines and Responsibilities
      1. Description/Target Date/Responsible Party/Status
   5. Other Decisions

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It’s important to know that we are serious and dedicated in keeping up with technology. As such, we have registered with Microsoft as a Partner in using their web-conferencing platform, Live Meeting. This does not mean that this is the only platform we will use. However, it does mean that we hold high standards of practice. With that in mind, we are aiming to become a Certified Microsoft Partner.  If you are interested in conducting a customer case study, please let us know.

I attended a free Adobe eSeminar the other day and learned some good techniques to use when presenting a seminar on a web-conferencing platform.

Some good techniques included using:

Anticipation is created with phrases such as “At last…”, “Imagine…”, “…new…”, or offer and award at the end.
Incongruity with a question and a off the wall answer, or surprising facts.
Participation by asking questions, getting attendee involved in polls, unique answers.
Visuals are understood faster by the brain then words, thus saving time. Visuals are more memorable and keep attendees focused. Select graphics that have a lot of details, are abstract, and show contrast.
Vocal Variety by changing melody and pitch at adjectives and adverbs. Use different presenters. Use different emotions.

Bad techniques include:

Starting an introduction about yourself seems self-indulgent (have someone else introduce you, or put the focus on the attendees)
Bulleted slides
Monotone Voice