What is Web Conferencing?

To explain what Web conferencing is in its simplest format is that it enables multiple users to log onto the Internet and set up a real time, typed conversion by means of the online World Wide Web.

Web conferences are useful for group meetings or live Internet presentations. Early in the Internet’s history what Web conferencing was, also referred to as computer conferencing, simply meant that groups had discussions with message boards and posted text messaging. Now a Web conference means a synchronous or live meeting. Posted messaging is now referred to as a forum, a bulletin board or a message board.

In a Web conferencing environment, each attendee sits at her or his own PC or laptop, connected to other attendees by the Internet. The most basic Web conferencing service is screen sharing, which allows each attendee to see what is on the computer screen of the presenter. These Web conferencing services generally also include communication by voice either by way of standard telephone conferencing, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Some Web conferencing services use text chatting instead of voice participation.

There are really two types of Web conferencing services and presentations. The first is called a Webinar, the second a Webcast.

Webinar is just what it sounds like - a seminar that is conducted over the Internet. Webinar services offer interaction between the seminar presenter and other participants in the audience. A Webinar is conducted live, which means that the information is presented according to a pre-planned agenda that has a designated time to start and to end. In most Webinars the presenter is speaking on a standard phone line, pointing out information to participants by way of their computer screen, while the participants in the audience respond over their own phones.

A Webcast, in contrast, delivers information in one direction only. There is a presentation by Internet but attendees do not participate other than to watch. Standard Web conferencing features and services include slide presentations created by programs such as PowerPoint, sharing of applications and which may or may not allow participants to manipulate, group browsing by Web, annotations which allows the presenter to mark or highlight displayed items, file sharing capabilities as well as surveys and polls. Some Web conferencing services also provide software that records the conference for playback after the conference.

What are becoming increasingly popular with Web conferencing users are the incorporation of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and the use of Web cams to provide live video. The boundary between video conferencing and Web conferencing solutions and services are blurring to the point that the term video conferencing may all but disappear.

Web conferencing services offer hosting on the vendor’s server, and are priced either by usage - i.e., a per user per minute flat charge) or for a flat fee per seat. Some Web conferencing services are sold as a license to firms that have extensive need for Web conferencing. This allows these companies to install the Web conferencing software on their own servers.

Knowing the history behind Web conferencing helps us understand what Web conferencing is. Early in the history of the Internet there were brand new real time services for text chatting. Around 1995 instant messaging and Web chatting software was introduced. Microsoft, with the help of DataBeam, introduced NetMeeting a couple of years later. This free Web conferencing application allowed communication between participants. DataBeam was the vendor that introduced the first commercial Web conferencing server in 1996. Another vendor, Workspot, introduced a live desktop share service for Linux in 1999.

Soon after dozens of Web conferencing vendors entered the market, the best known of which are Placeware, GoToMeeting, Cisco, Elluminate, Macromedia, Interwise, Premiere Global Services, and Oracle. IBM purchased DataBeam in 1998 by way of Lotus Software, and renamed it Sametime. In 2003 Microsoft bought Placeware, renaming it Microsoft Office Live Meeting and phasing out its support for the early NetMeeting Web conferencing product.

The technologies involved in Web conferencing services have not yet been standardized. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which develops and promotes standards for the Internet, established a Web conferencing standard in 2003. The goals of this standardization include authorization and membership control; manipulation and description mechanisms for topology and mixing of media for multiple types - audio, text and video; notification of Web conferencing events and changes of events; and a basic protocol for floor control.

The IETF is a volunteer organization and has no formal membership or requirements for membership. Many working groups are organized under the IETF umbrella, each one focusing on a specific topic such as the Web conferencing services standards, and then shutting down when the work on the topic is completed. Each topic has a chair or co-chairs, a charter describing its focus and its timeline and expected results.

The IETF works under the auspices of the Internet Society (ISOC), an international Internet oversight organization formed in 1992. The standardizations of Web conferencing and Web conferencing services devised by the IETF have yet to be put into place.