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Posted by john4321 on 07/24/06 04:54
http://www.shopzero.net/article/videoconferencing/45902.php
First, a small disclaimer: No matter how you slice up conferencing
solutions, the categories you use to group them are mutable and subject
to instant revision. Combinations of various elements make some
applications basically impossible to categorize. Depending on how you
look at it mail lists are even a form of conferencing and so is email.
Real-time versus asynchronous is even becoming blurred as text, audio
and video merge in varying combinations.
That said and out of the way, lets look at some of the ways
conferencing solutions are categorized.
1. Real-Time Conferencing. Real-time conferencing refers to synchronous
communications such that the participants are concurrently virtually
present and able to actively interact as if they were physically
co-located. Some typical and common applications are instant messaging
and interactive chat, participatory webinars, interactive webcasting,
online interactive teleseminars.
Now these are primarily web-based, however the old-time telephone
conference call is still widely used. Call-in teleseminars are also
common. Today however, they are merging into web applications as VoIP
services with gateways into landline telephone systems become widely
available.
2. Video conferencing is generally considered separately because it is
a far more bandwidth intensive activity. To achieve reasonably
acceptable simultaneous live video and audio, you need serious
bandwidth. And the more active participants involved the more serious
the problem becomes. Internet chat services with webcams are one rather
simple form of video conferencing that's quite popular for individual
person-to-person links, but clearly not of sufficient quality to use
for business purposes or for larger groups. Some video conferencing is
one-way video with interactive audio. Others require high-speed
networks or dedicated connections. High-end solutions may work well for
large corporations because of the savings involved in reducing travel
expenses and time lost from productive work.
3. Forums, message boards, bulletin boards and so forth. These are
asynchronous forms of conferencing or discussion solutions. Even blogs
and wikis may, at times fall into this category. Generally these are
linear or threaded, topic centered meeting places with chronologically
tagged sequential entries that make up a discussion. Some prefer the
linear mode as being easier to use and follow while others insist that
threaded tree-like structures often more scope and the ability to
develop sub-topics integrated into the main topic. Whatever one's
preference, these are excellent solutions given the nature of the
evolving internet and the need for participation by persons in time
zones spread across the world. Real-time communications can be a burden
when day/night cycles are offset by large amounts. Forums, with their
purpose centered focus can develop extensive and dedicated communities
which can be a source of extremely valuable knowledge and experience.
4. Collaborative team- or group-based work environments. These kinds of
solutions can also include on-line virtual classrooms in several forms.
The most sophisticated of these solutions include both real-time and
asynchronous modes with audio, video, messaging and conferencing
built-in. While some of this software is in use over the internet
(again, some collaborative workspaces have been developed based on
blogging platforms and even forum software is sometimes used this way),
the more resource intensive versions are generally used on dedicated
networks and intranets with high bandwidth. Many of these applications
are oriented more toward in-house corporate uses.
So, do you suppose this covers it all? Just those four areas reflect a
huge growth of the available modalities for conferencing and meeting
over only a few years ago. Remember the old landline conference call?
Once it was a major deal to be able to add a third person to a phone
call. Now you can spend months just researching available solutions.
And this really doesn't even touch systems such as desktop video
conferencing, the extensions of phone conferencing and the interaction
of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services with all forms of web
conferencing. Attending teleseminars in foreign countries, once
prohibitively expensive for many, is now an accessible alternative with
low-priced VoIP gateway services that allow fixed price calls to any
landline or mobile phone.
As internet service continues to increase in speed and decline in
price, the utility of these kinds of conferencing solutions will
continue to expand. The growth of the cybersphere and the elaboration
of purpose driven and affinity communities on the internet will
continue to drive the development and integration of conferencing and
communication software and services. In a very real sense conferencing
software is at the heart of the new realities that the explosive growth
of internet usage in every corner of the world is creating. These are
social applications and they are changing how people live, interact and
view each other.
There is yet another form of widely used "conferencing" software which
is rarely mentioned in this connection. Multi-user, real-time, online
games of all types from role=playing to live gambling (play poker with
your friends, live roulette, etc.). Some of these systems are highly
sophisticated and a lot of people love them. Their attraction lies not
only in the ability to vicariously be someone (or something) else or to
do things that may not be available locally, but in the social
interactions and the communities that develop. While surfing is pretty
much an unsocial activity, people are social creatures and the
popularity of all types of solutions offering interactive contact and a
sense of community reinforces this.
Marketing use of audio conferencing in the form of teleseminars and
pre-recorded audio streams have undergone tremendous growth in the last
year alone. Bandwidth still limits the quality of the video that's
often used with pre-recorded audio to fairly static material. But this
is changing as compression and streaming technologies improve. The
major breakthrough that's still to come is the technology to
effectively and affordably do, first, one-way live high quality video
and beyond that live interactive multi-way video over the internet. If
it seems like a difficult, perhaps impossible task, think again about
what's happened in the last five years. And the future is arriving
faster all the time.
http://www.shopzero.net/article/videoconferencing/45902.php
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