Web conferencing feature sets
As a full-featured solution, web conferencing offers applications to enhance the experience for both presenters and attendees.
Presenter features
- Presentation control – Using a standard PowerPoint presentation, you can run through the slides one at a time so people follow along at your speed.
- Application sharing – This interactive feature lets conference participants use applications on your computer. You can allow them to test an application or edit a document by “passing the controls” to that attendee. When they’re done, you can take control back and pass it to another attendee or continue with your presentation.
- Virtual white boards – Just like those found in executive conference rooms, you can use this tool to jot down ideas and take down notes over the course of the meeting. You can then save your ideas for future reference.
- Screen sharing – Your audience can view anything you want them to see from your desktop whether it’s an entire chart or just a section of a graphic.
- Guided web tours – Allow attendees to view your progression through a web site. This is far easier than providing step-by-step instructions for attendees to get where you want them to be.
- File sharing – Allow everyone to view documents and spreadsheets relating to the presentation all at the same time.
Audience features
- Live chat – Allow attendees to fire quick questions to the moderator, or conduct chats or discussions with one another.
- Q&A sessions – The conference moderator fields questions from the attendees that were submitted during and after the meeting. Presenters can either answer the question for everybody’s benefit, or reply back to the attendee.
- Interactive polls – Presenters can get immediate feedback about presentations or other issues by asking attendees a series of multiple-choice questions. Once the polls are completed, presenters can then compile the results and share them, or use them later for additional research.
- Virtual help – If an attendee has a question, they can ask one of the conference assistants so it doesn’t interrupt the presenter.
Additional features
In addition, web conferencing also provides several other features for you and your audience. While some vendors will include certain features in their standard pricing packages, other features may add to your overall costs. These can include:
- Streaming web-based audio (webinar functionality)
- Web cameras (webcast functionality)
- Attendance monitoring
- Redundancy backup systems
- Secure, encrypted connections
- Detailed reporting
- Recorded presentations (for archives)