Webinato … Soooooooo Close

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Matt Bovell

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated the blog but a new product has arrived on the scene that demands a quick shout-out and a bit of a spanking.

The product is Webinato and it comes from our friends at omNovia. I reviewed omNovia way back two years ago and it is still a player on the webinar platform scene. omNovia offers all your basic webinar functions: polling, slide shows, white board, application sharing plus a couple of innovations: the e-curtain which uses a theater paradigm to keep early webinar attendees out until you’re ready to start showing your slides; and the recast, an enhanced version of webinar recording that allows some degree of real time participation in a prerecorded webinar (such as taking polls or sending comments).

What I’ve always found discouraging about omNovia is a complicated enterprise-oriented pricing scheme that I found expensive and not all that easy to grasp. To the rescue comes Webinato, a slightly less functional version of omNovia with a price point clearly designed to compete with Citrix’s GoToWebinar product. omNovia’s stated goal with Webinato is to offer a webinar platform truly specific for webinars as opposed to collaborative meetings. Hence you won’t find any real time video broadcast and you don’t have application or desktop sharing. The latter is a bit painful in that you might want to demonstrate a desktop app during a webinar. The former is no big loss because as any of you know who have read my stuff before, I don’t place a lot of stock in showing live video of yourself during the webinar. It should be noted that the ability to play YouTube videos during the webinar is still included in Webinato.

So, I mentioned a spanking at the beginning of this piece. Why does Webinato deserve a spanking? The third major feature NOT available in Webinato is the ability to record the webinar. Yes, you read that right. If you want to record your webinar you must upgrade to full blown omNovia. I was absolutely stunned to learn this. One of the most requested features of webinar software is the ability to record webinars for future replay. Considering that Webinato, from a price perspective, is a direct challenge to GoToWebinar, and GoToWebinar has recording capability, you have to wonder what the boys and girls at omNovia are thinking.

This is my guess. As I mentioned earlier, omNovia uses the innovative “recast” method of webinar capture. When you watch an omNovia re-cast, you can participate in polls and make comments. This data is then stored in the back end of the product for subsequent review by the webinar presenter. If you want to post a simple recording of your webinar, you have to actually go into omNovia’s back end and select a recast for conversion into a simple mpeg file. Since all of this is a bit more complicated than a simple straight-to-mpeg approach (like you get with all other webinar platforms), that might account for why omNovia felt recording went outside their price point for Webinato.

Needless to say, I’ve written to my contact at omNovia and requested that simple recording (not recast) functionality be added to Webinato within the current pricing structure. The bottom line is that Webinato is just what the doctor ordered for omNovia fans who don’t like omNovia’s price tag. It comes soooo close to the perfect solution but until recording capability is put back in the product, I predict it will get whupped (or should I say spanked) by the competition.

Posted in Product Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Don’t Turn on that Webcam!

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Matt Bovell

One of the most frequent questions I get asked about webinars is “does the webinar platform allow me to show video of myself during the presentation?” My answer (depending on the platform) is usually “yes it does, and no you shouldn’t.”

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Your animated face on the webinar screen just distracts your attendees from your slides which you’ve worked so hard to make “pop”. It also places a whole new layer of pressure on you, the presenter. You can no longer scratch that itch on your nose. You can’t look down at your notes as frequently as you might want to. And you have a whole new standard of professionalism to live up to.

My friend and colleague Ken Molay, President of Webinar Success, addressed these challenges of video professionalism in his webcast “Image Secrets of the Corporate Webcast“. The folks who hosted this webcast at MediaPlatform then went the next step and created a humorous but deadly serious video based on Ken’s ideas.

So, a hat tip to Ken for featuring this video on his blog and a word of warning to you the reader. Video, if you insist on doing it, is not easy and must be done right or it could sabotage your webinar.

In the comments section below, feel free to share your experiences with video during webinars and webcasts.

Posted in Philosophy, Worst Practices | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Test Drive of AnyMeeting

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Matt Bovell

AnyMeetingIn my previous post, I reviewed MeetingBurner. Another popular free webinar solution that I took for a spin earlier this month was AnyMeeting. Realizing the anxiety that free webinar solutions can inspire in potential customers, the folks at AnyMeeting renamed their product from the prior Freebinar.  While the name change might improve the image, there are still things you need to consider about AnyMeeting before diving in.

Perhaps AnyMeeting’s greatest feature and greatest flaw is that it is free. The reason it is free is that it is advertiser supported. This means your webinar attendees see a vertical banner ad on the right side of the screen during the webinar. As far as I know, you cannot control the content of these ads. When you’re giving a free webinar, I don’t think this is a major problem. Yes, the ad is a minor distraction but when folks are paying nothing for the information they’re getting, they should be a bit understanding that webinars don’t grow on trees. It takes money to make them and ad support is as good a method as any.

The problem arises when you are giving a for-fee webinar. Now the rules take a complete 180. No one who shells out anywhere from $30.00 to $150.00 to attend a webinar wants to see advertisements asking them to spend even more money. It’s the same reason why you don’t charge money for lead-generation webinars. If you’re giving the webinar strictly to sell something, you don’t charge folks for it. It’s just very bad form. No one wants to pay good money for a commercial. So ads appearing on a for-fee webinar is simply a no-no. AnyMeeting offers an ad-free version that you have to pay for. If you’re giving for-fee webinars, I suggest you opt for the ad-free option.

Now let’s talk function. AnyMeeting has a number of the goodies you would expect from a  decent product. You can share your screen (and therefore share presentations, much like GoToWebinar). Folks can listen to your webinar over PC speakers or phone (more about that later). You can run polls. You can record your webinar. You can chat. So AnyMeeting covers the basics pretty nicely.

Here is where I had quibbles:

  1. AnyMeeting does not offer a white board. But then neither does GoToWebinar. HOWEVER GoToWebinar allows you annotate a blank slide, thereby simulating a white board. AnyMeeting does not have annotation tools from what I could see.
  2. I recorded my test and in the recording playback, the viewer is not able to see poll results. All they see is the polling question and the possible answers. They don’t see the percentage results that were entered in the poll.
  3. Ideally, you want to give your audience the choice to either use their PC speakers to listen to your webinar OR dial in via telephone. AnyMeeting cannot use both these options in the same webinar. As a result, for any particular webinar, your audience will only be able to use their PC speakers or dial in. They won’t have a choice. That goes for the speakers/presenters as well. So, let’s say a presenter does not have a quality headset for her PC and wishes to use her phone instead. That means your audience must also use their phones to hear her audio.
  4. Webinar recordings can only be played back from AnyMeeting servers. They cannot be downloaded and then placed elsewhere. The only way around this is the very clumsy method of recording the playback of the webinar using Camtasia and then using that recording.

Considering my maxim of “you get what you pay for”, AnyMeeting probably stacks up pretty decently. I truly don’t believe, if you’re an experienced webinar producer or presenter that AnyMeeting will blow your socks off. However if you are just starting out in the webinar business, AnyMeeting is an inexpensive way to dip your toe in the pool before you move into the big leagues.

Posted in Philosophy, Product Reviews | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

The Frustration that is MeetingBurner

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Matt Bovell

Going against my “you get what you pay for” instincts, I took a peek at a couple of free webinar solutions earlier this month and the one that most intrigued me, and ultimately broke my heart was MeetingBurner.

To understand what may lie at the heart of MeetingBurner’s problem one has to understand its evolution. MeetingBurner was invented by the Rydell brothers (John and Paul) as a natural outgrowth of their small business tool set found at their company Networx Online. Networx Online specializes in simplifying already invented solutions such as faxing (eFax becomes FaxBurner) and conference calling (ConferenceBurner) to make the lives of its small business clientele easier. It’s a noble ambition but sometimes simplifying loses the essence of the model you’re trying to simplify.

Such is the case with MeetingBurner. In an interview with Mashable, the CEO John Rydell calls MeetingBurner a competitor of WebEx and GoToWebinar. Then in the next breath he says the product makes it easier for the small business owner to have web “meetings”. Therein lies the problem. A web meeting is not a webinar. The demands of a webinar are greater. On MeetingBurner:

  • You cannot annotate the slides you are sharing.
  • You have no whiteboard capability.
  • You have no polling.

I am sure the argument Mr. Rydell would make is that these functions unnecessarily complicate the product but experienced webinar producers expect these capabilities. On top of that I have a couple of technical quibbles. Screen sharing launches a control panel pop-up. If you dismiss this pop-up after screen sharing has started, there is no way to get the pop-up to reappear. In other words, you’ve just lost control of your screen sharing. I also found the screen sharing start and stop buttons on the control panel pop-up unresponsive at times. On that last quibble, I’ll give the tool the benefit of the doubt that perhaps my Java wasn’t working properly.

My other quibble is the Skype interface. By clicking on a link, you launch Skype but when you close the meeting your Skype connection remains up and you must independently hang up your Skype session.  I would also have liked to see the product labeled “beta” on the front page. Its beta status is made clear as you dig into the web site.

So you now ask me, “hey you’re the one who says you get what you pay for. What do you expect for free? Considering the cost, it’s a darn good tool.” Well that may be but this is where the heartbreak comes in. If everything I’ve already covered was all MeetingBurner had to offer I could easily chalk it up to “it’s free” and move on. BUT MeetingBurner has two functions that I would consider killer apps.

The first is the ability to automatically post your meeting recordings to YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. With the current focus on easy reuse of intellectual capital, this function is a big winner.

The second is a “Meeting Temperature” gauge. The notion of measuring audience attention is not new. GoToWebinar does it. The trick with MeetingBurner is it uses what I call the focus group metaphor. Have you ever observed one of these focus groups watch a political candidate speak and as they watch, they have a dial that they turn to express their approval or disapproval of what the politician is saying? This is exactly what MeetingBurner has implemented. As the audience watches your webinar they have a slider that they can move left or right to express “cold” or “hot” (or “bored” or “fascinated”). The presenter can see this “heat” measurement during the webinar. But that is not the sexiest part.

Things get really interesting post-webinar. The presenter can go to an analytics page and watch his webinar play back with the temperature showing below the video so he can see where he was pleasing the audience and where he was disappointing them. This same page offers two “mini-videos” that play the hottest 20 seconds and the coldest 20 seconds of the webinar.

And so you see why MeetingBurner leaves me frustrated and heart-broken. We have here an overly simple webinar solution with two killer app functions that most folks would gladly pay for. Well, MeetingBurner is planning to roll out a for-fee version in the near future. Perhaps once they start getting paid, they will beef up the webinar functionality. With that done, combined with the video-publish and Temperature Gauge add-ons, the Rydell brothers may indeed give WebEx and GoToWebinar a run for their money.

Posted in Philosophy, Product Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How to Keep “Cheaters” Out of My For-Fee Webinar

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Matt Bovell

At least twice in the past year I have seen the following question pop up on LinkedIn discussion boards:

“I am giving a fee-based webinar. How do I make sure no one gets in for free?”

My advice: don’t sweat the “cheaters”. Let’s start with your decision to charge a fee. The great preponderance of webinars out there are free admission. Before you decide to charge for yours, you better be darn sure you are delivering a level of depth, expertise and presenter reputation that warrants the price of admission. As I’ve noted in prior posts, Lee Salz has written a great book on giving for-fee webinars and he devotes considerable space to making that free/for-fee decision. It’s worth a read.

So you’ve decided that your webinar meets the standards for charging a fee. Do you know what happens next? One of your attendees, let’s call him George, hooks his laptop up to a large flat screen TV and invites his entire department in to watch the webinar. George paid for his admission “ticket” but the ten other folks in his department did not. There’s not a darn thing you can do about it. So the notion of pay per attendee is out the window from the get-go.

Right off the bat you must acclimate yourself to the notion of pay per connection, in other words, a payment for each individual computer that signs into your webinar.  If all your webinar software does is issue a password, then that password can be shared. So to be completely safe, you want a unique user id and password for each connection. (Many webinar platforms provide this). However even this is not foolproof because if you offer audio via phone, virtually all audio providers only request a passcode. So again, you can have interlopers just listening. You can have operator assisted audio where the operator may ask for identifying information but that will likely cost you more than an automated solution and it will delay entry of your honest attendees into the webinar.

This brings me back to my original advice. Don’t sweat the cheaters. I believe two fundamental truths hold in this case:

  1. Most people are honest. The amount of revenue you gain from honest attendees will far exceed the revenue lost on folks who somehow got through your back door.
  2. There is something to be gained from cheaters that is priceless, namely exposure to your brand. Even if you don’t get their money, they will get your message. They may spread your message to others who will pay for your future webinars. Heck, even the cheater may be so impressed that he or she will pay the next time. One of the biggest benefits of webinars for the presenter is gaining mind-share,  enhancing reputation and expanding influence.

Unless the price of a webinar is the difference between your paying your rent or not paying it, I would suggest you relax about folks sneaking into your production. The time you spend obsessing over security is better spent focusing on quality content that will keep your attendees coming back for more.

Posted in Philosophy | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment