Conference Call Savings

The denizens of hi-tech like to throw around buzz words. Thirty years ago hardly anything was called “high-tech” or even “hi-tec,” but now it seems even kid’s toys have embraced technology and trademarked buzz words. High-tech, once an obscure buzzword itself, is now so commonly in use that it has a nickname (hi-tec) that we all take for granted.

Web conferencing is no different. Once you swim in the world of computerized long-distance meetings, you start to forget that terms that are now completely obvious are actually double-dutch to many people. You find yourself looking at sites talking about web-conferencing, video-conferencing, and audio-conferencing and wondering, “What does it all mean?” “Doesn’t web conferencing also involve the use of video?” “Doesn’t web conferencing also involve the use of audio?”

This is my point. While both video-conferencing and web-conferencing use video, they are far from being the same thing. But in the world of Internet buzzwords, the two often get confused — and you can start to wonder why the same thing is being given different names. Video conferencing does just what it says: video and, if you manage to wire things correctly, audio will also get transmitted, and people in different places can talk while pretending to be Hollywood directors.

Web conferencing however, goes beyond that. In web conferencing, you can take control of someone’s screen and make them spend five minutes watching Timmy try to hold a cup in his bath while sending them text messages at the same time. Unlike video conferencing, the video they watch need not be live, it could be a recording of your holiday in Jamaica. The best part of web conferencing is that it does not have to be a video — it could be an Excel chart, a PowerPoint presentation, or five minutes of you trying to find Jamaica on Google Earth. That is the great advantage of web conferencing.

Yes, it is similar to video-conferencing — but the point is that it can do a whole lot of things that video conferencing cannot. It is — quite literally — on a higher plane. If you wish to worship at the altar of high technology, then video conferencing is simply not sufficiently hi-tech. What you need is web conferencing. And the beauty of the whole thing is that video-conferencing frequently involves far more complex and expensive machinery. This is one of the wonders of our modern, technological age — it is not the size of your tool that counts but the simple, flexible purposes for which it can be used. And quite often, the small (or even Microsoft) is truly beautiful.