Webinar stands for Web Seminar or web based seminar. If a seminar is conducted through the telephone it is called a teleseminar and a seminar conducted through a website is called a webinar. The webinar organizer meets the participants online and shares video, powerpoint presentations, slideshows, images, text, audio messages and multimedia messages. The speaker can interact with the participants through audio/video chat as well as text chat. A webcast is different from a webinar. In a webcast there is one way communication and the web meeting enables the organizer to deliver a message as a radio or TV broadcast. But a webinar has interactive two-way communication features and is the preferred tool for online meetings. Webinar can be in the form of a lecture, seminar-cum-workshop, presentation - all these transmitted through the web. Just as in a classroom lecture, seminar or a workshop participants have the opportunity to ask questions, get clarifications and interact with the speaker, in a webinar participants have the facilities to interact with the webinar conductor. In a webcast on the other hand the interactive features are absent and it can be considered similar to a recorded lecture or seminar that others can listen to but cannot interact through active participation.
The audio took over the charm of the text based reading material on the web. The video replaced the audio. Now webinars are taking over as the most important means of communication on the web. People prefer to watch and listen in a webinar rather than just listen and learn from a teleseminar. What with the audio features getting integrated into the web based delivery of web conferencing services, communication has become more effective. The interactive features of the conferencing solution enhances the communication further.
Some of the web conferencing features require the participants to download the software. Some use a web-based application that does not require any downloads. Participants have to just enter a url, login with the details given by the organizer and enter the conference room.
Web conferencing initially stood for a meeting via a message board. With the evolvement of the technology web conferencing also has evolved to mean a synchronous meeting, a meeting conducted when participants meet at the same time. The term has also evolved to mean an interactive exchange with multimedia presentations.
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