The Basics of Audio Conferencing and Web Conferencing
The demand for audio conferencing and web conferencing services is growing at close to 30% a year. Some companies, however, have yet to adopt the technology because they're unsure how it works or how it can benefit their business. Here's an overview of audio and web conferencing and how it can work for you.
Audio Conferencing
Encounter's audio conferencing technology provides crystal clear conference calling for as few as two people or up to thousands. Although there are specific features and options available for your conference calls, teleconferencing can be broken in to two basic categories:
- Two-way Audio Conferencing
- Two-way audio conferencing allows everyone attending the conference call to speak and be heard by all participants
- This type of conference call is best for small groups who need to share information and collaborate
- Encounter's solutions for two-way audio conferencing include Express Audio Conferencing for reservationless calling and Priority Audio Conferencing for recurring meetings
- Encounter's Audio Control Panel let's you control your conference call from your web browser. You can see who is attending your meeting and use features like mute/unmute and call reporting to manage your call without operator assistance
- Broadcast Audio Conferencing
- Broadcast audio conferencing allows the meeting hosts, or presenters, to speak during the conference; attendees are in a listen-only mode
- Presenters can choose to accept live questions from attendees during a broadcast conference
- Both presenter and attendee access broadcast conferences by separate access (or PIN) codes
- Encounter's Audio Control Panel let's you control your conference call from your web browser. You can see who is attending your meeting, facilitate Q&A sessions and use features like mute/unmute and call reporting
- Encounter's broadcast audio solution is scalable to thousands of participants with the option to record your conference calls, schedule an audio moderator to assist with large conferences, assign individual PIN/access codes and more
Web Conferencing
Simply put, web conferencing refers to the combination of traditional audio conference calls and internet-based software that allows people to view, share and collaborate on documents and applications. When web conferencing and audio conferencing tools are combined, meeting presenters and attendees can show and tell, listen and see, and collaborate and communicate just as if they were together at an in-person meeting.
For the most part, web conferencing software can be broken in to two categories: desktop sharing and interactive conferencing.
- Desktop Sharing
- One meeting presenter controls the web conference, showing attendees what's on his or her desktop using a simple interface
- Desktop sharing is best used for smaller web conferences, from 2 to 200 participants
- In addition to simply showing what's on their desktop, presenter's can also use annotation tools to highlight specific features of their presentation
- Interactive Web Conferencing
- Interactive web conferencing allows for multiple presenters to share control of the conferencing tools
- Documents, slides and other visuals that presenters want to show attendees are uploaded to the web conferencing software
- Features available with interactive web conferencing include: audience polling during a live conference, audio question and answer sessions, conference recording and playback and more
- Interactive web conferencing can be used for small collaborative meetings as well as sales presentations, online training, marketing focus-groups, online seminars and other large-scale events
Webinars and Event Conferencing
Webinars and event conferencing refers to formal and professionally managed online events for hundreds or even thousands of participants. Encounter Collaborative's Event Conferencing Services combines the best in audio and web conferencing with professional event management. Encounter's trained Event Managers help you bring your large scale events online. They help you with:
- Marketing
- Registration
- Training for presenters
- Moderation
- Event follow-up
Learn more audio conferencing, web conferencing or event conferencing.
