Webcasting Reprieved At Last Minute

In punishment terms, it’s a stay of execution, not a pardon.

Encouraging news emerged from Washington at a last-minute hearing on new royalty rates to be charged to online radio websites. The proposed increases prompted a host of webcasters, like Yahoo and Pandora, to say the higher rates would shut down their webcasting efforts.

Wired reported on the change of heart from SoundExchange during a closed door meeting in Washington:

The SoundExchange executive [Jon Simson, executive director] promised — in front of Congress — that SoundExchange will not enforce the new royalty rates. Webcasters will stay online, as new rates are hammered out.

The amazing turnaround comes shortly after the DC District Court of Appeals declined to act on a petition for delay for the July 15th deadline to enforce the higher royalty rates. SoundExchange and webcasters now have the groundwork for negotiating a more equitable rate schedule.

Until that happens, the threat to online radio has not ended. Pandora founder Tim Westergren told Wired that public efforts to bring the matter to the attention of members of Congress evidently worked, and credited the change in circumstance to web radio listeners who contacted their representatives in DC.

Webcasters staged a day of silence on June 26 to protest the rate hikes, arguing that they could be put out of business. Though the silent message was sent loud and clear, the CRB doesn’t appear to have been listening, and so far, neither have the powers that be.

The likelihood that Congress will pass legislation to nullify the hikes, proposed in both the House and Senate, in the next four days seems slim, but that hasn’t stopped numerous organizations from pleading for citizens to contact their legislators to push it through.

Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN), the group that organized the day of silence, has filed an emergency stay with US Court of Appeals in the hopes to delay the hikes until Congress can pass legislation.

Independent radio station SomaFM is trying to rally the troops as well and says that the royalty rate hikes amounts to a 3000% increase in costs, with royalties costing them as much as $600,000 for 2006.

"Our costs for music are set to go up 30 times what they used to be. Even if we’re playing the same songs. That doesn’t make any sense at all," says Rusty Hodge, Founder and General Manager of SomaFM.com. "The RIAA’s refusal to make a reasonable settlement with small commercial webcasters is an insult.

"The RIAA keeps saying that most webcasters are billion dollar companies, but with the exception of AOL, Yahoo and Real, most of the top-20 music webcasters are privately-held, independent operations. The RIAA is willing to let independent webcasters be the collateral damage in their battle to extract more control over the large webcasters."
 
Some have argued that those same large corporate presences have been dragging their feet in the fight, willing to let Sunday’s deadline weed out competition. After that, they can begin waging lawsuits, a luxury smaller entities won’t have.

The Seattle Times has called the CRB’s rate hikes an "assault on one of the last escapes from bland commercial radio." The editorial also notes that it will not just be small Internet radio stations, but also public broadcasters that stand to suffer. 

Television does it with their countdown shows and websites do it with lists: "AFI’s 100 Greatest American Movies" or "VH1′s 100 Greatest Kid Stars."

And Darcy offers evidence that he spends too much time in supermarket checkout aisles by demonstrating that popular mass market magazines use the trick on their covers all the time.

The idea of an enumerated list of pointers seems to appeal to us as audiences. We know that there is a finite limit to the information we’ll be receiving and that it has been structured and organized, giving us hope that it will be more informative and useful. We also seem to enjoy the challenge of guessing what might be on the list and comparing our ideas with those of the presenter.

Why not give this a try the next time you need to promote a webinar? Instead of a title like "Xycomeginy Software Release 5.0 – New Features," you could make it sing by combining an audience perspective with a list: "8 Ways The New Xycomeginy Release Benefits You."

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]]> http://www.webpronews.com/using-numbers-for-effective-presentations-2007-04/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/forrester-releases-webcasting-report-2007-01 http://www.webpronews.com/forrester-releases-webcasting-report-2007-01#comments Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:56:48 +0000 Ken Molay http://www.webpronews.com/?p=34668 Forrester Research just released a new report by Claire Schooley on the use of webcasts in large organizations. ]]> Forrester Research just released a new report by Claire Schooley on the use of webcasts in large organizations.

It’s a rather high level introduction to the topic, going all the way back to the differences between a webcast and a collaborative web conference.

Forrester interviewed 13 vendors for the report: Accordent Technoloies, Adobe Systems, Avacast, Interactive Video Technologies (IVT), Media Publisher, ON24, Online Video Service, Reflect Systems, Sonic Foundry, Streamlogics, TalkPoint Communications, Vcall, and Vodium.

The report costs $380 if you don’t already have a Forrester contract covering this research area. It is 13 pages long. I obviously can’t go into too much detail about the content, as I would be violating copyright and giving away information they are selling. A lot of the content concerns definitions and basic background, such as a simplified example of what a webcast interface might look like to a viewer. That seems like something you could get pretty quickly by simply attending any random webcast promoted on the Internet!

The report goes into more detail on the subject of hosted versus on-premise installed software for producing webcasts, but doesn’t get into the nitty gritty of associated costs and technical considerations when going the on-premise route. There are some large matrix tables of features and services offered by various technology vendors.

Interestingly (and refreshingly), Forrester offers a money-back guarantee on the order page. If you are not completely satisfied with your research document for any reason, you can return it for a full refund within three weeks of your online purchase. That’s risky business practice for a product that can be read for the information value and then returned with no loss to the customer, but it shows good integrity by Forreseter.

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With a background in software development and marketing, Ken has been producing and delivering business webinars since 1999. His background in public speaking, radio, stage acting, and training has given him a unique perspective on what it takes to create a compelling and effective presentation. Currently Ken offers consulting services through his company Webinar Success (www.wsuccess.com).

Hi, we are looking to find a new vendor for webcasting services but we are looking for more than just the basic functionality of an 0N24. We’ve used Globix, Unisfair, LiveMeeting, & Webex in the past but I wanted to know your other opinions about vendors such as Bulldog Solutions. Is it worth the extra money? Do they have any competitors?

I think the issue is interesting enough to get its own post.

When you select a webinar technology vendor, you should expect some level of technical support as a given, as you would with any software application. But after that basic requirement, what can you expect in the way of extra services? Many vendors aren’t set up to assist their clients with marketing, event production, promotion, recording, and so on. Others offer extra-fee consulting services to cover some portion of these needs (the most common vendor services are for event production, such as creating registration pages and customizing your interface look and feel). Then there are resellers and service companies that provide added value services packaged around a particular technology.

I have written about two of the better known webinar service providers in this blog back in days gone by. It is a bit dangerous for me to speak for them, as I have no formal relationship with either, but here’s my take:

Bulldog Solutions concentrates on the lead generation aspect of a webinar campaign. They offer a great deal of assistance with event promotion, boosting attendance rates, follow-up, and so forth. I just took a look at their home page and I see that they have repositioned themselves as “a lead optimization and lead management company dedicated to helping our clients generate more, better leads and turn them into revenue.” They have moved their mention of webinars into a more general paragraph stating that they will work with campaigns involving webinars, podcasts, white papers, physical events, and rich media.

I know that in the past, Bulldog has acted as a reseller of specific web conferencing technologies bundled as part of a total campaign management contract. Looking at their website, I see that they currently list technical requirements for using WebEx, Placeware (the old name for Microsoft Live Meeting), and Democast — which Bulldog apparently acquired and which I am unfamiliar with.

KRM Information Services assists a different part of the industry. They concentrate on helping clients deliver fee-based events such as lectures, educational sessions, and other “high value content” presentations. KRM works exclusively with WebEx as their conferencing technology and they put great emphasis on the telephone audio quality associated with an event. They maintain a sophisticated on-site telephone mixing and recording studio in their midwest offices and they provide on-air support and operators for events. They use a variety of technologies to create turnkey packages for handling payment processing and registration for an event, recording and editing at high quality, with DVD or CD file distribution, and so on.

Both KRM and Bulldog can certainly offer great value if your needs mesh with what they are set up to do best. They will run your webinar-based program from start to end and relieve you of a lot of pressure and time. Obviously you’re going to pay for the wide range of services offered and only you can determine whether the final numbers are cost effective for your particular situation. If you don’t need the end-to-end management they provide, you may feel overcharged.

I recently talked with Bob Hanson at Quantum Leap Marketing. You asked about alternatives to Bulldog Solutions, and this might be one company to check with. Quantum Leap covers many of the same areas of webinar marketing, promotion, and lead generation. I don’t have a pricing comparison.

After the full service campaign management companies, you get the dedicated webinar service providers. I’m really only familiar with three companies in this niche. One is my company, Webinar Success. Another is Corvent. The third is 1080 Group. 1080 Group seems to use a structured formal program for coaching “do it yourself” webinar producers. Webinar Success and Corvent use a model that allows a client to pick and choose the areas where they need specific help. For some companies, this means figuring out which technology vendor to go with and setting up some basic guidelines and best practices. For others, it means assistance with content production or refinement, speaker training, or on-air moderator services. I don’t know how Corvent sells their services. Webinar Success takes the approach of offering a la carte choices for any specific service desired. We can zip in, help you cover an area that needs help and remove some of your task burden, and then get out again quickly. My goal is to ensure that there is never a question about value for your services dollar.

You may also want to check out value-add resellers of specific technologies. These companies often provide some set of services in conjunction with the use of the underlying conferencing software. One example is Clarix, which sells Adobe Connect and offers services such as customization and software training. Another is CatwalkConference, which serves IBM Lotus web conferencing customers.

I don’t think it’s even theoretically possible to give a blanket answer to “Is it worth the extra money?” It must be worth it to some companies, or these providers wouldn’t be able to stay in business! What you should be able to glean from this long response is that for any need you may be feeling, you can find a provider to help you with it. Prices definitely vary by a wide range, so it’s worth doing comparisons. And most importantly, make sure you are getting the type and amount of help you need. Everyone takes a slightly different approach to their services and you want to find the one that is going to fit comfortably with your requirements.

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With a background in software development and marketing, Ken has been producing and delivering business webinars since 1999. His background in public speaking, radio, stage acting, and training has given him a unique perspective on what it takes to create a compelling and effective presentation. Currently Ken offers consulting services through his company Webinar Success (www.wsuccess.com).

This is an evolutionary progression in interactivity and “media richness” of web advertising. First we just had static text and graphics with a hyperlink to another page. Then we added the ability to scroll through several images in the ad. This was followed by animated graphics, flash interactivity (the famous “hit the monkey” type games), and video clips embedded in the banner area. ON24 upped the ante a while ago with Bannercast On-Demand, which not only plays a recorded webcast, but allows user interaction through registration, navigation tools (jump to a slide), Q&A (through a type-in panel that emails the question to the company), and hyperlinked resources (such as web pages and files for download). You can see an example at the bottom of the Bannercast page I hyperlinked in the second sentence above.

The new Bannercast Live offering uses the same interface and delivery mechanism, but is able to show a webcast taking place in real time. ON24 says they developed this version in response to a request from their client, Cisco Systems. Cisco is trying out the new product to see how it works for them.

There are two key benefits in offering your webcast live. The first is that the presenter can see and respond in real-time to audience questions. The second is the subtle but real psychological difference in attention that you get when your audience knows you are really there, and that they aren’t just watching a recording. People stay tuned in longer and accept little flubs that they expect to see edited out in a recording.

I asked Kim Ryden and Cece Salomon-Lee (responsible for ON24 marketing and PR) about the potential downside of Bannercast Live. Since people aren’t planning on attending the webcast, but instead just happen to see it pop up as an ad on a web page where they were planning to do something else, isn’t it harder to capture an audience? And since many people will join somewhere in the middle of the presentation, it is hard to make sure that all viewers get the full content you want to deliver, set up in the proper context. They acknowledged this, but said that the idea is more useful as a way to gain attention and awareness. Cece saw the typical uses as being applied to major corporate announcements, product launches, and things where the key message can be summarized quickly. A webcast is more compelling and engaging than a typical graphic ad.

They also pointed out that the audience doesn’t have to take a proactive step of clicking through to another website and losing their place. Everything is presented right on the page they were already visiting. Web page providers like it because it keeps visitors on their site for longer periods of time and doesn’t hijack them to another location. ON24 tells me that the webcast bandwidth goes through their Content Delivery Network so it doesn’t add congestion and overhead to the web page provider’s server.

If you look at this sample graphic of a Bannercast on a mock-up web page (supplied by ON24), you’ll see that the real estate needed for the viewer makes it more appropriate for square banners placed next to text or lower on the page, rather than thin strips at the top of a page. That’s a fairly common approach nowadays.

I’m still a little skeptical about the practical aspects of getting a clear message out in a webcast when you have no idea at what point audience members may be catching your content. I am much clearer on the benefits of Bannercast On-Demand, where you know that people are seeing your message from the beginning. But it’s a brave new world of interactivity out there, and this may turn out to be a useful (and certainly innovative) option for specific business cases. I’ll be interested to see how Cisco does with their experiments and what kind of adoption ON24 sees for the new product.

I’ll say this for ON24… They have found a fascinating way to extend what can be done with webcasts/webinars and they are offering their customers an alternative to the conventional scheduled event format we have all come to expect. I like the way they are thinking outside of the box (cliche alert) to bring more choices to the market. And heck, you can still use them for a standard webcast if you want!

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With a background in software development and marketing, Ken has been producing and delivering business webinars since 1999. His background in public speaking, radio, stage acting, and training has given him a unique perspective on what it takes to create a compelling and effective presentation. Currently Ken offers consulting services through his company Webinar Success (www.wsuccess.com).

WebmasterRadio.fm brings you Power Source, a webcast that will feature Mayer and Zawodny that will also be available as a podcast. Search Engine Watch reported on the new show, which begins December 21st at 8 pm ET.

The WebmasterRadio site provided a description of the new show:

The monthly show has been a project WebmasterRadio.fm pursued for over a year, Zawodny posted in his blog:

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Slept in on Sunday? Missed out on Tim Russert and the guest of the week? At 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, the web version of the show will be available on MSNBC.com. MediaPost reported.

One key concern for MSNBC will be finding someone to sponsor it on a long-term basis. Kyoo Kim, VP sales for MSNBC.com, said in the report they might want to find someone interested in supporting the whole Meet The Press area of the website.

Breaking up the webcast with advertising, like a typical TV program, was the approach MSNBC.com took with “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.” They have discarded that approach in favor of running a single advertisement before the webcast begins, and the site plans to do the same with Meet The Press.

MSNBC.com likely hopes to extend the success of its podcast of Meet The Press. The report said that 90,000 monthly downloads of the podcast took place in November. Podcasts do have a portability advantage that webcasting doesn’t have yet.

Apple’s video iPod may push webcasting demand as its products are adopted and imitated, and rights concerns from content producers and members of the creative process get addressed to permit portability of webcasted content.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.