When collaborating about work to be done, how would you rate online meetings in your company? ¨

• Less than face-to-face.
• About the same as face-to-face.
• Better than face-to-face.

No online meeting will be as warm and comfortable as meeting face to face, such as to go out to lunch together or meet after work. But when people collaborate about the work, if your virtual meetings aren’t at least as collaborative as face to face, or even better, then you could be missing a 36 percent increase in performance of people that do. (Meetings Around the World, 2006)

There are times when you need to be able to talk with individuals in other locations, both for personal reasons and for business. To convey simple messages you might choose to use a telephone, cellular phone, or even send an e-mail… unfortunately these methods are only effective if you don’t need to interact with the parties involved directly or be able to present visual information to them or view what information they might have to show you. In situations such as that, you may find that multi-point video conferencing can be just what you need.

Why Should Your Company Use Unified Messaging?

Unified messaging is rapidly growing in popularity among businesses and private individuals alike, and for good reason: by using a unified messaging system, it’s possible to receive a number of different types of messages through a single access point instead of needing a different type of access for each message. This can be especially advantageous for businesses, as it allows them to reduce the amount of equipment that they need while making their communications systems much more efficient. If you have been considering switching your company to unified messaging but are wanting to make sure that it’s right for your business needs, then consider the following in order to see whether this is the messaging solution that you’ve been looking for.

If you are a corporation in search of disaster recovery networking solutions, a first responder who may need connectivity from anywhere at any time, or you simply need broadband internet connectivity from remote locations you have probably considered that satellite may be your only reliable option. In the midst of a disaster many businesses and first responders may find themselves without communications of any kind due to the loss of terrestrial infrastructures, or the lack of it ever existing in the first place.

When most people think of online video, they think of viral videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites. While viral video can generate plenty of traffic, it’s not the only way online video can benefit your business. An online video series on your website can build your credibility, attract viewers, deliver a sales message, and keep customers coming back for more. Here are five tips for making effective use of online videos on your business website.

When implementing video conferencing capabilty many businesses are more focused on the make-up of the video suite itself…..and assume that DSL bandwidth is sufficient for their network backbone. Whether this be an existing network or intended new install…..assuming that DSL is sufficient to support your requirements may be shortsighted. Beware, there’s more out there to consider.

Before “jumping to conclusions” it’s important to consider all of your options….and how each may best (or not) support your video conferencing needs.

Video conferencing isn’t necessarily a new technology, but it has come a long way since it was first introduced and for the most part makes good use of the new technologies that have been introduced in recent years. By allowing people to communicate either with video and audio or video and text, video conferencing serves a number of purposes in business, as well as for personal use and even use by groups as diverse as the court system and NASA.

In order to understand how video conferencing works, however, it’s important to take a moment to learn how the technology first came about and how it has been adapted over time to meet the needs of businesses and consumers.

Video conferencing is the technique of conducting a conference between two or more participants at different sites irrespective of their demographic locations by using computer networks to transmit audio and video data. For example, a point-to-point video conferencing system works much like a video telephone, between two people only. Each participant has a video camera, microphone, and speakers mounted on his or her computer. As the two video participants speak to each other, their voices are carried over the network and delivered to the other’s speakers, and whatever images the video camera captures appear in a window on the other participant’s monitor. The other technique is multipoint videoconferencing. Multipoint video conferencing allows three or more participants to sit in a virtual conference room and communicate with the other participants of the video conference as if they were sitting right in front of you or next to each other. Technology that existed up to the mid 90s, made costs of video conferencing prohibitively expensive for most organizations, but that has changed drastically. Many experts and businessmen are of the belief that video conferencing will be one of the fastest-growing segments of the computer industry in coming years.

Though most people think of business environments when they think of video communication technology, the court system actually makes good use of interactive video technology by using video depositions for those who are unable to make their way to court or for those who are incarcerated at the time. Video deposition allows witnesses to make statements from other cities, it lets inmates enter pleas without having to be taken to the courthouse, and it even allows individuals to speak before the court while protecting their identity (such as in a case where a minor needs to testify but their face is obscured.) Video deposition has brought an entirely new level of safety and convenience to trials, and will continue to make a major impact on trial proceedings in the future.

Over the last couple of years we have seen a boom in demand for online videos. Broadband users have had access to websites like “youtube.com” who were formed in 2005 and become so popular that Google Inc bought them for $1.65 Billion. It has allowed broadband users to view thousands of videos online at the touch of a button.

Due to the popularity of this type of service, we have seen the introduction to the likes of Channel 4s online service 4oD (4 on Demand) in 2006 which offers broadband users to view a limited number of programmes recently shown on channel 4 at high quality. It is also has the feature of downloading full movies from as little as £1.99.