We recently participated in a pitch in which one of the participants was participating via conference call. The PPT file was a large one, and it contained embedded video which was too large to stream over the Web. We couldn't easily change the files to run on a Windows laptop and WebEx, and because of glitches with between WebEx and the Mac OS, we couldn't simply run our standard Web conferencing solution. And since this was a pitch, we wanted to make sure that we controlled the presentation at our own pace, so we didn't want to send the presentation on CD ahead of time.
While we were thinking through various solutions (one was to run the PPT without the videos, then cut to the Web, where we could view them on YouTube - this was quickly discarded, as is presupposed connectivity, required smaller (or lower quality) videos, and meant that our files would be in the public domain) I said "We need a solution that allows us to stream videos over the Web as part of a conferencing package. The technology just isn't there yet."
That was then (a month ago). This is now (don't you love the speed of innovation in Web 2.0?). TechCrunch featured 1videoConference: Free Open Source Web Conferencing.
While it's still in alpha mode (that's right, hasn't even gotten to beta yet), all eyes are going to be on this one. With a little code you put on your Web site, it allows users to participate in video, voice and text chat and screen sharing Web conferencing. It's the future of video conferencing.
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