Participating in a Virtual Conference: Marketing Profs

Categories: Conference, Events, Interactive Marketing, User Experience, VideoPosted on June 13th, 2007

I’m speaking to ~~370~~ (it was over 400) people at a virtual conference today hosted by Marketing Profs. Thanks to Bill Lee, Whitney and David and all the folks at Marketing profs to invite us. They’re using web-based software by Unisfair. It’s an interesting concept as it appears like you’re at a virtual conference. Of course, it takes some time to get used to the interface, but once you find a session you can put it on in the background and go about your work.

I think it’s possible to host your own conference by using slideshare to post your slides, then using ustream (a company I advise) , and camtwist for interaction details. Likely it’s not quite as robust as scalable, but I see this technology quickly becoming common.

It’s interesting how the web is intersecting different industries and conferences, you know about how we went crazy at the Web 2.0 expo with ustream, even in our panels. At some sessions there were more people watching us live on ustream then were actually in the live session.

The web brings conferences to you and connects people. Overall, I was impressed with the experience and put some screenshots below.

Share This Post:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Conference, Events, Interactive Marketing, User Experience, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Hello Jeremiah,

We attended the seminar today and thought it was great! Our first webinar! Enjoyed your social media presentation!

We’re a video production company in New York and we’re also in the midst of a 1 year old online VideoZine start up, so we’re juggling so many tasks. As a result, it’s sometimes difficult to set aside time to attend conventions, network with peers, etc. This online webinar allowed us to view presentations, download info, and I think we can go back and review webcasts that we missed due to other tasks at hand, so this is truly the way to go!

We create online video, so the only thing I missed was live streaming of the presenters speaking to us!

But it was all good! Thanks so much!
Hudson Valley Web TV

Posted by Irene on June 13th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Thanks Irene

I too believe that video can really add a lot to online presentations.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 13th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

Dear Jeremiah,

I attended your session today and it was very informative and useful. I would like to learn all I can about social networking… can you please point me to good places to start.

Thanks for all the great info.

Zepur

Posted by Zepur on June 13th, 2007 at 6:17 pm

Wow, just what the world needs, marketing dweebs high on Powerpoint, now totally ubiquitous. Where can I sign up for that? Sorry I missed it, I was buying some video equipment from one of those irrelevant corporate websites.

Posted by Christopher Coulter on June 14th, 2007 at 12:19 am

Click on the “Web strategy” or “Social Media” categories on the right, there’s tons of info here.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 14th, 2007 at 4:40 am

Christopher,

Marketing folks aren’t dweebs, they’re far more sophisticated. Were you buying the equipment directly from a manufactures site or from a etailer?

Don’t tell me you made that decision directly from that corporate website alone, sheesh.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 14th, 2007 at 4:41 am

Direct, they don’t middle-man etail. And actually yes, specific item, compared spec’s from another product that I already own, and it bested it, new product, better features. Gasp, the horror, I did it all without consulting any bloggers or getting social and wasting time with the YouTube-Digg like commenter “wisdom”.

I brought my own experience to the table, sure, but yeah that corporate web site worked. If it doesn’t product goes back, simple as that. SOME corporate sites are indeed pointless, but not all. And one reason why you should structure the site for informed consumers too.

Anyways, knock em dead, in Singapore. Best of luck.

Posted by Christopher Coulter on June 15th, 2007 at 3:37 pm

Chris

No you’re right. people trust their own experiences above all. Next in line is people “like me”. You’re falling directly in that logic.

The thing is, people may not have as much direct experience with a product that is new, and that’s where crowds like me help.

Thanks for the support Chris, it’ll be fun.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 15th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

[...] It was quite a convenient experience to attend a virtual conference set up by Marketing Profs on B2B Marketing Wednesday this week. At the same time, the most valuable parts of the arrangement is the ability to download presentations right away and the ability to listen the recorded sessions afterwards! Great value! Saves time, provides flexibility and shares content freely at no charge. More about a similar positive “user experience”, check Jeremiah’s post. [...]

Posted by Relevancy Marketing, Takeaways from the Marketing Profs B2B MKTG Virtual Conference : memesponge.com on June 17th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

[...] I spoke at a recent Marketing Profs online seminar, it was a unique virtual conference, they’ve got a lot of other events, both virtual and in person so swing by to learn more. [...]

Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » Marketing Profs Redesigns –Lookin’ good on July 2nd, 2007 at 5:44 pm