You can tell from my post that I am not passionate about this subject. Some people say it doesn’t matter what type of battery you use. I would say for most things you are right. (more…)

I am looking for a web based meeting package that can handle a live interactive multimedia rich presentation for 300+ simultaneous users. I am reviewing many of these systems, and I figured I should write my comments for anyone trying to do something similar. If you are considering this product, I suggest you contact WebEx www.webex.com directly for a demonstration for your unique situation.

Technology:

Webex uses an activeX control that the user must download and install into their browser. While I really am not fond of this concept, they have done a great job with it and it was pretty painless. Obviously activeX only works in Internet explorer, so they are targeting the 90% majority of users who choose IE. (I am told they have a java fall back for people who use other browsers that I did not test. For my purposes, I trusted that it worked as they claimed.) You must also have each user download and install the Windows Media plugin if you choose to use WMV.

Technology: 8 of 10 because I don’t like plugins.

Interface:

I gave WebEx a few marks off here for being what I considered to be too clunky. They have a nice menu based system at the top, but the windows around the edges have lots of “secret buttons” that you don’t know they do something or what they do until you hover over them. A lot of expert level features can be buried in menus or hot-keys instead of icons or “secret icons”. You can rearrange the windows, but the presenter can’t arrange the user windows to look a specific way, or create layout presets for different parts of the meeting. The tab based content was also confusing to me. I wanted to see all the presentation content at once, not have to tab through major elements: video on one tab, slides on a tab, welcome screen on a tab. To me that is not a good work flow for an event. For a collaborative meeting it would be fabulous, but not for a live event. It is too clunky.

4 out of 10 points.

Visuals:

They claim to accept any type or format of document you can give them and convert it to their special proprietary format so that it is accessible by all. They don’t have to have “special software” to participate. Great bit of marketing hype. Here is how it works.

They use a file conversion utility (actually a virtual print driver) that transforms Word, PowerPoint and Acrobat’s PDF format into a JPG. Although this is a smart and seamless way to do it, and saves a step on my end, I give a huge demerit for the concept of converting a relatively small and editable vector based document into a rasterized document that looked grainy, and colors are dissimilar from the original (likely due to color space conversion of my PDF’s). Yuck. It also flattens out all the PowerPoint builds so if you want your points to appear one at a time, you have to make separate slides with the changes. What a waste of time!

The way they handle video is also clunky and archaic. I spoke in detail with the technical department who know HOW this system works, and here is the solution we came to together. In summary here is how you would put a video into a WebEx presentation. I am not talking about the little web cam box, I know about that. Full frame rate, high resolution video next to my presentation is what I need. To have this type of video you must create and host a Windows Media live stream video INDEPENDENTLY of the presentation. No surprise there. You are almost guaranteed to do that anyway. Here is what bothers me. You must then create a complex set of HTML frames one holding the video, the others holding your various content. And then figure out some way (AJAX likely) to signal the HTML frame with your presentation (actually an HTML page with a large <img> jpeg) to “refresh” to the next slide when you click the button on your end. Ok, a little time consuming, but not super hard yet. Here is where it gets tricky. That page can only advance based on where the timeline is on the unsynchronized video players. It must look at the encoder to see the frame number of the “advance” command, pass that to the browser, and it must wait until the player on that machine gets to that frame. *Whew!* Why? Because every user’s player will become temporally displaced based on data transfer rate of your CDN, the users ISP speeds, and what the player’s buffer is set to. Oh yeah, and this will likely only work on PC’s with IE installed and Windows Media Player under a standard configuration. Macs will likely have heartburn with the Windows Media stream. Yeah, I can spend the next 10 weeks developing that system so that I can have video alongside slides.

0 out of 10 points (I would give negatives here if I could)

Audio:

WebEx uses an audio conference bridge line for all the audio for the conference. No surprise there. I have some issues with this type of approach. If you have a video in your presentation, the audio for the video is delivered over the computer speakers, but the audio from the presenter is on the conference bridge. (I am told that webex now has a way to push the computer audio to the conference bridge.) You really want people to use one way of doing it. I am partial to having computer audio rather than a conference line for a live event, but I for sure would not make them do both. Also you must have a phone to your ear for the event. Very not cool if you are doing anything over a few minutes. Sure they can have a speaker phone, and at the office everyone does. How many people at home have a speaker phone next to their computer? I do, but I don’t think it is normal. Again, I would much rather use my computer speakers to listen.

Obviously there are advantages to a conference bridge. The biggest I can see is if you want audience response for something like Q&A. How many people have a microphone attached to their computer? I would say many younger people do, esp if they are into to the SIP VOIP crowd, like Skype. If they don’t, how easy is it to set that up? In my experience, not very. A little off topic, but my mother is my gold standard for usability. Mom is a very bright woman, and she uses computers every day, but she is not high tech. I have found that if my mom can’t do it, then it is likely too hard for the average person.

7 out of 10 points

Final thoughts:

Webex as a content distribution system… Not so much. This software system at the technical core is a teleconference bridge system that over the years has had things added on to it. PowerPoint and video integration are definitely an afterthought. WebEx as a meeting and collaboration system seems to be fantastic, but it is not really intended for live multimedia intensive events though their marketing materials say it is the best there is for live events.

Totals:

Technology:8

Interface: 4

Visuals: 0

Audio:7

Overall score 19 out of 40

Unimpressive for sure, and a little disappointing actually.