Skype Experiences

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Community

What is community? A community, to me, is a place where people with something in common can come relate and interact with each other. Each community is different in that the culture and the members of the community are different. Facebook is a great example of community. Not only is Facebook as a whole a community, but there are interest groups and organization page's you can "like" and be a part of. The social capital you get from Facebook is huge! There is an endless supply of connections you can make. Facebook is every where! You can connect through so many different modes on the internet through your Facebook account. You can link YouTube, Skype, Twitter, and you can even "like" your favorite websites. You can hardly go to a website now and not see a Facebook button on the page somewhere. They may even show you who (people you may or may not know) have "liked" the site via Facebook. The sense of community through Facebook is really, simply amazing.

Hipcast.com

Hipcast.com is a video and audio podcasting site. The thing that is really unique about hipcast is that the information is managed from the cloud. By having all your files stored on the cloud you can access and post information from anywhere, even your phone. Your multimedia is automatically backed up so you never have to worry about losing any information. You can also control your subscriber experience. That means that there will never be advertisements on your blog and you have total control over what your subscribers see. There is no delay between when you post and when your subscribers can listen to your podcast. Hipcast also connects to iTunes. Hipcast prides itself on staying up to date on technology so you have every advantage to be as creative as you want with your blog. There is a 7 day free trial to see if you like it, if you don’t you can cancel your account at any time.

The problem with Hipcast is when you go to their home page it is very over whelming. There are a lot of boxes with different categories with smaller boxes that link to another page that explain even more about that specific topic. This site is not very persuasive. They don’t seem to have a lot of things trying to get you to join. The site seems over whelming and for browsers you may get a lot of information. As a browser I was looking for an example or a tutorial on how it worked. The site didn’t make it too easy for browsers to become transactors. The one incentive was the 7 day free trial of the site.

GoToMeeting

“GoToMeeting: Conduct on-the-fly or scheduled presentations with a prospective customer, perform live demonstrations in real time, collaborate on documents with your colleagues and provide training to customers and employees.” This site I have actually used personally before. This site has three features, Go to Meeting, Go to Webinar, and Go to Training. This site has a 30 day free trial for each feature and after that you can buy it. Each feature has different capabilities it allows. What makes this site interesting is for the training feature you can see all of what the instructor is doing. You see step by step on your computer screen. Go to Meeting is a great tool where you can have a meeting with someone on the other side of the country or anywhere in the world. This cuts cost on travel expenses. The webinar is sort of the same. You may have a something to teach and might not have the demand for it in your area so if you open it up to the country or the world you open it up to a wider population who may be interested in it. This also cuts down on travel costs. http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/

GoToMeeting is intended for worldwide business use. Its purpose is to make travel not a requirement so you can have meetings, trainings, and webinars available all over the world. There can be a high level of interactivity. Presenters can use visuals and audio in their presentations. The level of knowledge to use this technology depends whether or not you are the presenter or the audience. Audience needs a low level of knowledge and the presenter may need a higher level in order to create the webinar or training. The feedback is immediate especially if it’s a meeting; you can see and hear the other side’s opinion. These meetings, trainings, and webinars take place in real time so the presenter is giving the presentation the same time the audience is witnessing it.

This form of communication is two way. Its purpose is to transfer a message to a large group of people. The control is with the company to customize the information to be tailored to their particular needs in that situation. The good thing is that this tool is multimedia capable. There is not anonymity everyone is aware of who is online. The visuals and audio can be webcam conference or watching the presenter demonstrate a new software or whatever the training may be about.

This tool would be good to use to broadcast to college students and technologically advanced businesses. Any client can see a meeting or interact with a training as long as they have a computer and internet access. The company itself may need some training in order to create the webinar or training. You can get the word out via email, newsletters, or on a company website; depending on which feature you are using. The one bad thing with GoToMeeting is that you are reliant on the technology and there can be some glitches and some clients/audience members may not have access to the internet.