I’m currently in a webinar. What that actually means is that another browser tab is showing a big blank where there should be slides, along with the names of people who may or may not actually be seeing the slides I’m not seeing. What should be happening is that we should all be seeing and hearing the same thing, as if we were in, if not a seminar, then at least a lecture.
Maybe I’m not doing it right. I did opt for the browser-based mode of webinar attendance, despite the availability of a download client. But surely, with all the multimedia marvels I can access using a browser, slides plus accompanying voice should be feasible. AT&T, whose technology is powering the webinar, isn’t making it happen for me.
I’ve been in quite a few webinars over the last few years. They rarely work. They have the synchronous restriction that we all have to be in the same virtual room at the same time. But the back-and-forth I’m used to from seminars, conference sessions, etc., of being in the same room at the same time just isn’t there. And sometimes, as right now, there isn’t even the one-way of the slides coming up in order.
Comments are open, especially to people whose experience of webinars is more positive than mine.
I have also been in a number of webinars in the last year, and couldn’t help responding to this, as I am in a webinar right now. Like cellphones, this seems an emerging technology. Perhaps neither should be, but that is my experience; neither works really well, both have problems. But both have benefits. I like the opportunity to attend meetings I otherwise would not be able to, and often get to ask questions or comment. But there is often a glitch at some point in the webinar. I don’t often have the opportunity to be in a tab, and I don’t think I would choose it. It just seems like an chance to get the worse of both worlds, like crashing software.