Twebinar #1
June 26th, 2008 by GCI Canada StaffI just attended the world’s first Twebinar which was organized by Chris Brogan and David Alston of Radian6. It’s a cross between a webinar and a Twitter session — so you log in (if you were one of the first lucky 500!), watch the webinar and Tweet about it with other attendees. A pretty cool concept, and hats off to the above people for getting it off the ground.
A few personal thoughts …
1) I wish there was a way to keep the webinar and the Twitter session in the same window. I had three tabs open: webinar, Twitter and Summize to try and keep up with the action. It was distracting to jump around to see what people were saying, typing comments and watching the guest speakers. Picky on my part? Maybe, but streamlining it all somehow would be great for the next one.
2) Make it live. I understand this would be due to bandwidth and capacity issues. The videos were pre-recorded (very good thoughts though) with Chris Brogan introducing each one, live, in a small box on the left.
3) Increase the amount of people that can participate at the same time. Again, probably capacity, but there were a lot of disappointed people that couldn’t log in for the 2 p.m. session. It was repeated again at 4 p.m. At one point, it was the hottest talking point on Twitter:
4) It would be a great, time-saving idea to have the Twitter names of the speakers under the videos, so people can follow anyone they find particularly interesting.
That’s about it. I really enjoyed Twebinar #1, it was a very connected experience and I’m looking forward to seeing how the team improve the next one.
Update: Thanks Ken for the mention.
~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada
June 26th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Agree with all your points and am impressed with the speed at which you’ve posted a review! I feel that it was a fun event but the value was in the conversation around the content not the actual content, while polished and professional, it didn’t really say anything game changing to me.
Next time out, I’d like to see some harder caste studies, not necessarily with figures attached but with at least some quality feedback from the brand consumer’s involved. I’d also really like to see some practical advice for people knew to this area on how to get started.
June 26th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Thanks for the feedback, John. All good points.
I struggled with the multi-tasking myself because of the sheer volume of conversations. And, we did want to have everyone attend the single session but ran into some scale limitations because of the huge number of participants. We will definitely see what we can do for the next one there. Leaving the speaker’s twitter ID on screen is a great idea and we had others suggest to leave the graphic up the whole time.
I hope you found the information helpful and made some new connections as a result.
Marcel
June 26th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Hi John-
Super great post, and thanks for your points of view. I agree with most of the points, and will do what I can to integreate this in for the next time. : )
Thanks for being part of history.
–Chris…
June 26th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
John,
Good post and great feedback for making it better next time.
Pretty cool to be a part of history, eh?
June 26th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Yep. Feel like I want to collect Twebinar #1 and sell it on eBay one day!
June 26th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Excellent feedback. I agree somewhat with, this was a gigantic water cooler & the conversations around the event & connections made were at least as important as the info shared in the Twebinar itself. I think it was a terrific start, though.
BTW- just found out about a position w/ GCI Read-Poland in Austin & sent an inquiry about it. Wish me luck. ;D
June 27th, 2008 at 10:32 am
For the love of God, people…”twebinar”? Hasn’t the English language taken enough abuse in the Internet era? Please, stop the madness!
June 27th, 2008 at 10:40 am
As a writer, Southsidered, I do agree with you in some respects. When was the last time you received an e-mail that started Hello and contained Please and Thank You?
But, the rush is now on to distinguish yourself as unique in Web 2.0, so if you can take two words and join them to make a hybrid phrase, then you can claim that as your own.
For example, I took the popular term Web 2.0, added it into the fact that the Internet has always been about people, not the technology, and very cleverly moulded that into the phrase Web Who.0! Clever eh? Took all of 10 seconds, that one. I was very proud of myself, and still am to this day.
http://makejohnnycash.blogspot.com/2006/12/web-who0.html
But, seriously, I do know what you’re saying, and thanks for taking the time to comment.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
[…] Chris Brogan — Brogan is definitely a blogger’s blogger, someone we all try to emulate. His content is a great mix of personal opinions and industry news, along with some reviews and interviews thrown in for good measure. He was the host of the recent Twebinar. […]
July 17th, 2008 at 12:27 am
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