Video Conferencing – 10 Ways Your Business Will Benefit

Video Conferencing

Have you ever been in a situation where you needed to think fast and come up with a quick solution to a problem? Did you lose out on a potential business opportunity, due to the fact that you couldn’t get a team together quick enough to formulate a solution? In business, this happens quite often. The success of your business greatly depends on your decision making skills and the time it takes to execute your solutions. This is where web-based video conferencing comes into play. Having a form of business communication that will allow you to meet with your team at the drop Cheap Amoxil of a hat is well worth the investment, especially in today’s globalized economy.
If you or your business is thinking about implementing a more effective way of communication, but you are still unsure whether or not you should make the low initial investment, read on. Besides being extremely cost efficient and saving businesses of all sizes on travel related expenses, web-based video conferencing also offers the following benefits:

1. Instant access to clients – Your company brand greatly relies on the quality of customer service provided to clients. Face-to-face conversations will personalize the experience your clients have with your business. For organizations with clients in remote locations, travel costs can be over-bearing and a telephone call doesn’t provide the same personal touch. Video conferencing allows your team members to instantly connect and communicate closely with clients around the world, while still maintaining the presence of face-to-face communication.
2. A way to conduct efficient business – An efficient business is a successful business. By implementing a cost reducing and time saving technology such as video conferencing, your business will be able to achieve maximum productivity with a minimum amount of wasted effort or expense. This will not only give you, but your business as well, a reputation for being innovative and resourceful, which means a lot in the eyes of clients, employees, partners and shareholders.
3. Less employee downtime – When employees are required to travel, your business is not only spending money on hotel, air fare and gas, but also losing money due to employee downtime. Downtime consists of the time employees take to drive to and from the airport, sitting in the airport lobby waiting to board, the time on the flight and the time spent commuting from the airport to the final endpoint. Video conferencing provides employers with the means to reduce downtime. Your employees can conduct meetings from their office and use the time that was spent commuting as time spent being productive.
4. Accelerated decision making and reduced time to market – Businesses rely on a constant stream of communication; being able to instantly connect and collaborate in the workplace will give your organization a leg up on the competition. Video conferencing has been proven to accelerate company decision making as well as reduce a product’s time to market by allowing teams to instantly connect with each other.
5. Greater industry impact and focus – Video conferencing provides your business with the tools needed to conduct meetings of high quality. With the ability to show PowerPoint presentations, survey and poll the audience and collaborate through a whiteboard or chat, your business meetings will have a much stronger impact on the attendees than a normal conference call.
6. Competitive advantage – In today’s globalized economy, having a competitive advantage over others in your industry will set you apart. Video conferencing empowers your business by giving you the ability to maintain a global presence. It gives you a greater market reach and allows you to provide better support for remote employees, ultimately allowing you to recruit and retain top employees, which in turn allows you to better serve your client base and grow your business.
7. Trusted brand image – When clients are able to put a face to a voice it gives them a sense of comfort in your business. The face-to-face interaction with video conferencing allows you to build that comfort level and build a trusted company brand. In general, people are more at ease when they are working with someone they know and more likely to become long term clients if they trust in your brand.
8. Reduced employee stress and enhanced quality of life – Not only is business travel damaging on a checkbook, it also causes undo stress. Constant business travel affects the work/life balance of employees and takes a toll on their sleeping patterns. This stress will show up in their daily work habits. Video conferencing can reduce employee stress and enhance their quality of life, making them both happier and more productive. Your employees are the face of your company; keeping them happy will have a direct result on your bottom line.
9. Easier management and access to globally scattered teams – If you run a business with multiple locations, either national or international, you may find it hard to manage your teams without physically being there. Video conferencing makes it easier to communicate and manage those teams. With the live video function, managers can connect with their teams across the world to coordinate projects and check in on work progress.
10. More desirable response time to immediate communication needs – Probably the most important benefit you can receive from video conferencing is the ability to meet with and interact with employees, prospects or clients at a moments notice. Video conferencing tools will help your company respond quickly to customer demands, provide instant customer support and attack all critical business issues as they arise.

No matter what industry you are in, the success of your business relies deeply on your communication tools. If you have not done so already, the time to invest in a video conferencing and collaboration solution is now! Go GVO Live for the most cost effective web based video conferencing platform on the market place.

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This Article is being published with permission from the author – Julian Snare.
Julian Snare is a Full Time Internet Marketing Coach and Online Communications Consultant. He specializes in Home Business and Work From Home Mentoring.
Visit Julian’s Blog and Subscribe to his Newsletter Now for more valuable info that you can put in Action starting Today! – http://www.TitaniumValleyProductions.com
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Why isn’t everyone using video conferencing?

For years vendors such as Tandberg, Cisco and Polycom have been saying the use of video will become pervasive in the workplace. The reasons sound sensible and convincing; reduced travel and accommodation costs, better use of employee’s time, better work / life balance.

So why isn’t everyone using video conferencing?

When speaking to organisations that have video conferencing I seem to get two reactions, yes we do use it, its fine and no we bought some kit years ago, but never get it working properly and its collecting dust in a corner office.

Complexity

There’s no doubt in the past the configuration and use of video conferencing systems has not been user friendly. Recently an IT manager said to me, “We have Tandberg video conferencing kit, but it’s not used much.” The reason being in their case that the people it was intended to be used by were the senior management of the company who were technophobes. Although to be fair he did mention network issues and having to type in IP addresses prior to being able to use the system, not something many senior managers would be comfortable doing?

Cost

In the past when I’ve spoken to people considering investing in video conferencing, the main objection is not the cost of the equipment; instead it’s the cost of the network connectivity. Just a few years ago high definition video required greater than 10M bandwidth. Two things have made the pill easier to swallow; the cost of bandwidth has halved and the codec’s have been able to compress the huge amount of data required for HD video down to a more manageable size.

Facilities

Another reason for the lack of uptake of high end systems is the cost of the room facilities. Not the cost of the active kit, but the associated video screens and audio equipment. In a recent proposal I saw these peripheral items amounted to $20K before taking into account the network and video kit costs.

Tradition

Perhaps the most difficult reason to overcome when considering implementation of a high end video conferencing system is the idea that “we have always had face to face meetings”, so we’ll just carry on in the same vein. This is an attitude issue and will never be addressed by improvements in the technology or reductions in implementation costs.

HR guidelines

As in the recent George Clooney film “Up In The Air”, Human Resources management may dislike the idea of certain formal meetings being done via video conferencing. Although a friend of mine did actually get the sack via video recently, but then he did work for a video conferencing vendor?

Desk Top Video Conferencing

One thing is undisputed; the use of personal, low cost video conferencing is certainly taking off. In 2009/10 BT’s conferencing revenues increased by 400%, due in part to the volcanic ash cloud restricting flights and the recession forcing companies to cut back on travel costs.

Low cost video conferencing as offered by Cisco’s Webex and Microsoft’s Live Meeting is easy to use, relatively inexpensive and in terms of equipment is very easy to setup. On my PC, it passed the “no user guide” test in that I had connected the small Microsoft web cam and installed Cisco Webex without reading the installation instructions or doing and formal training. In use I found it simple and genuinely useful with the one click button to share my desktop. It worked fine over my 2M broadband circuit.

Maybe Video Conferencing’s time has finally come?

 

Original link:

 

http://grahamsblog4444.blogspot.in/2011/02/why-isnt-everyone-using-video.html 

 

 

How to Look for Video Conferencing Equipment

 

  Posted by Larry 

 Video conferencing Accessories   that is used in one location is different from another. If you plan to get one for the office, you should decide whether to buy a PC based system, a portable, a rollabout or an installed system.

Just to give you an idea, a PC based system can accommodate one or two people, the portable is good for two to eight, the rollabout is for three to fifteen while the installed system can be used by 20 or more participants.

You should also get the right sized monitor so everyone will have a good view of whatever is projected on the screen. Most video conferences use a 20 or 35 inch monitor but since this is still small when there are many people, the solution is to get an LCD projector.

When you have decided which one to get, the next thing you have to be concerned about is the bandwidth because the faster it is the better so you are able to compress audio and video signals and connect in real time.

Most video conferences today use two ISDN lines at the same so if you don’t want to see any blurred movement, it is best that these transmissions move at 768k to 1.5 megabytes per second.

The codec is considered to be the most important of all the equipment in video conferencing. When you are looking for one, you should make sure that it is compatible with the other versions in the market.

You should also check if the system you get supports full duplex audio and digital echo cancellation so you get to see and hear the other party clearly.

In order for the presentation to be a success, you need to have multiple monitors and projectors. This will let you see the other party and a preview of what you are showing next. This will prevent any mistakes and make sure that everyone is listening to what you have to say.

But some people can use just one monitor instead of two. They just have to make sure that the monitor they have has a picture in picture feature so get to see a preview of what will be shared next.

In the event that you will be talking to more than one party, you must also have a bridging system in place.

As for the camera, there are different types to choose from. You can get multiple cameras to show different sides of the presentation if you have to move or better yet get the robotic version that will automatically follow you.

The document camera is considered to be the a must in video conferences so that aside from seeing your face on the screen, people will be able to see the visual aids that you have prepared.

Lastly, you may want to have a phone line so if you have to take a call, you can do so during the presentation. But if you will be talking to a lot of people as well, this can also be done through the bridging.

The price of video conferencing equipment varies but the prices these days are more affordable than they were 10 years ago. People have noticed a huge growth in 2006 versus 2005 and this is expected to continue as more people are willing to use such a system. 

Original Link:

http://moderntechnologyoftoday.blogspot.in/2011/06/how-to-look-for-video-conferencing.html

5 Useful Free Online Website Analysis and SEO Optimization Tools

Posted by boey as Blogging Tips, Freewares, Keywords, Online Applications, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Website Tips

A list of website analysis and SEO optimization tools to help you to optimize your website / blog and move your search engine position higher. Use a combination of these tools to analyze and generally. to improve page rank, search engine position and link popularity.
GoingUP!
GoingUp! integrates popular analytics & SEO tools in one easy-to-use interface to see how your website is performing from all points-of-view.

Complete WebSite Stats
See your visitors, referring URLs and even search engine traffic!
Track Keyword Positions
See your SEO efforts by graphing keyword positions over time!
Actions & Goals
Set custom tracking events to see sales, downloads and subscribes!
Customized Dashboard
Show only the data you want to see with our slick AJAX interface!
And more cool features
Quarkbase
Quarkbase provides an easier way to find website information. You can find out how good a site is, get comprehensive website details, discover competitors and analyze them.

See people, traffic, similar sites, social comments, description, social popularity and much more website details.
Website Grader
Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors.

Website Grader also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Builtwith
Builtwith is an application that can help you get more out of your website. Builtwith provide a lot of useful analysis information and statistics that you can use to improve your website. Make it more profitable, findable and responsive.

Features:

• Page Optimization – Individual Page SEO Analysis
• Phrase Monitoring – Search Engine Phrase Monitoring
• Search Engine Marketing – SEM Tools
• Phrase and Keywords – Analysis Tools
• URL Optimizer – Improve your URLs
• Sitemap Builder – Create XML Sitemaps

And more features
SEO Scores
SEO Scores is a little online seo tool for web site analysis.

SEO Scores analysis divide 4 categories:

• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO
• Blogosphere
• Social Mediasphere

 The Original link:
http://ebiznet2u.com/5-useful-free-online-website-analysis-and-seo-optimization-tools-1319/

WooRank Screens Your Website, For Free

WooRank Screens Your Website, For Free
Robin Wauters

WooRank is a brand new service designed to let website publishers and marketers evaluate the SEO-friendliness and other aspects of their Web sites on the fly, free of charge. If this reminds you of what HubSpot built with its Website Grader tool, it’s because the concept is extremely similar.

WooRank evaluates Web sites based on 50 criteria in an automated fashion, free of charge, and provides helpful SEO and other tips. A premium version will be offered in about 3 months: for a yet-to-be-determined fee, publishers and marketers will then be able to screen Web sites based on up to 120 pre-defined critera, get served more personalized tips as well as references to online tools that they can use to increase the findability and performance of their Web sites.

Update: site seems to be down or at least terribly slow due to our coverage, so hang in there.

Update 2: seems to be back and more stable now

I gave the tool a spin and generated a report for techcrunch.com – turns out we’re worthy of a WooRank of 82.4. While I have absolutely no idea what that means exactly, according to these statistics we’re well above the average. In the overall ranking, we even made the top 50, ahead of sites like the Apple Store, MySpace, ESPN.com and NYTimes.com (take that, New York Times, we haz bigger WooRankz!).

Apparently, we need to work on our headings, immage attribution tags, meta description and keywords, XML sitemap(s) and other aspects like Web standards compliance. We score pretty well on content (number of indexed pages), off-site SEO (particularly on the social media level) and website usability and load time.

Frankly, that’s a lot of valuable information available free of charge, so I’ll be curious to know in a couple of months how WooRank will try to entice people to pay for more detailed information and improvement tips.

WooRank was built by fellow Belgians, namely digital marketer Jean Derély of BetaGroup and the founders of interactive agency 1MD.be. Since soft-launching the service a couple of days ago, 27,000 reports have already been generated by some 7,500 visitors.

The Original post: http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/24/woorank/

For more online tools, check out Website Grader but also HitTail and LotusJump.

CrunchBase Information
WooRank
Website Grader
Information provided by CrunchBase
Tags: HitTail, HubSpot, lotusjump, Website Grader, WebsiteGrader, woorank