Can I host a webinar through Outlook?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John D
  • Start date Start date
J

John D

I have been told that I can host my own webinar through Outlook.

Does anyone know if this is possible and if so can you give me any pointers
as to how to get started?

Thanks.
 
It depends on what kind of webinar your are thinking about.

Desktop sharing, VoIP, video conferencing etc; no. But you can send out the
meeting invitations of course via Outlook so you can track who has said to
attend and who won't.

A poll or survey would also fall within the webinar category and that is
something that you can do with Outlook.
When composing your message, click the Options... button. In the new dialog
you can set your voting options.

If you need to send out two or more questions then you can use the following
methods;
-send 2 emails (easiest)
-set up an on-line poll at the company's website/intranet (rather simple and
reusable)
-design your own custom form (quite a bit of work and lots of room for
error)
-use Access Data Collection Replies (cool feature in MS Access 2007)
-use a 3rd party addin;
http://addins.howto-outlook.com/mapilab_easysurvey
If you decide to order use 4PM76A8 to get a discount
 
John said:
I have been told that I can host my own webinar through Outlook.
Click to expand...

Told by whom?

Outlook is not a server. It is an e-mail *client*.
Does anyone know if this is possible and if so can you give me any pointers
as to how to get started?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you think is a webinar, or what features of one that you
need.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webinar

I haven't seen anyone using Netmeeting for quite awhile (but that
doesn't mean it isn't used anymore). Go checkout Microsoft Office Live
Meeting. There are lots on online [web] conferencing programs and
services.

http://www.google.com/search?q=+free++online++"web+conferencing"

You might even be able to use remote access programs to allow others to
watch what you do on your desktop. I haven't experimented with TeamView
or LogMeIn (which have free services) to try doing this collaborative
sharing of my desktop. Might even be possible to use some variation of
VNC, like UltraVNC, to have a read-only desktop that multiple clients
could logon to view.
 
I have been told that I can host my own webinar through Outlook.

Does anyone know if this is possible and if so can you give me any pointers
as to how to get started?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hi John D,
A very interesting question you have posed about hosting webinars. I personally have not heard about hosting webinars via an email system such as Outlook. This is not saying it isn't possible, simply I've not heard of this before in relation to webinars.

There are indeed a number of ways you can host a webinar, some of these being:

1. If you're familar with Google Hangouts you can host a live webinar thisway and the recording is immediately uploaded to your YouTube account. The issue re Google Hangouts is that there is no registration or thank you page you can provide people to be able to register for the webinar. Not yet at any rate. Another aspect is that this is very, very public - so if you're trying to host a webinar for people and you want to include maintain privacy legislation in relation to your webinar (like I need to do when hosting live webinar consultations: see http://webinarconsultations.com) then this is potentially not the best option available.

2. There is a product vendor who has developed 2 plug ins that you can upload to your website, which also interfaces with Google Hangouts, however provides you the capacity to have a registration page, thank you page, check your states, collect names and email addresses and the like. Webinar Express is specifically designed as a Wordpress plug in. Their latest plug in -Webinar Ignition is designed for both CMS and Wordpress sites and has a range of enhanced features to its predecessor. There is a one off payment tohave the plug in. This way you can merrily host as many webinars as you like and have as many people participating on the webinar as you like and you don't have to be locked into a monthly payment type option with a webinarplatform provider.

3. The only other option that I know about is hosting webinars via a webinar platform provider. For example: Go to Webinar is the most reputable and well known, however incredibly expensive and it's a 12 month contract paying a monthly fee. This is the system that I use for my webinar consultations. The support is fabulous - and you get around 2 weeks to a month (negotiate for 1 month) to test out their platform for free. Another provider is Anytime Meeting and they have both a free and paid version to their webinar platform. When I first used this platform they allowed one to record their webinars however now if you want to record your webinar you have to obtain their paid version. It's not a bad platform and I found that participants were not really distracted by the advertising that appears down the side when using their free platform. (I would have stayed with Anytime Meeting, however I found for what I was doing with webinar consultations their audio was terrible - allowing people to speak using their microphones. If you only want people in listen only mode it's quite good.). There is if you reside in Aussie land like I do Redback Conferencing - their platform is not bad, can be a wee challenge for people to connect. They have a range of features on their platform i.e. you can upload documents to the documents folder for people to be able to access and download. You can also upload videos and show these on the webinar etc. The reason I didn't go with this group is because their telephone system and their webinar platform system are 2 entirely separate entities - they can do a hybrib however its rather a challenge. So for what I do with webinar consultations this provider was not really suitable. They do give if I recall correctly a 30 day free trial..

What I would recommend is do your research first. When I've been undertaking some research for my free webinar on "Getting Started with Webinars" I found there a quite a number of webinar platform providers out there saying it's free - however when you investigate a wee bit further what they're really saying is you get 30 days free trial and then have to be locked into a contract and pay a monthly fee.

If you're interested I'm hosting a free webinar on Thursday 16th January 2014 on Getting Started with Webinars. Please click this link to register:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3668197644838545409

I hope this post and information assists. Sorry I cannot assist with your original question.

Many thanks,
Talk to you soon,
Desley
 
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