Being the simplest to deploy and use browser-based web conferencing tools are the most appreciated by your clients. Consequently, the number of participants to your meetings is maximized.
Have you ever noticed that most users feel a sense of annoyance when the time to install a new app comes along? Statistics (source: Nomura) confirm that clients do not like software downloading. Only in the US, app downloads declined more than 20 % in the last few years, and the app market is regarded as saturated. On the global market there is still a modest positive trend, but the bell will probably toll also for international downloads very soon.
What is behind the fall of apps? Simply, nobody likes complicated technologies, as people are naturally lazy, and the process of downloading and installing an app is considered to be tiresome by most users. Biologists give an explication of these behaviors. The latest researches confirm that between two different courses of action of which one is harder almost everybody would opt for the easier solution. This happens because the human brain is genetically conditioned to optimize time and energy, in other words, to work as little as possible. In nature, laziness is then a virtue, and not a sin.
This simple rule – the simpler the better – works naturally also for web conferencing. The main practical consequence is that web conference hosts should opt for the easiest-to-use tool, in order to have as many participants to their conference as possible. Choosing a solution that users find difficult to handle would be penalizing, as hosts would lose a more or less large share of their potential audience. This explains the success of browser-based web conferencing solutions, actually the easiest to use for clients on the market.
In fact, web-based products do not require any downloading or installation and virtually no setting-up. It’s a real piece of cake: the client has just to open his browser, reach an address and conference in. Honestly, it is difficult to imagine something easier. With a solution like R-HUB`s TurboMeeting (http://www.rhubcom.com), for example, clients has just to click on the button “join meeting” in the invitation email they have received. The process of downloading starts automatically and in a few seconds they are in the conference. In case of webinars, TurboMeeting deployment process is totally browser-based and there is no downloading.
The growing success of browser-based web conferencing solutions confirms our assumptions. Besides TurboMeeting, other successful products that use a browser-based approach are GoToMeeting, WebEx, Adobe Connect. They have all become quite popular, and I would not be surprised that you were invited to utilize one of them at least one time in your life.
In conclusion, the ease of use and installation for your clients of a web conferencing tool should be one of your leading criteria of choice, as you can maximize the number of participants to your webinars and conferences that way. Being browser-based web conferencing solutions the easiest to use, they should be preferred to the options that require software downloading or other more complicated methods of installation.