What is a Twebinar?
The idea for a Twebinar came about when Chris Brogan at
CrossTech Media and David Alston from Radian6
were talking about a way to improve the engagement experience of a standard
webinar (which usually involves a slide deck and someone talking on a
conference bridge). It's basically a mashup of a few different technologies
such that we could bring a story alive and tell it in a unique way.
We mashed video interviews running in an Adobe Acrobat webinar room, Twitter, Summize (a service for searching
and following conversations on Twitter), and about a thousand active
participants. The tech story alone is interesting, but it's the people and the
content that made the event work so well.
David and Chris interviewed over 30 social media, marketing, and PR experts at
two conferences in California
around May 2008, asking them questions about how social media technologies and
practices have changed the face of business. Companies mentioned during the
interviews included Sony, Lego, Intel, H&R Block, and dozens more. The
video was broken out into three major pieces: Game Changing Moves, Who Owns
Your Brand, and The Importance of Listening.
When a segment is aired, we invite the speakers who participated in the video
to be active and present on Twitter (a messaging platform that allows
one-to-many communications). This meant that people observing the interviews
could directly communicate with all speakers, all participants, and anyone else
on the larger Twitter platform about the questions raised in the video.
Some have asked why we didn't just use the built-in Q&A software inside the
Adobe Acrobat platform. There were a few reasons. One is that having the
conversation on Twitter meant facilitating many more lateral and sidebar
conversations. The other is that Radian6 is a software that helps companies
listen. Having a dispersed conversation across Twitter, several blogs, and
other news sources before, during, and after the event, was a perfect way to
show off the process.
The Twebinar was a great success, and there are two more scheduled in the near
term: July
and August.
At CrossTech Media, we're already exploring other ways to mash up
communications technologies to tell your stories better. If you're interested
in participating in a rich media experience like a Twebinar, please contact Chris
Brogan to discuss the project.
Please also visit David Alston's Twebinar
page, where the details of our specific project are kept.
Upcoming Twebinars