While many businesses and residents are still reeling as gas prices remain above the $1 dollar mark, webcasting services are enjoying a surge in popularity as a result.
Many organizations are looking more seriously at this technology as an alternative to in-person meetings and events, says Corey Galbraith, manager of webcast services for Galbraith Communications. As one of only a handful of companies in Canada that specializes in live broadcasting over the Internet, he says business has really started to boom.
"Particularly in the past three to four months, really ever since the gas prices have gone up, inquiries have tripled from all over the country, " he says. "One call was from a training company who is interested because they travel all over Ontario doing seminars and they're finding people just aren't attending because it's too expensive."
The company has been conducting webcasts for the past year and a half to a variety of clients from the public and private sectors and not-for-profits.
"One of our clients is the Ontario government's Department of Agriculture and we're doing a webcast for them at the end of October," he says. "It'll be a tax seminar conducted in Belleville and a number of accountants and tax planners from Northern Ontario wanted to attend, but they said they couldn't afford the time and the money to travel down. So, they arranged the webcast with us and about 15 people in Northern Ontario are going to access it."
He says the interactive features that accompany webcasts also allow participants to be a part of the experience.
"It is sort of like watching television, but at the same time there is a text chat system which allows them to type in their questions," says Mr. Galbraith.
The convenience and cost-savings webcasting offers is its main attraction for many businesses and government organizations. Reduced bandwidth costs are also allowing smaller companies to participate with the technology. Proponents say that streaming media technology has improved to the point where broadcasting over the Internet has come close to the quality and reliability of television.
These technological advances and cost-savings, says Mr. Galbraith, is likely to grow the industry from $2 billion or $3 billion to $9 billion in the next couple of years.
This increase in webcasting across the country has also created an environmentally friendly aspect through the reduction of business travel.
"Obviously this trend is great news to us," says Daniel Leclair, director of strategy and planning with Public Work's Office of Greening Government Operations. "The more federal government employees use technologies like webinars, the less they will travel, reducing both the use of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases."
Mr. Leclair says this use of web-based technology also creates socio-economic benefits by reducing the amount of time employees must spend away from their families.
Another Ottawa firm benefiting from the surge in the popularity is Integrating Solutions. The 10-year-old company has experienced a 25-per-cent increase in its webcasting business this fall, says its president.
"I'm not certain if it's only gas pushing this trend, but it's something that likely put people over the edge when considering this alternative," says Bengt Neathery. "They all have computers on their desks, which can basically be used as a TV screen."
Integrating Solutions has many clients, including most of the federal government's agencies and it also streams CHUM FM radio and the City of Ottawa city council meetings. The company also webcast the new Governor General's installation with provision for 100,000 people and last week produced webcasts for the GTEC conference at the Congress Centre.
Mr. Neathery says one of the main reasons people in business are turning to webcasting is its convenience considering the amount of time lost traveling.
"Also at most conferences, an individual viewer, according to our statistics, might only want to see 12 to 20 per cent of what they're extremely interested in. So, a webcast allows them to pop in for the portion they want to see and it gives them a choice, while at a conference they're stuck there for the whole thing."
Mr. Neathery says one of the best ways to show potential clients the benefits of webcasting is a price-breakdown compared with the high cost of conferences.
"To put it in perspective, if you have 500 people attend a conference, the costs are about $1,000 a person, so the total would be about $500,000 a conference, plus people attending have their own expenses," he says. "The 500-person webcast for us is less than $2,500, so the differential is nowhere close."
Another benefit of webcasting is that once the content is captured, it is archived and can be reviewed at any time.
However, one drawback of the technology is that delivery can't be guaranteed.
"We deliver out of the server, but the Internet itself is a funny place because it's a commodity and everyone has a different connection," says Mr. Neathery. "If they're using dial-up, they may have problems if their phone line itself is old, so we can't guarantee delivery because 90 per cent of it is out of our hands. But, what we do is make sure the delivery gets to our broadcasting network and make sure it's spread across many servers so it gets out to the public."
Galbraith Communications also acknowledges the delivery challenges of webcasting, but Mr. Galbraith says the company does offer a guarantee to its clients.
"If something goes wrong on our end, then the webcast is free of charge," he says.
Both companies are hoping to capitalize on the growing trend of webcasting and the applications continue to increase.
"While webcasts started as entertainment, there are so many ways it can be used," says Mr. Neathery. "Besides business and school applications, there's technical support and just a million ways to use it."
By Kristin Harold
Kristin.Harold@transcontinental.ca
