The truth is, if you’re hosting a webinar, it’s pretty likely that you’re an expert in your subject area and you could probably talk for days and days about it.

Control yourself (and respect your audience.)

Whet their appetite and say enough “big picture” stuff to establish yourself as an expert, but most importantly, give your audience confidence that respect their time. With your Fuze Meeting subscription, you can have as many webinars as you like for the same monthly fee, so consider splitting up your 2 hour monologue into a few bite-sized sessions.

Avoid PowerPoint fatigue and focus on your message instead!

In the end, you’ll leave them wanting more.

The mobile collaboration site, iPad 4 Lawyers put up a post reviewing meeting apps for the iPad. (You can read it here.) The author included all the big ones in his comparison: GoTo Meeting, WebEx, Adobe, and Fuze Meeting. And for the most part, the comments he used to describe our competitors are pretty much the same things we’ve noticed when testing out their apps.

In response to the review of our iPad app (he gave us “a solid B+”), we have to say…thanks! And we’re confident we’ll get into the “A” category very soon!

His one major area for improvement – a desire to annotate directly from the iPad – is a feature request we’re aware of and are working on.

That said, he missed 2 major features that would be sure to interest any tech-savvy attorney.

Video conferencing – Don’t forget, Fuze Meeting allows video conferencing from almost any device! Start up a video conference in lieu of driving across town for a meeting, and the time you saved could mean that you’re home before dinner. You can learn more about video conferencing on the iPad over here.

Interoperability with Dropbox & SugarSync – Getting your files into Fuze Meeting from the cloud couldn’t be easier! Not only do we have our own cloud-based storage, we operate quite well with cloud storage darlings Dropbox & SugarSync. Here’s a video of how it works, and you can read more about it over here.

From Fast Company

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box.net on The Future of the Cloud

CEO of our cloud brethren at Box.net talks about the future of the cloud and why his enterprise model is disruptive.

“For the first time in enterprise software history, individuals at any level can adopt technology to help solve their problems.”

From Information Week/Global CIO

Why Collaboration Should Center Around Email

Author Michael Healey expands on the need for interoperability in collaboration tools – suggesting that email is a good place to start.

“IT teams need to assess each based on whether they support six critical integration points, three interoperability benchmarks, and three user requirements. View this as a checklist for success–or a harbinger of the troubles ahead if they’re ignored. And they all start with email.”

From N4BB

RIM Launches BlackBerry Mobile Conferencing App on BlackBerry App World

If you’ve got a Blackberry, this is sure to save you some time. And psst. You can use it with your Fuze Meeting conference number if you’re doing an audio only meeting.

Earth Day is here! Maybe it means that you’re going to give a little cash to offset your carbon footprint, or maybe it means you’ll make a point to finally learn about all the things that can go in a compost bin. (We’d love to help you, but it’s different in every county.) Whatever you plan to do, take a second to consider most of your waking hours.

That’s right, it’s probably work!

So why not take some steps to see what you can actually do to make a real difference in your office?

Recycle, even when it’s not extra convenient.

According to the EPA, we go through a staggering amount of paper every year and let’s face it, quite a bit of it probably comes from your office. Chances are you’re busy. Chances are you don’t want a pile of trash on your desk. And if you are more than 1.5 arms’ distance from a recycling bin, chances are more paper goes in the trash than it needs to. That said, one of the best things you could probably do for the earth is to request a recycling bin from your office manager or just buy it yourself.

Flip your paper and set the default.

Sometimes, you just want it printed. We get it. Meeting agendas, creative revisions, layout…sometimes you just want to hold your hard work in your hands. BUT…think about it, how often to do you really need to hand someone a crisp, beautiful piece of paper as part of your job? Probably – not so much.

Most of us are creatures of convenience, so here’s all you need to do. Get a paper tray, and train employees to put unneeded print outs with printed backs in the tray. Then…refill the default tray with said paper and voila – suddenly almost all paper gets used twice. The key to this – is making it the default – it makes it easy on your team!

And we’ll state the obvious. Meet online.

Just today, and just because it’s Earth Day…try it once, even if it’s not with us. (But…you know, we’d love your business.) If you’re not already meeting online, you’re probably missing out on one of the coolest money-saving technologies out there for businesses.

Hopping on a cross-country flight is so carbon-intensive, that it could actually offset a whole YEAR of your green efforts. So besides the money, besides the time, besides the travel headache – give video conferencing a trial in the coming week…just for the sake of Mother Earth.

Lighting, clothing & background

Well, a week into your video conferencing subscription, and I’m sure you’ve noticed…there’s a way to do it well, and then there’s the “other way.” Needless to say, there are about 4000 little tips and tricks we could dish out, but for NOW, we’re going to focus on the three most important and easiest to master.

1. Lighting matters. The difference between one light bulb is, well, the difference between night and day. The only difference in these images below is flipping on one little desk lamp. So do yourself a favor and brighten up!

Tip: If you have a bright light shining right at you and you *still* look dark, you’re probably backlit. If able, spin yourself around so you’re facing into the light, and I bet you’ll look a lot better.

2. Dress to impress. Even though your pinstriped suit with plaid shirt may be your favorite combination for the office, it would be a total nightmare in a video conference. When dressing to stream video, do your best to wear solid muted colors.

( On this one, we’re going to assume that our customers participate in daily activities such as showering and ironing, so we’re not going to go into details of ‘work appropriate clothing.’ However, as a rule of thumb…if it’s not a shirt you would wear to the office, best to not wear it in a video conference.)

3. We can see your background. Pay attention to what’s behind you before you start your meeting. Some people won’t notice, but many will. Your environment will speak volumes about you.

Do you have a messy home behind you? This may make you appear disorganized.
Coworkers surfing the ‘net? This might question the work ethic in your office.
A Christmas tree still up in April? I mean…if you can’t hit *that* deadline…

Tip: Turn the camera on before you actually go into the meeting and try to objectively scan your background for potential red flags.

Let us know if you have any video conferencing pet peeves in the comments section!

As you know (because we’ve said it over and over and over again), Fuze Meeting allows you to export your Apple Keynote files and use them as shared content in a Fuze Meeting.

While our Keynote support great, some folks do better with a few instructions, so you have 2 options. you can watch our webinar replay of how to do it, or you can scroll through the embedded PDF below!  Let us know if you have any questions.

Exporting_Keynote

Ever since we launched webinar mode, we’ve gotten quite a few questions about registration.

While Fuze Meeting doesn’t have event registration in the product quite yet (it’s coming soon!), we’re always happy to direct people to our just-as-easy-to-use-as-Fuze-Meeting recommendation for free webinar registration: Eventbrite.

Our guess is that if you’re looking for event registration, you’re looking to do one of the following:

1. Promote your event
2. Offer event registration
3. Capture lead information

And…Eventbrite will let you do all of that! It lets you set up events for free, capture attendee information, email your attendees and even set up recurring events. AND…it’s so easy.

All you need to do to set up a Fuze Meeting through Eventbrite is…

Step 1: Schedule your Webinar in Fuze Meeting. If you want to run in webinar mode, make sure you select that option in the meeting scheduler. (Just a reminder, webinar mode is currently only available in our pro package.)

Step 2: When you get your confirmation email, hang on to the meeting URL that we give you (you can also get it in your My Meetings tab).

Step 3: Login to Eventbrite (it’s free to set up an account) and create an event.

From there, the details of setting up an event are pretty self explanatory. In fact there are only two special details to remember when setting up a webinar:

Include your meeting link &

Choose the right location

Location you say? Yes – and Eventbrite has already set up “Online event” so the whole ‘Google maps business’ can be skipped.

Eventbrite also has some really easy and helpful ways to help you promote your event and invite your prospects, so be sure to check them out!

Like we said, we’re updating Fuze Meeting to include event registration so you can have a one stop shop when putting together your webinar – keep an eye on our blog for product updates!

UPDATE: Our 2-day demo for displaced DimDim users will take place

January 11th and 12th from 9-5 Pacific time

Stop on by any time for a lesson on how to easily transition from DimDim to Fuze Meeting!

Click here to join the demo!

____________

Original Post:

When Salesforce announced their acquisition of DimDim this afternoon, twitter was alight with tech-savvy folk wondering what they were going to do for a web meeting solution when DimDim locks its digital doors.

@heatherlloyd

OMG, @dimdim aquired by saleforce and being shutting down. Crap. Suggestions for Web-friendly Webinar platforms? Anyone? Anyone?

@ JulReDesigns

Oh @DimDim. Your timing couldn’t be worse. #acquired

Well DimDim alum, come on over to Fuze Meeting. We have a lofty vision of being the best online meeting service available – helping you collaborate online quickly and easily. We’re browser based really simple to use AND we have native apps for the iPad, iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

We’ll have a special webinar next week just for helping DimDim alum learn about making the switch to  Fuze Meeting! Stay tuned for more details.

So…if you happen to be an ex-DimDim user who really needs a home for collaboration. Well, we’ve got you covered.

Check out our packages and sign up for a free trial and check the blog later this week for information on making the transition from DimDim to Fuze Meeting.

Have you seen our home page right now (click on the learn more)? We are embracing the fact that we’re fantastically 4G. And, that we’re in fact, the ONLY option if you have a 4G device.

So – what does it all mean?

For you non-techies out there, there are two things you need to know about 4G for now:

1. That download and upload speeds are wicked fast
2. That it’s an entirely different technology than is used for 3G

This means that if you don’t have a 4G device, you won’t be able to experience the benefit of 4G – connection speeds when you’re on-the-go that rival those you currently have on your computer. If your mobile device can go as fast as your computer, you’ll become less dependent on the computer for the sake of a good connection and THAT means that you just got more mobile.

So what will you notice?

Fuze Meeting customers on BOTH 3G and 4G will still have the great meeting experience that you’ve come to expect, so don’t fret if you’re not planning to make the switch from 3G – you’ll be just fine. BUT, if you’re meeting in 4G, you’re going to notice crazyfast upload and download times. So uploading content on the fly will be so easy that by the time you say “hold on a sec while it’s uploaded” the image or file will already be up on someone’s screen. All 4G-ers on a meeting will be able to see video about 10 times sooner than the 3G mobile attendees.

Nice, huh?

And, video conferencing from a mobile device (it’s coming!) is going to be unbelievable. You know those commercials where people are chatting it up on their smartphones and all you can think is YEAH RIGHT you’re obviously on wifi, buddy? Well, in 4G you’ll get the same unrealistically amazing quality that you *actually* see in the commercials.

See? Now that’s just great news for everyone!

Wow, Fuze Meeting just hit the Android tablets on Thursday and already with another major update for the browser-based software? Well, I can promise you two things: the engineers haven’t been sleeping much and Fuze Meeting just got a whole lot better. We’ll delve into these more later, but …

First things first: We’ve just released a webinar version! To launch in webinar mode, you’ll need to be subscribed to our Pro account (view the pricing page), so if you don’t have Pro, you can upgrade by clicking on the ‘My Account’ button once you’re logged in. BUT, once you have Pro, there’s no extra charges to access webinars.

In webinar mode:

• You can have up to 100 attendees
• Attendee information is hidden from other participants
• All attendees are auto accepted into the webinar
• All attendees start the meeting on mute

And, these other updates will be hitting everyone’s account:

• In-app VoIP –(launching in beta) – With just one click, all attendees can now join the meeting audio without a phone and without launching Skype. But for you Skype fans, don’t worry…Skype will still work.
• Boosted screen sharing options – You can still share the entire desktop, or NOW, you can choose to share only a specific application, only a specific section of the screen….and if you’re a 2-monitor user, you pick which one to share. Right now these extended options are only available on a PC, but Mac users won’t be far behind.
• Frameless viewing – You can choose to launch the meeting in its own window to maximize space. This means you get more real estate to enjoy Fuze Meeting’s HD capabilities (and of course, all your hard work).
• Content from email – The meeting host can email content straight into their meeting by sending an email…Quick how to: From the host’s registered email account to library@fuzemeeting.com to email files into the content library or [meeting#]@fuzemeeting.com to email content into a specific meeting.

Enjoy the new updates, Fuzers. Stay tuned, we’ll work through some of the updates in more detail in future blog posts.