Announcements

Netbriefings Product Allows Companies to Produce High-quality "Webcasts" from Their Own Facilities

St. Paul, Minnesota - July 20, 2001 - Netbriefings, a full-service webcast technology provider that specializes in secure and large-audience Internet broadcasts, announced the availability of two products that, combined, will enable corporate communication and education departments to produce and deliver, or Webcast, streaming-media* sessions through the Internet, without technical expertise. Key to the products are portability and ease of installation and operation, which are easily done without the expense of production and technical people. The two products, one hardware and one software, were developed in response to customers' need for frequent, high-quality, multi-media communication with economy and ease.

Click here to watch the Video Announcement.

In an article on the subject, technology writer Tony Kontzer says: "Jupiter Media Metrix is backing up what streaming-media execs have long claimed: Streaming video is going to be big in the business world. In a new report, Jupiter says business spending on streaming-video technology will grow from $140 million last year to $2.8 billion in 2005 - a twentyfold increase. The report also predicts that the use of streaming video will shift during the next few years from an emphasis on speeches by execs and earnings announcements to a mix of employee education, sales and customer training, meetings, product launches, collaboration, and customer service. 'The biggest benefits in productivity are yet to come,' Jupiter analyst David Rader says."

The hardware component, called the Remote Meeting Unit, is a compact unit that integrates the hardware necessary to collect input from video cameras, microphones, and projectors. It also contains a codec that encodes and compresses the data and transmits it to Netbriefings streaming-media servers for immediate distribution through the Internet.

The software, known as the Event Management System allows event planners to "design" a communications event, or session, through user-friendly screens running under their standard Web browser. Designing an event enables direct compatibility with Netbriefings' servers and the automatic generation of URLs where participant viewers can register and view the event. The process also captures information about the event that allows the event planner to track event components and later collect data from viewers, such as polling and testing, and subsequently analyze and report the data. It also creates a template from which future events can be created on short notice.

Gary Anderson, CEO of Netbriefings, said, "We've been doing research and development for almost two years, while providing streaming-media services for corporate clients. These partners have taught us a lot, and we have the results implemented. With the Remote Meeting Unit and our Event Management System, we enable customers to manage their Webcasts from their facilities. We have the answer to the frequent questions of economy, increased frequency of events, simplicity, portability and choice of location. That's why we can say that now it's as simple as flipping switches to Webcast to the world."

Netbriefings provides a PowerPoint(R) plug-in to run in conjunction with the RMU and Event Management System. The plug-in allows presenters or moderators to transmit new or changed slides or presentations, "on-the-fly," during a live Webcast, for integration with the streaming Webcast. It was developed to accommodate the frequent occurrences of last-minute modifications by presenters and the inclusion of unplanned presenters in communication events.
More information on the features, function and operation of the new products is available at: www.netbriefings.com/solutions/index.html.

About Netbriefings
Netbriefings is a leader in large group webcasting. It provides professional-quality webcast services with robust audio/video streaming to audiences in the 100s to 10,000s, designed for town hall meetings, CEO meetings and multi-day conferences. Netbriefings also provides a solution for personal video messaging for enhanced sales, engaging marketing and improved training. The company offers a full spectrum of services for large event, video and audio production. Look to Netbriefings for secure broadcasting, on-demand access of archived content, and repurposing of content into CDs, DVDs, podcasts and other formats. (www.netbriefings.com) (www.ProclaimYourself.com)

Contact Info

Jeanneane Kloss
651-225-1532 x151 office
jkloss@netbriefings.com