andrewcareaga

My first webinar

This ———->
is how I imagined all of you faithful readers must have looked as you tuned in to my very first webinar, held earlier today and sponsored by Higher Ed Experts. Look at you all, hanging on every bullet point of the presentation and soaking up the wisdom I doled out like candy at a holiday parade. I can’t wait to read the evaluations.

Now that I can add “webinar presenter” to my resume, I must tell you that presenting a webinar is a rather surreal experience for someone who draws energy from a live, physically present audience. With a webinar, there are no visual cues, no way of knowing how the audience is reacting. (That’s why having an image like this one to focus on helps.) Still, webinars are the wave of the future — affordable methods of offering training and professional development — and I was happy to have an opportunity to deliver a session. It was fun.

I presented as part of Crisis Communications 2.0 Week, a series of three, one-hour presentations. I was the second presenter. Joe Hice of the University of Florida did a nice job with his overview of crisis communications. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s session: “From the Inside Out: Lessons Learned in Crisis Web Communications after the Virginia Tech Tragedy.” Michael Dame, director of web communications at Virginia Tech, is the presenter. I hope you’ll tune in, too.

The silence of the jams

Today is a day of silence for Internet radio broadcasters in protest of a recent rate hike of 0.012 cents per song, per listener, from the current rate of 0.007 cents. Organized by SaveNetRadio, most of the big online radio stations are joining in solidarity. One popular webcaster, Pandora, explains on its website: “We are doing this to bring to your attention a disastrous turn of events that threatens the existence of Pandora and all of internet radio. We need your help.”

Ignoring all rationality and responding only to the lobbying of the RIAA, an arbitration committee in Washington DC has drastically increased the licensing fees Internet radio sites must pay to stream songs. Pandora’s fees will triple, and are retroactive for eighteen months! Left unchanged by Congress, every day will be like today as internet radio sites start shutting down and the music dies.

The Geek, meanwhile, takes a different approach, allowing visitors to click the “listen live” button, only to give them 3 1/2 minutes of silence, the amount of time a pop tune might have played. (Actually, the loop of silence is interrupted a few times by a brief “station ID.”)

While many big-name websites are joining the SaveNetRadio effort, at least one biggie is not playing along. Last.fm, recently acquired by CBS, is not participating