History of Web Conferencing
Web conferencing has arguably been one of the best tools for business communication in the last century, perhaps even in the last three centuries. The ability to chat with co-workers or even hold meetings and conferences online has cut time and money, two things of which businesses never have enough. Now, no matter where an associate is, anywhere in the world, this person can easily be contacted and even seen via video-web conference. Having a web conferencing system in place is now common criteria for business meetings. But business was not always so easy.
The history of web conferencing began in the 1960s and traces its roots back to a program developed for educational purposes. Because this was before the Internet era, it was simply a small system of interlinked terminals to one mainframe. As the Internet grew, the program was transformed to include email and instant messaging capabilities. Then in the 1970s, file sharing was made possible.
It was not until the mid 1990s that web conferencing took the shape we recognize today. This was the first form that was readily available on the market. Around this time, file sharing was also growing in popularity, which led to peer-to-peer sharing of media.
Web Conferencing Today
Today, web conferencing must take advantage of all facets of Internet communications. This is why modern web conferencing programs come in packages. The packages often include several useful tools such as desktop sharing, application sharing, recording and voiceover, conference scheduling, co-browsing, and live annotation. With such advantages, it is no wonder that web conferencing is commonplace in modern businesses.
Is this the future that those first engineers of online communication envisioned? Almost. The original use cases and purposes for web conferencing were convenience and saving money. People were intrigued by the idea of easy access for necessary data. But this is hardly the end; Internet technology is constantly growing and changing.