ON24, a webcasting provider, is now offering ON24 Virtual Show. It provides organizations a virtual venue for trade shows, job fairs, conferences and training summits.  I spoke recently with Tom Masotto, VP of Product Management and Business Development. He began by providing some context. ON24 has been in business for ten years offering B2B webcasting services. A year ago they saw more companies using their webcasting for keynoting addresses at virtual events. Also, they were seeing client interest in virtual environments in other ways. So they developed their Virtual Show offering to meet this market demand. It is fully integrated with their webcasting service and was released this summer.

Tom said they want to provide the ability to completely customize the virtual event environment. The offering is provided both as a service, where an ON24 team uses the tools to set up and run the environment, and as a tool kit for firms that have their own implementation teams.  He said that this is the same for their webcasting offering where there is a 50/50 split on ON24 implementation and self-service. Since the Virtual Shows are a new channel, he expects that more people will want them to run things, at least initially, to learn best practices.  They have also developed marketing tools for their clients on how to best promote this new venue.

Tom took me on a tour of a Virtual Show they did for Computerworld in Germany.  We began in the reception hall where there was a jumbotron positioned over a realistic convention scene. Here a speaker can introduce people and provide other information. He said that they develop the background scenes in 3D and then flatten them to JPEGs for ease of use. See the sample below.

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Next, we went to the exhibit hall and then to a series of very different styles of booths. The booths will generally have a jumbotron for presentations. There are also multiple resources that can be offered from documents to live chat. You can do surveys. ON24 provides a patent-pending “smart booth” technology enabling exhibitors to recommend personalized content based on an attendee’s profile, such as business strategy for business professionals and technical specifications for IT attendees. Here is a sample booth below.

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There are social networking features. Attendees can create profiles, set privacy preferences, and connect with other show attendees for online chats and professional networking opportunities. Within the communications center, attendees can participate in scheduled or ad hoc group discussions, as well as post and reply to forum discussions on the message board. There is a lounge area where some of this social networking can occur. The booths, building, and exterior landscape each move at different speeds, creating a 3D-like feeling of “walking” through the exhibit hall. Below is anther sample booth design.

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ON24 uses Adobe Flash technology to eliminate downloads for show attendance and make the Virtual Shows accessible for most browsers. There is the ability to incorporate Web 2.0 features such as ratings and comments. Flash also allows for webcast interfaces to be more creatively designed with custom navigation schemes, dynamic Flash widgets, and real-time retrieval of related content.

Tom said that so far clients are using the Virtual Shows to complement physical shows rather than replace them. They might run a physical show twice a year and then offer a more virtual version to reach a broader audience. They have also used them to provide virtual access to a physical show in multiple locations while the actual physical show is in progress. He said that at least one client is looking at the virtual platform to replace a meeting that had to be cancelled for budget reasons. I think this is a useful platform and the implementation of these types of services will only increase in today’s economic situation.  Below is a sample exhibit hall with multiple booths. 

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