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Web Touring - Co-Browsing

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Synchronized Web surfing can be realized via a special Web Tour function (Web Safari), which is based on application sharing, or via URL sharing through the Agenda.

Presenters can take meeting participants on a Web Safari and guide them through selected pages. Web Safari is an application sharing facility dedicated exclusively to synchronized Web surfing. This approach has the advantage that participants can view everything you (as presenter) do on your computer screen. Participants can see your mouse cursor while you navigate Web sites and can watch you scrolling through a Web page, which is normally not possible with "classical" Web Touring.

When synch-surfing is achieved via application sharing, participants cannot click on the links of any page or scroll themselves. They just see what the presenter shows on her screen and have to follow her wherever she goes. Only if the presenter authorizes them by giving them "microphone control" participants can navigate freely. A participant that has obtained microphone control then guides other participants and the presenter through a Web site.

If you import a Web site URL to the Agenda and push it to the main window, participants can navigate through the respective Web site completely on their own and are free to click on any link they encounter. This is especially useful if participants have to do an exercise or if they have to complete a form.

Both synch-surfing modes, Web Safari and pushing a URL from the Agenda, are very useful for certain purposes.

However, Centra lets you pay a rather high price for being able to synch the Web pages of your participants. Synchronization could be very easily accomplished by "classical" Web Touring. You simply send the URL of the web page to be accessed out to the participants viewing tools, which requires little bandwidth. Synch-surfing powered by application sharing instead requires much more bandwidth. As a consequence, there is a much greater lag between the time when you access a page and the time when your participants can actually see the page.

Besides, the quality of certain Web sites or graphic elements may be compromised by the image compression and optimization process required by the application sharing engine.

« PowerPoint Presentation Facilities | Main | Presence Awareness »

Posted on June 23, 2003 at 12:21 PM

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PowerPoint Presentation Facilities

Web Touring - Co-Browsing