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Table of Contents » Facilities, Functionalities and Terminology » Web touring, Co-browsing
Facilities, Functionalities and Terminology
Web touring, Co-browsing
Web touring is the ability to access selected Web pages together with other people. One presenter can "synchronize" the meeting participants to "see" exactly the same Web pages she accesses live on her presentation computer. Web touring is normally based on a simple function that sends out to all participants viewing tool the URL (Web address) of the Web page to be accessed. This provides for an effective collaborative activity with a minimum of bandwidth requirements.
Web touring as such has only one major limitation. The presenter cannot show to participants specific parts of page, or scroll to a certain section on a Web page. Participants only see the Web page "shared", each one will need eventually to scroll down to see any item displayed further down on a Web page.
To achieve perfect Web Touring functionality some Web conferencing technologies have adopted an application sharing or better "screen sharing approach". They use a facility that allows all meeting participants to see the presenter computer screen and what she does on it. While this solution provides for effective and complete simultaneous navigation, two disadvantages come with it:
a) Participants cannot click on the links of any page or scroll at their leisure such Web pages. They just see what the presenter shows or does on her screen.
b) The bandwidth required to do this is several orders of magnitude greater than the one required by the "classical" Web Touring approach. The delay is therefore generally much greater. In such cases, achieving perfect sync between what you show and what participants see becomes a real issue.
• Follow-me - Sync surfing
Follow-me is the core function used by most Web conferencing systems. Follow-me provides a simple means for the presenter/moderator to send out the URL address of the Web page she is visiting to all other meeting participants. In this fashion all participants browsers "sync-up" with whatever URL the presenter goes to. It is important that the Follow-me feature can be turned on or off at will in order to provide a safety net for the presenter/moderator in being able to preview or visualize pages without having to "broadcast" them to the meeting participants.
• "Push" Web pages
Pushing a Web page allows the presenter to force a new browser window with a selected Web page to open on the participant computer. Each page pushed to the participants leaves them free to navigate and independently interact with the Web page received.
• Favorites / Bookmarks
Favorites and bookmarks allow the presenter/moderator to record Web page addresses in an easy fashion in order to facilitate the presentation of different Web sites/pages without the need to type in each individual URL address when needed.
• Preview
The Preview function allows the presenter/moderator to view privately a Web page before broadcasting it to all of the meeting participants.
• Hand-out control
In a Web touring session the hand-out control facility allows the presenter/moderator to give control of the Web tour to anyone of the participants in the session.
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Facilities