Interactive video such as BlueJeans Primetime is consistently changing and improving in order to make online calls easier and of better quality. But it does mean that companies need to pay attention to these changes and figure out how to utilize them in the future. Failure to adapt, can leave a business behind the times and missing out on opportunities. Many companies have already gone out of business due to their failure to adapt to new trends in technology like video conferencing.
These are some of the biggest changes in video conferencing that have been seen over the past few months, how businesses can take advantage of them, and upcoming future changes to look out for:
- Facebook Live
Launched in April 2016 and already popular amongst celebrities, journalists, and influential figures such as astronauts, this new feature to the world’s most popular social media website allows users to live stream content to their Facebook pages for their friends or followers to watch. It can also be integrated with other conferencing systems for livestreaming. While this technology has been around in some form for a while, Wired magazine has found many advantages to rolling it out on the Facebook platform. There is increased interactivity, such as use of the Facebook reaction buttons (like, love, wow, ha ha, etc) and the ad revenue will have financial benefits. Businesses can use the feature to open up their online seminars or company conferences to an accessible platform and attract more viewers to their marketing and sales events.
- Virtual Reality
While this technology is still developing and it will be a while before we see it in general use or more affordable, it could transform future meetings. Office Blogs says that 93 percent of communication is non-verbal, in the form of facial expressions and body language, which are harder to express through a webcam. Meeting remotely through virtual reality devices, such as the new Microsoft HoloLens launched in 2016, could make up for this loss. It could also solve many of the complaints that people have with current video conferencing systems, such as the loss of direct eye contact, outside distractions getting in the way of meetings, less personal interactivity, shy people becoming overlooked, and restricted screen size. It could really be the next best thing to meeting someone in person and transform both business and personal relationships. The ability to see somebody’s face live from across the globe was mere pipe dream only a few decades ago, so what was once possible only in science fiction could well happen sooner than we think.
- Global Marketplace
Remote working has already made it possible for people to work together from anywhere around the globe that wasn’t possible before. Improvements to technology, faster internet access, and stabilizing economies mean that these trends will continue and markets will open up into new countries. This will improve workplace equality by making companies more diverse, improve company revenues through wider markets, and allow people to work from anywhere they want, even places where rent is cheaper and their pay will stretch further.
- Room to Remote Systems
Seminars and large conferences traditionally took place in a special conference room, but emerging use of online systems took these gatherings online. A strange new trend is taking these events back to the conference room while still broadcasting online simultaneously. Room to remote systems are becoming cheaper and easier to use and install, meaning many companies can open up their options for both selling live tickets to their events and broadcasting them online. It has advantages to the host who can interact with and play off of a live audience much easier than they could an online audience alone. Cloud storage and video sharing sites even make it possible to record and save these events, upload them to a sharing site, and allow them to be viewed and shard by other users who couldn’t make the live conference. It is just another tool that allows for more flexibility and increased options.
- Public Wi-Fi
Accessing the internet in public in coffee shops or airports is still not as reliable or safe as it is at home or in the office. But the public wi-fi network is still opening up more all the time and gradually improving in quality. You can now access wi-fi on buses, subways, in remote locations, and on planes. With more and more people upgrading to mobile devices with internet access and integrated webcams, this makes it possible to keep in touch at all times and access quality video conferencing from anywhere. Trends such as cheaper fibre optic cable also make internet access faster and more reliable in homes and offices too.
Making the most of these new trends and thinking about how you can make the most of future ones will bring your company up to date and help you be prepared for the future of video conferencing.
