Hosting virtual discussions

So as part of the Social Software Showcase this year, I’m hosting two virtual discussions via TalkShoe.

I’m a relatively new TalkShoe user. I’ve participated in Greg Schwartz’s Uncontrolled Vocabulary podcast recording once, but never hosted a TalkShoe event myself. As a result, I’ve been trying to get a sense of the instruction/directions I might need to give people to allow them to participate. What is it like to participate as a Guest versus being logged in to TalkShoe. So I did some testing and was fortunate enough to stumble on the Hoosier Librarian’s podcast in progress while I was doing my testing. Big thanks to the folks participating for letting me lurk a little and check out what things look like for a guest.

For me the biggest downside to TalkShoe is the fact you have to call in to participate. This works great if you have a cell and either unlimited minutes or the call is after peak hours. Not everyone has this though. The other alternatives are to use Gizmo Project as described by Greg or to download the TalkShoe Live Pro with ShoePhone which allows users to connect via a TalkShoe specific VoIP service. I did preliminary testing with both of these but didn’t get them to work just right.

BIGWIG is also going to try to do some live video streaming using UStream and Stickam.

Top Tech Trends is checking out some other tools for virtual participation as well.

• At Midwinter the group used Skype to video conference people in
• TokBox – Provides the ability to video conference solely over the web (ie. no client to download). Supposedly the quality isn’t great though
• SightSpeed – Provides video conferencing and video chat of a higher quality but requires a client download

Ways to participate virtually are definately increasing.