Here you'll find answers to commonly asked questions.

If you have any questions not answered here, we encourage you to please contact us immediately.

1. Does each person invited to the meeting have to pay?

No. Only the person who purchased the meeting room. Service plans start as low as €40 per month, with UNLIMITED anytime minutes, for a 10 seat room. Those you invite to your room pay nothing!

2. Does Conferencing Direct require participants to use the telephone to hear the audio?

No.  With Conferencing Direct, you and your participants will enjoy crystal clear audio through a headset or desktop speakers and all that is required is a minimum 28.8 kbps Internet connection.

3. What makes Conferencing Direct easier to use than other services?

One of the many things that sets Conferencing Direct apart from other online meeting rooms is that the small, one-time software download is "self-reliant".  The need for tech support is virtually eliminated.

It's important that anyone, with even the most basic computer skills, can use your program without being required to download huge upgrade files such as Java, Flash, Windows Media, Real Audio or upgrade to a specific web browser.

With Conferencing Direct, all components required to run your virtual meeting room are contained in the small software package.

4. What makes Conferencing Direct the best value?

First.  One of the most frequent comments made is how easy the program features are to understand and use.  The learning curve is literally less than 5 minutes.

Second.  Many popular web conferencing services cost $65, $100, $150 dollars or more "per month", "per user".  For example; a web conference room of 6 participants x $65 would cost you $390 per month.  Other companies bill you at $.15 to $.39 "per minute" for each person in your conference room.  

Your Savings Can Be Significant!
Using other services, at $.15 per minute, a 6 person meeting will cost $54 per hour!  Compare that with $40, unlimited minutes for 30 days using Conferencing Direct.

Check out some of these rates from other popular services.

• Infinite's - WebInterpoint  $.15
• WebEx - Meetingplace  $.45
• Microsoft Live Meeting - Placeware  $.35
• Raindance - Web Conferencing Pro  $.39

Conferencing Direct completely eliminates these outrageous monthly fees by giving you unlimited, flat-rate access starting as low as €40 per month for a10 seat room and those you invite to your room pay nothing!

No wonder people say Conferencing Direct is just what they've been looking for!

* These rates are "per minute" "per participant".  All rates are based upon the published or quoted pay-per-use pricing of the respective companies as of January 2005. 

5. How does Conferencing Direct differ from MSN® and Yahoo® messenger communities?

Conferencing Direct is a business class model web conferencing solution and the private label versions are premise based (in house) on your dedicated server as opposed to a third party hosted solution. 

Conferencing Direct completely integrates voice over IP (VoIP), co-browsing, text messaging, white board, live desktop, live video, file sharing, application sharing and data collaboration all in one easy-to-use Windows software.  It is the idea solution for business, educational institutions and government to improve internal communications and distance learning applications.  You can invite people into a web conference via an Invite User feature from your meeting room.

Conferencing Direct allows you to engage meeting participants visually with slide shows, pre-programmed web presentations, and document sharing.  You also have the ability to use text messaging, hands-free voice/audio, web tour presentations, white board, live desktop, file transferring and video conferencing with your meeting participants.

This makes Conferencing Direct ideal for sales presentations, meeting facilitation and online training to name just a few. 

Conferencing Direct is a hosted/service model, meaning that our technology is not peer to peer.  A hosted model allows for increased security, much greater scalability in terms of numbers of guests, plus firewall detection and avoidance.

MSN® and Yahoo® are "messaging" services, they are not Web Conferencing services. These two programs are not structured properly for acceptable business to business use on the Internet.  They are peer to peer technologies, this means the host and guests are connected directly to each other. 

Peer-to-Peer has 3 critical key limitations and problems: 

First, there are greater security concerns when compared to a hosted technology. The two machines are connected directly to each others, exposing both party's IP address to the other.  It also causes possible operating system weaknesses to be exposed and exploited. 

Second, a peer to peer technology can not scale to large numbers of guests as is possible with Conferencing Direct.  A few people attending one session is enough to clog the session hosts line to the Internet. 

One of the bigger problems is the lack of firewall detection with a peer to peer technology. In the business world, companies generally have firewalls protecting the company's servers and desktop systems. Firewalls are also used to enforce corporate rules of network misuse, such as running MSN® or Yahoo®.  When these apps are blocked by a firewall, the only way to get them to work is to involve the IT department and open ports of the corporate firewall, which is often not allowed. 

MSN® (NetMeeting) or Yahoo® will not allow you to connect multiple people in one private conferencing room.  Also Microsoft has announced that it is dropping all support and development for NetMeeting, the core conferencing engine in MSN®.

For home based, (one-on-one) non-business use, Yahoo® and MSN® can be very useful tools.  But when your objective is to hold secure, professional presentations with your clients and prospects, with small groups to large groups of 100 or more, first impressions count.  The use of the free services cannot achieve this and is not indicative of a high-caliber operation. 

When it comes to business via the Internet, building trust and visitor confidence is of paramount importance.  The standard by which your business is expected to operate calls for certain identifiable signs that you are a legitimate business, worthy of doing business. 

When your goal is to earn the trust and confidence of your prospects, the use of free web and email accounts, cluttered by 3rd party advertising and domain identity, is a clear sign to most that you are either a new, part-time or fly-by-night operation.

6. How many people can be in the meeting room?

The maximum number of people you can have in your meetings is only limited by the size of the account you've subscribed to.  For example, a 6 seat subscriber account will allow you (the room operator/moderator) and up to 5 guests. This means a total of six people can be in your room at the same time.

7. Can I talk to a person on the other side of the world?

Yes.  Both you and the other person will need to have downloaded the Conferencing Direct desktop software, then login to begin your meeting with them.  If you are the room operator, once logged in, you can click the Tools/Features menu, then click Invite User. From that feature, you simply enter the persons name, email address, location, and a personal note, then click "Send Invitation".

8. How can I protect my room privacy?

If the computer you use to run your Conferencing Direct meeting room is also used by others and you do not want them to be able to login using your account information, do not click the Store Info check box during login and this information will not be saved.  You will then be required to manually re-enter your information each time you login.

Also see: What types of security are included in the service?

9. How is my computer protected from viruses while in a meeting?

One of the many benefits of using Conferencing Direct is that everyone you meet in a conference room is connected to the secure conference server and not directly to you.  The only potential for a virus is if you choose to accept a file sent by someone in your meeting and that file is infected.  It is recommended that you always run a reliable virus protection program, such as Symantec's Norton Anti-Virus, and have auto file scan enabled.

10. What are the minimum system requirements to use Conferencing Direct?

Requirements when using the Live Meeting Recorder:

The Live Meeting Screen Recorder captures ALL movements made on your screen. This includes the mouse pointer, scrolling, web page navigation, text chat, PowerPoint slides, White Board drawing, Live Video Conferencing, menus accessed and the login/logout activity of those in the meeting.

The full desktop (full screen) recording process requires more processing power from your computer than any other feature used in the meeting room. The chart below shows the minimum system requirements to use the record feature of Live Meeting Recorder.

For tips using the Live Meeting Recorder, access the Online Help System, click here.

11. Can you recommend a good place to purchase a headset?

A good headset will provide great sound quality and make long meetings more comfortable.  A suitable headset can be purchased from any computer store, such as Radio Shack, Computer City, CompUSA, and even Walmart.  It is recommended that you invest at least $25 or more to purchase an above average headset.

If you want to benefit from the best camera available for web conferencing, you'll want to own a QuickCam Pro 4000 by Logitech.  Click here for details.

To benefit from the best technology available for web conferencing, please click here to visit the Tools & Tips page.

12. Is a Broadband Internet connection required to use Conferencing Direct?

The minimum Internet connection required to play smooth, clear audio is a 28.8 Kbps connection.  If your connection is near this speed, make sure that no other programs are running that require Internet connections such as; an email program or a messenger program like MSN®, Yahoo® or AOL®.  With a minimum connection, you may lose some parts of the audio when the room operator loads pages in the co-browse area and this depends on the content of the pages that are loaded during your meeting.

13. What types of security are included in the service?

Account & Meeting Room Authentication
Conferencing Direct employs both user and meeting room authentication.  This simply means that each Operator or User has his/her own username and password, which is used to join all web meetings.  The advantages of user-based authentication when combined with meeting-based authentication is that Users only have to remember one username and password and no one can assume a person's identity in a meeting.

14. I am not receiving my Registration and other emails.

Dealing with ISP and Email Filters
Increasingly, ISPs are using filtering systems to try and keep Spam out of customers' inboxes. Sometimes, they accidentally filter the e-mail you "want" to receive such as your Conferencing Directaccount details.  

Here is what you can do:

First, add Worldconferencing.com as a new contact in the address book of your email program. Use registrations@Worldconferencing.com 

Next add Worldconferencing.com to the list of friendly domains in your filter settings.

Second, call your Internet Provider and ask if they are using Spam filters.  If they are, ask them how to add Worldconferencing.com to the "Friendly List" or "Whitelist"

NOTE: If your ISP does not allow you to whitelist a domain, they are violating your basic right to receive e-mail from whomever you want. There are many other, customer-focused /customer-friendly ISP's who would love to have your business.

Third, check your email program filters:

AOL Users:  First, add Worldconferencing.com to your address book.  AOL filters divert email from unknown senders to the spam folder.  Now click on the "Manage Mail" tab and look in the "Spam" folder.  If this information is not helpful, you can contact AOL directly. 

Yahoo Users:  By default, the mail system automatically filters the majority of incoming bulk or commercial email directly to the bulk mail folder.  If you receive e mail in the bulk mail folder that you want to be sent to your inbox from now on, you can set up a filter to redirect the mail.  For details on Yahoo filters, visit: http://help.yahoo.com/help/mail/manage/manage-06.html.

Hotmail Users: Place Worldconferencing.com on your Safe List.  The "Safe List" can be accessed via the "Options" link, located to the far right of the main menu tabs.

Outlook & Outlook Express:  If you do not receive the Registration or other emails in your Inbox, look in the Deleted Folder.  

To set up Conferencing Directas a friendly email:

• Click on "Tools", then click on "Message Rules", "Mail", and "New".  

• Now set up a new mail rule to accept email from Conferencing Direct: registrations@Worldconferencing.com

• In Box 1, check: "Where the From Line contains People".  

• In Box 2 check "Move it to the specific folder"  

• In Box 3, click on the link "contains people", add registrations@Worldconferencing.com and click OK.  

• Next click on the link "specified", choose a folder or create a new folder for Conferencing Direct, then click OK. 

• Now click OK again and you're finished.

Note: If you registered for a guest pass before taking the steps above, you may need to go back and register again.

Operators:
Here are some solutions if someone does not receive the User guest you generated.

1. The system will not send the User guest pass when the city/state and country fields are blank. If you do not know this information for the person you are inviting, just use the "spacebar" to insert an empty character into that field.

2. Make sure your recipient is not using an email filtering service such as SpamCop or SpamArrest.  This will prevent them from receiving your invitation.  If your recipient is using a spam filter utility, have them check in the junk mail or deleted mail folder for your invitation.

3. When entering the email address in the Invite User feature, make sure that there is not a blank space at the end (right side).

4. When manually generating a User guest pass from the Invite User feature, include your address in the email field.  Separate your address and your recipients address with a comma, then send your recipient a copy of the invitation you receive.

IMPORTANT

The "Invite User" feature sends your guest an email from an automated system. If they have provided you with an email address that uses a Spam filtering service, they will NOT receive your invitation. These types of services require you to manually complete a verification process before they will forward the invitation to your guest. This is why we recommend that you include your address in the email field to send your guest a copy of the invitation when needed.
 

15. What forms of payment are accepted for room subscriptions?

Client will provide content here relevant to their specific merchant processor.

16. Audio Troubleshooting

1. The other person can hear me, but I can't here them, what can I do?

Click the System Settings button, then press and hold the Test Audio button while speaking into your headset microphone.  If you can hear your voice coming back through your headset speakers your send and receive voice/audio is working correctly. If you cannot hear your voice when the Test Audio button is depressed, check that the two wires coming from your headset (microphone and speakers) are plugged into the correct slots.  The headset wires will have two different colors, the wire for the microphone is typically red and has an image of a microphone on it.  Match this color/picture to the same that corresponds on the back of your computer.  If they are now plugged in correctly, try the Test Audio button again.  If you are hearing your voice when the Test Audio button is clicked, the problem is likely not anything on your end.  Advise the other person in your meeting to perform a quick check on their computer as described above.

2. What can I do if I am having problems talking to other users?

If you have voice rights enabled (from the Operator), and others still cannot hear you, click the System Settings button, then press and hold the Test Audio button while speaking into your headset microphone. 

If you can hear your voice coming back through your headset speakers your send and receive voice/audio is working correctly.  If you cannot hear your voice when the Test Audio button is depressed, check that the two wires coming from your headset (microphone and speakers) are plugged into the correct slots.  The headset wires will have two different colors, the wire for the microphone is typically red and has an image of a microphone on it.  Match this color/picture to the same that corresponds on the back of your computer.  If they are now plugged in correctly, try the Test Audio button again. 

If you are hearing your voice when the Test Audio button is clicked, the problem is likely not anything on your end.  Advise the other person in your meeting to perform a quick check on their computer as described above.

3. How do I fix poor sound quality?

If you hear static or other noise during a meeting, there may be a number of people who have all activated their Talk buttons at the same time OR it is a result of one of the following reasons on the sender's side:

• They have their microphone turned up too high, tell them to move the microphone
   slider bar to the left.

• They have their microphone too close to their mouth, tell them to move the
   microphone at least 4 to 6 inches away from their mouth.

• They have a cell phone or cordless phone transmitting next to their computer and 
   headset/microphone.

• The two lines that connect the headset microphone and speakers are touching the 
   computer's power line or other power supply.

• The two headset wire connectors may be touching.

• If your Internet connection is a dial-up, and you have an email program opened that checks for new email every few minutes, or you have some other program running that also uses your connection, you may experience breakup in the audio you send and receive during your meetings.  As a good rule of thumb, if you're using a dial-up connection, it's best to leave your email and other web-based services turned off while using Conferencing Direct.

Additional Audio Troubleshooting
Any question not answered above (relating to broadcasting or receiving audio during a meeting), can be resolved from this troubleshooting guide.

20. Voice broadcasting options

There are three options for broadcasting your voice.

1. You are listening to the audio through speakers because you don't
    have a headset.

When it's your turn to speak, press and hold the CTRL key.  (See image above.)  The system is detecting your voice when the green light appears on the Talk button.  Release the CTRL key when done speaking.

2. You are listening to the audio through speakers because you don't
    have a headset.

When it's your turn to speak, press and hold the Talk button.  (See image above.)  Release the Talk button when done speaking.

3. You have a headset with a microphone attached: (Recommended)

The Hands-Free is a professional full-duplex (open mic) feature with audio gain 
technology.  This feature is best used when there are only two people in the room OR 
when everyone with voice rights understand that they only speak when it's their turn.
Click the Hands-Free button and begin speaking when it's your turn.  (See image above.)

If none of the above options allow others to hear you, or you don't see the green light appear when you are talking, it is most likely that the room Operator has not turned on your ability to talk.  If the Operator has enabled your voice rights, you should check your local microphone settings.

Additional audio troubleshooting.

21. How can multiple people participate in a voice conversation?

A common question from those who've used other conference systems...

"We are accustomed to a half-duplex voice feature in our previous meeting room where it allowed only one person at a time to speak.  In Conferencing Direct, how do you know when the other person wants to speak?"

Until now, most web conference systems forced meeting participants to press buttons in order to speak.  This means that two-way conversations could only take place if both parties had the meeting room maximized and were watching for a visual indicator when it was their turn to speak.  Conferencing Direct gives you a professional, convenient solution, and once you understand and use it, you'll never go back to "walkie-talkie" type conversations again.

Conferencing Direct is much like a telephone in that when the microphone is on, anyone can speak and be heard.  This system was designed specifically for hands-free, two-way conversations.  It also allows those speaking to minimize the program to the taskbar and still carry on "telephone-like" conversations.  Our research indicates that the average Conferencing Direct meeting scenario is where up to 100 people are "listening" and "watching" while one or two other's are "presenting".

The benefit of hands-free voice is that it allows you to interject your comments during a live discussion.  For example, as I am talking, I hear that you are beginning to comment or interject.  I do not have to watch my screen to see a "bubble" or other indicator that you wish to speak.  I simply hear you and stop talking. 

Conferencing Direct is used by professional speakers and business people who use wireless headsets.  Our hands-free full-duplex audio feature is an absolute requirement for those who walk around an office while presenting or when broadcasting a live video presentation.

Conferencing Direct gives you multiple voice options, for details click here.

22. How many webcams can be used at the same time?

A common misconception about video conferencing is that everyone in a meeting "should be" able to see all video streams sent to the room. Even though our system will allow up to 100 people to see each other at the same time, what determines the ability to achieve this is the connection speed of each person in the room.

A meeting participant connected using a dial-up connection will only be able to receive 1 video stream.

If everyone in the room was using broadband, their Internet connection could likely handle 8 to 10 video streams at the default quality setting of 1 frame per second. Placing a higher demand on your Internet connection will likely cause audio break-up and delay text messaging.

You get seam-less communication via the Internet using full-duplex
voice, video, text chat, co-browsing and data conferencing.

Conferencing Direct Virtual Meeting Rooms
Powerful Technology For Your Business, Organization, or Family!