While momentum in the meetings community leans toward the return of face-to-face events, innovation and investment in technologies for virtual meetings continues. Whether organizations use online options for convenience, cost-savings, greater audience reach, a low-carbon footprint, or some other reason, their communications toolkit is forever broadened after the forced adoption and fast-paced technological improvements seen since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
Here are two new platforms plus three other developments in the virtual events technology space
Tevent’s Official Launch
Tevent, a new platform for virtual events, hopes to grab the attention of small to mid-size companies with a low-cost, feature-rich, easy-to-use model. “It’s a crowded market right now; there are a lot of platforms,” noted co-founder Ahmed Amer during a media call for the U.K. company’s official launch on April 27. However, Amer believes Tevent’s edge is in offering a fully realized platform—networking features, breakout rooms, chats, lead tracking, polling on the fly, whiteboards, immediate access to event recordings, and so on—at every pricing level. That includes free events—those for under 100 people and running less than an hour. In March, Tevent announced that it has raised $2 million in a series of seed-funding rounds.
ExpoPro Rolls Out Phase One
MeetingPlay + Aventri has rolled out a new platform called ExpoPro, just months after the two companies merged. Built from the ground up for managing exhibitors and sponsors at large exhibitions, phase one of the platform automates communication, tasks, content collection, and approvals to keep planners and exhibitors on track for upcoming shows. While the company had an existing exhibition management tool, it was scrapped for the new platform built on state-of-the-art project-management technology. A second phase of the ExpoPro rollout, coming this summer, will help exhibitors and sponsors quantify their return on investment, says Joe Schwinger, the company’s chief of innovation. Post-pandemic, exhibitors have higher expectations for the level of attendee data, he notes. “Phase two is where we bring artificial intelligence and machine learning into the pre-conference engagement to increase ROI for sponsors before they even walk on the show floor.”
Notified Goes Live
Virtual-event provider Notified (part of Intrado Corp.) has upgraded its Event Cloud product to support in-person events. Planners and marketers can now execute live, virtual, and hybrid events from one platform. Event Cloud offers processes for managing attendees, sponsors, speakers, and staff; a mobile app; and services and production staff. The company has also introduced three pricing tiers for Event Cloud services.
ON24 Pairs with Video Platform
ON24 has acquired VIBBIO, a video-software company that allows people with no experience to make and edit quality videos. The goal, says ON24, is to put video-content creation in the hands of salespeople and marketers. Within the ON24 platform, clients will be able to use VIBBIO to create videos to promote digital events or reuse event content to create highlight clips for use on social media or in e-mail campaigns.
Array Updates
Array, a content-engagement technology for life-science events, has announced updates to its reporting and user experience. For presenters, there’s an easier-to-use interface; for attendees, an improved login and breakout-joining experience; and for organizers, enhanced collection of data that’s important to life-science professionals as well as easier-to-understand reporting formats. In other news, Array received a U.S. patent for its “Systems and Methods for Improved Meeting Engagement” in March and recently welcomed Debbie Liberio as head of sales.
