Virtual meetings technology is a fast-moving target. Here are the lastest developments from eight industry suppliers.
• Cisco is adding to its meeting technology with the mid-May announcement that it will acquire Indianapolis-based Socio Labs Inc., developers of the Socio event-management solution. Integrated with Webex, Cisco’s video-meeting platform, and Slido, the Q&A and polling technology that the company acquired in December, Cisco will offer a more end-to-end portfolio of hybrid-meeting tools
• At the end of April, ON24 announced a new breakout-room functionality for its webcasting platform. Audiences will be able to move between breakout rooms and live or simulive events, with data captured on who joined and how long they engaged. ON24 Breakouts is available now for early adopters and will be available for all ON24 digital events this summer.
• MeetingPlay, one of the virtual-event platforms in Marriott International’s Connect with Confidence program, has announced two developments. In late April, the Washington, D.C.-based company unveiled a revamp of its MeetingPlay Studio platform. Among other upgrades, the system provides improved branding opportunities and gives planners more control over what attendees are seeing, with smoother transitions for bringing presenters in and out of the scene. In addition, the company has launched its MeetingPlay Hybrid Experience, a package of services to engage live and remote audiences.
• During the pandemic, Jifflenow transformed its platform for booking B-to-B customer meetings at in-person events, focusing instead on embedding virtual-meeting invites into digital marketing programs (webinars, social media, etc.) and then on scheduling and managing various kinds of meetings in virtual events (“meet the expert,” product demos, etc.) In May, the company announced that it had closed a deal for $11.9 million in a new funding.
• Member organizations and publicly held companies that routinely take votes as part of their events can consider a new technology from Minnesota Survey & Ballot Systems, DirectVoteLive. The software allows organizations to conduct votes securely and virtually.
• vFairs, a platform for virtual events and trade shows, announced six new product integrations in early May. It now works with marketing technology Oracle Eloqua, Slido (manages virtual Q&A and polling), ReStream (streams content to social platforms), SyncWords (provides content captions and subtitles), and, Worldly and Interprify (translates content).
• At the end of April, ON24 announced a new breakout-room functionality for its webcasting platform. Audiences will be able to move between breakout rooms and live or simulive events, with data captured on who joined and how long they engaged. ON24 Breakouts is available now for early adopters and will be available for all ON24 digital events this summer.
• Meeting-management and registration-technology provider Groupize has launched a new hybrid-attendee app that integrates with videoconferencing services, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeeting, and WebEx. The app allows for branding, speaker profiles, documents, videos, and more, and also integrates with personal calendars. Attendees can use the app to check in virtually or with a contactless QR code.
• In April, virtual meeting platform Glisser announced the launch of its own video-streaming service, Glisser Stream, which allows customers to run their virtual events directly through the Glisser platform. Eliminating the need for third-party integrations makes the platform more secure and less complex, Glisser says. However, the company will continue to support the 11 streaming platforms with which it currently integrates.
