AmericanWebcast - Streaming video for the law office (sm)

. . . streaming video for the law office (sm)

Webcasting 101: TV on Your PC by Kendall Callas
Many law firms are harvesting their talent to present nuggets of value on the web. Some prefer the traditional document, such as an article presented as a web page or the downloadable ‘white paper’. Others have embraced full-color, full-motion video, such as the ‘legal update’ or panel discussion webcast. AUDIO + SLIDES An intermediate choice with an interesting trade-off of features is the ‘audio plus slides’ type of webcast. First of all, it delivers. The spoken word works well in communicating information to the legal community. Slides boost the density of the flow to provide a lot of functionality. By avoiding the heavy lifting that video requires, ‘audio plus slides’ can still provide a good experience to the dialup user. And by using just the voices of the presenters, production of the program is much simplified, avoiding the stress of an on-camera interview and allowing the content to be gathered by telephone. Unfortunately, it does require a budget to pay for the webcasting service, which you don’t incur with a straight audio or video webcast. WHAT’S ON TONIGHT? A good example of the ‘audio plus slides’ webcast is viewable from “Morrison & Foerster Webinars” http://www.veracast.com/mofo The webcast available is titled “M&A in China: Legal and Regulatory Pitfalls in Structuring and Executing M&A Transactions in China.” Five speakers provide a very structured 90-minute discussion (dated October 2005), with 70 slides, and approved for 1.5 hours of California MCLE self-study credit. The web site provides a slick appearance with embedded media player. The webcast service, Veracast in this case, provides a functional interface that automatically ‘turns the page’ on the slides and includes controls that add the ability to skip ahead or review the text. I hope this field report on a simple approach to webcasting encourages you to consider making the most of this new medium. *Too many webcasts, not enough time.* If you see streaming audio or video you think would be of interest to our readers, please URL and description. Has your firm produced a webcast? We want the details! If you'd like a clickable list of the web addresses from this and past columns,
Kendall Callas, , is president of American Webcast and a 20-year veteran law office technology consultant.

AUDIO + SLIDES

WHAT’S ON TONIGHT?