By admin | March 30, 2009
Our new Wishlist feature revealed that our users desired to make their presentations sessions a bit more personal by streaming their own video into the session. Therefore, Esprezo now comes with a built-in video function that captures the webcam (or any other video recording device) and streams it into the presentation session.
The new video function in Esprezo
As a moderator you can easily access this new function from the corresponding new video icon in the tollbar at the bottom border of the application. A click on this new icon enables the video, disabled in a new window opening left of the slides. Another cklick on it disables the video again, hiding the video window on the screen. Whenever you enable your video, your audience can see you in a video window that is located in the same location within their applications.
Of course the video can be watched in the fullscreen mode as well. There it is displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen, while the slides are shown stretched across the screen. If you move the mouse cursor over the video window in fullscreen, the video window becomes transparent, allowing the slide content behind the video window to “shine through”. If you click on the video window in fullscreen mode, you can see the video in fullscreen with the current slide being depicted in the left bottom corner of the screen. Clicking on the slide will restore the default vieweing mode with the small video window in the bottom right corner and the current slide being stretched across the full screen.
By admin | March 21, 2009
Thanks to the new Wishlist feature in Esprezo, it immediately became clear to us how important a virtual laser pointer is to our users. Thus, we had no other choice than to sit down and implement such a feature. And gladly we can say that this feature is available from now on.
The virtual laser pointer works much like its real counterpart: the presenter uses the pointer to draw the audience’ attention to a specific region of the current slide (e.g. a certain component within a diagram), or to symbolize the direction of a workflow through a characterizing gesture (e.g. the information flow within a diagram).
Toolbar control and virtual mouse cursor
The new laser pointer feature is made accessible to the moderator through a new symbol in the lower toolbar, represented by a glowing mouse cursor. If the presenter clicks on this control, it starts to blink, indicating that the virtual laser pointer is now active and shown on the screens of the audience in form of an oversized mouse cursor. Whereever you let your mouse cursor point at, the virtual mouse cursor on the viewer’s screen points to exact the same location on the slide. Click once again on the toolbar contro and it stops blinking, indicating that the laser pointer is now disabled. At the same time, the virtual mouse cursor vanishes from the screens of the audience.
By admin | March 18, 2009
The answer to this question depends on what type of web conferences you deal with, and what specific functionality you expect in your web conferences.
While Esprezo entirely focuses on web presentations in front of a large audience, Comfidence 3.0 is aiming at highly interactive and dynamic group meetings with up to 10 participants. Because all participants can see and hear each other simultaneously, and because each participant can spontaneously contribute to the meeting, Comfidence 3.0 is achieving a real “Round-Table-Feeling”, i. e. the members of the conference are sharing the impression that they really sit around a virtual table.
Those are the ideal prerequisites for dynamic brainstorming sessions, difficult team meetings, and demanding webinars with very small groups. Comfidence furthermore supports those web conferences with a set of very powerful functions, including collaborative desktop sharing, chat, file transfer, or a WYSIWYG recording function, which records all activities within the conference (even including file transfers that in the recording are made accessible as file attachments) within a compact, streamable file for later playback. And last but not least the communication security level achieved in Comfidence 3.0 through SSL substantially leverages trust in difficult meetings.
Esprezo on the other hand is more suitable, if you want to show slides spontaneously (e.g. during an ongoing telco), or if you want to hold a web presentation in front of a large audience. Ad-hoc presentations can be accomplished with a single mouse click. The user interface complexity intentionally has been kept at a minimum in order to allow you and your viewers to entirely focus on the content of your presentation, rather than fiddeling with a plethora of different gimmicks.
If you are still undecided with which solution you want to go, then feel encouraged to test both solutions. Free accounts for Esprezo and trial accounts for Comfidence 3.0 are available on request. You will see that taking a test drive with our solutions is worth the effort.
By admin | March 18, 2009
At Streamcraft Technologies we really listen to our customers, probably like no other company in our field. This includes the product development in close cooperation with our users. In order to make your feedback as easy and fast as possible, we have added a new feature to Esprezo: the Wishlist.
The wishlist appears on the right-hand side of your Esprezo homepage and lists all features that have been not implemented yet (or chose by us for implementation). By using the corresponding drop-down boxes you can tell us how important the respective feature for you is: “important”, “undecided”, and “unimportant”. By moving your mouse pointer over a feature, a tooltip appears and tells you more details on that feature.
We determine the overall importance of a given feature by averaging the user’s individual votes. The higher the overall importance, the higher the probability that a feature is going to be realized before other features.
By making proper use of your Wishlist you considerably help us in improving Esprezo according to the actual preferences and needs of our Esprezo community.
And of course you still can (and should) write us at feedback@esprezo.com and share your ideas and comments with us. We always appreciate constructive criticism and ideas for Esprezo. And we certainly attempt to obey your needs and requirements as much as possible.
By admin | March 17, 2009
Starting today, the initiator of a presentation event can decide to protect his/her session with a Session Password. Such a password is optional and can be freely chosen by the initiator during event planning (and changed or removed at any time later).
If such a password is set, then each viewer is required to enter the correct password in order to gain access to the presentation event. If a wrong password is entered, access to the presentation is denied. Invitation e-mails are filled with the selected Session Password automatically, thus it is not neccessary to communicate the password with the prospect participants individually.
Session Passwords provide a certain level of increased security for your sessions, as it is not possible for just anybody to enter your protected sessions without knowledge of your password.
By admin | March 17, 2009
If you already have registered for a Esprezo account, you probably have noticed the Esprezo-ID field in the registration form. But what’s the Esprezo-ID good for and how does it help you to conduct your web conferences with Esprezo? Today’s blog post will make an attempt to explain you everything you need to know about this.
Whenever you want to conduct a web conference, you usually need to communicate two pieces of information with all prospect participants:
- the Login-URL at which the Login mask (also called “Point of Entry”) resides, and
- a session identifier (usually numerical) that is to be entered by each participant in order to get connected to the corresponding web conference.
This means that you need to have access to a direct communication channel in order to communicate this information (e. g. by e-mail or telephone). This communication is prone to mistakes (e. g. accidentially swapping digits of the session identifier or omitting parts of the URL), possibly resulting in angry or at least disappointed users.
Therefore Esprezo offers an alternate scheme to redirect prospect participants to your web conference, which in particular is very suitable for ad-hoc presentations and regular web conferences: Static URLs.
A static URL never changes, hence its name. During his/her registration, each Esprezo user chooses an individual Esprezo-ID, which directly contributes to the Static URL for the corresponding user. Im my own case this Static URL is given by
http://www.esprezo.com/users/ruehl
where “ruehl” is the Esprezo-ID chosen by me during the registration. This URL is the only piece of information you need to communicate with your audience in order to get the web conference running.
And because this URL never changes, I can easily print it on my business cards or add it to my e-mail signature. Prospect participants then just click on the link (or enter it into their browser) and automatically get forwarded to my current web conference. This avoids the need for communicating and entering a cryptic session identifier. This is the most simple and efficient way to get together with your audience.
By admin | March 10, 2009
Esprezo is a tool that can save your company a lot of money. Instead of having to give presentations on site and in person, you can do this with Esprezo from the comfort of your desk. Esprezo omits the cost for location rent, travel and event organization as well as contingent opportunity costs.
Instead, invest your time and money only in the actual presentation. You go from nought to a hundred in under a minute, all the while preserving your ability to directly and immediately address the questions and comments of your audience.
And when you hold large events with Esprezo, you unite several presentation appointments in a single one. Then, you can really see the multiplication effect in terms of time and cost savings that Esprezo provides for you.
Your viewers will thank you that they don’t have to arrive in person for your presentation anymore. Therefore, you potentially save your clients and partners time and money as well and raise the fun factor.
By admin | March 10, 2009
Today, in the competition for the Innovations Prize in IT for 2009, the three best products for each category out of over 2000 applicants in 34 categories were nominated. We are happy and proud that Streamcraft Technologies with Esprezo is one of the nominees in the category “Web 2.0″!
Regardless of whether or not we win the category or take the third place, we are very happy about the nomination and the accompanying recognition of our efforts. We take this as yet another reason to offer you an even better Esprezo in the future.
We will continue to integrate new functionality in Esprezo that will make your presentations even more effective, efficient and a true experience for your audience. We thereby forgo unnecessary nonsense-functions and would rather hear to what you’ve got to say! If you have ideas and suggestions for improvement, let us know under feedback@esprezo.com. We are looking forward to constructive feedback.
At the same time, we would like to emphasize that we view Esprezo as an open tool. This means that we gladly give you ideas and impulses on how to apply Esprezo to the advantage of your organization but we, by no means, dictate what to use Esprezo for. On the contrary, we are curious to see how YOU will use Esprezo. We welcome every success story, no matter its magnitude, if you have the time and desire to share it.
By admin | March 10, 2009
Esprezo is currently in the so-called “BETA” phase. This means that all fundamental functions have already been implemented and tested but we first want to put the solution to the acid test together with our potential clients and all interested Internet users. At no time does this cost anything to you!
During the BETA (and also afterwards) we offer free-of-charge access to Esprezo, although this access is restricted in terms of performance capabilities. Every Esprezo user receives 10 MB of storage space for his high quality presentation slides and can hold presentations with up to 10 simultaneous participants. Other than that, all other functions are available without restrictions.
After the BETA, we will start adding access for-a-fee options, which will allow you to do more with Esprezo: more storage, larger participant groups, video transfer and screen sharing are only a few of the features included in these pro-access options.
Every Internet user is invited to try out Esprezo and provide us with feedback that can directly impact the improvement of the Esprezo solution. Register for free and try it out!
Posted in General | Tagged BETA, Esprezo |
By admin | March 10, 2009
Esprezo brings you and your clients, partners and colleagues together fast, uncomplicated and currently for free. Live presentations over the Internet, in sound and vision. You simply upload your presentation slides to our server and hold your presentations with your Internet browser.
The viewers can hear your present the slides and have the option to participate by commenting or asking you questions directly. The convenient scheduling function, including your address book, lets you plan presentation events and send invitations to your viewers via e-mail. And if you’re in a hurry, you can start an Ad-hoc presentation right away with one single mouse click.
But what can you use Esprezo for? Basically for all presentations that communicate information to the viewers in the form of slides:
- Product presentations: as a marketing agent, you don’t want to only inform your clients about the preferences of your products, you also want to address their questions.
- Training: as an expert, you can equip your inquisitive colleagues with “Brainpower” right from your desk, which gives your company an advantage over the competition and for your clients.
- Consulting: as a consultant for complicated products and services, you want to be able to always keep your clients informed but also be able to answer their individual questions.
- Project meetings: you are working on a complex and demanding project with a lot of participants? Esprezo allows for easy and fast communication between you, your partners and your clients. With it, you can instantaneously present the current status of the project and answer the questions of your staff.
- and many more…
As you can see: Esprezo helps you in many situations, gives you flexibility and reach and helps you bring your products and services to people better, easier and faster.
We are looking forward to your presentations! And surely, so do your clients and colleagues.
