2012 Virtual Conference of the International Communication Association, May 14-June 8

In recent years, interest in virtual trade shows, virtual conferences, and other online events has been visibly growing. Virtual conference technologies allow for sharing presentations, facilitating discussions, stimulating conversations, and providing networking opportunities to large groups of people and over prolonged periods of time through interactive environments that are user friendly, multimedia rich, and multilingual. These technologies grew from audio, video, and other teleconferencing tools and applications that have been employed by businesses and home users for holding virtual meetings since the 1990s. Advances in Web 2.0, powered by social interaction technologies and the nearly universal adoption of broadband with the associated bandwidth management capabilities, has triggered the convergence of stand-alone applications into comprehensive platforms. A flock of start-up companies came forward, from which formed the providers of virtual conferencing software and services such as Unisfair, On24, Inxpo, 6Connex, Digitell, and Altadyn. Two approaches to virtual conferences have surfaced: online-only and hybrid, in which the online component serves as a compliment to the face-to-face event. Several virtual event platforms emerged ranging from asynchronous discussion boards, live chats and webcasts, to fully 3D virtual worlds. The latest addition is the creation of a social network for a given event’s audience that is integrated with the event program and incorporates mobile apps. For example, during the 2010 World Education Congress of Meeting Professionals International, more than half of the 1,500 attendees chose to join the social networking community created for the event by Pathable (Shapiro, 2012). According to Joerg Rathenberg, Senior Director of Marketing at Unisfair, by 2010 “virtual events have evolved from the early adopter status to becoming widely used” (as cited in Market Research Media, 2010). To date, virtual conferences have been mostly corporate events that have typically taken place in industries such as computer and IT, health care, and financial services. However, the Smithsonian, the American Association of Museums, American Library Association, New York City Department of Education, and nonprofit organizations such as EDUCAUSE 2012 Virtual Conference of the International Communication Association, May 14-June 8