Costin Tuculescu, one of InstantPresenter’s founders and CEO was named Entrepreneur of the Month by the Tech Coast Venture Network, a local technology and business network.  He was awarded the title after delivering his 30 second pitch to a crowd of over 50, and impressing the judges by his quick delivery of all the key benefits of the InstantPresenter Web Conferencing Platform and the associated business model.  

This is a huge priviledge for Costin as he is a young and up and coming entrepreneur, and this award is one of the first of it’s kind for him.”Receiving this type of recognition by such a prestigious group really means a lot to me.  I’m very proud and honored to accept this award,” states Tuculescu.

Along with the prestigious title, Costin was awarded a crisp, new $100 bill and the chance to talk one on one with local angel investors.  Thanks TCVN, for acknowledging InstantPresenter’s growth and potential in the market space!

InstantPresenter released our new Q & A tool this week that creates a more efficient online presentation and allows your moderator a simpler way to navigate through your attendees questions.  Our new Q & A tool  allows for greater fluidity of your presentations and verifies you have answered all the questions you want to answer and ignore the ones you don’t.

The Q & A tool is found under the Text Chat Tab at the top of the presenters interface and takes the place of the text chat.  You can switch between the Text Chat and Q & A tool without losing any texts or questions, but only one of the tools can be displayed at a time.  The Q & A tool allows you to manage your questions, mark them as answered or ignored, and lets you arrange or edit the questions for validity.  The Q & A tool works in screen sharing mode as well as the new Webcast Interface.  You can create your own questions for yourself and also Hide certain questions and answer them later.

The Questions from the Q & A tool are displayed on your recordings, and you can find a log of the online presentation questions in the Chat Log under the “Reports” button for the Presentation Room.  If you have any questions about the Q & A tool or would like a demo please feel free to contact us at 1-800-706-6762.

 It is our business to ensure you have the technology to give a terrific presentation.  But once the Technology is in place it is up to you to deliver.  We have put together a short report full of tips on how to deliver a successful presentation.  Enjoy!

The time has now arrived for you to conduct your online meeting. You may want to preview your slides to guarantee the presentation is how you want it before starting your session. We suggest you start 15 minutes before and after the presentation to account for waiting for the audience to log in and then to finish any questions at the end of your presentation. With that in mind, start your session a little early and wait for your audience. They will be unable to join the presentation until, you, the presenter, have started the session.

When you’re ready to present, simply click on the “Start Meeting” button and you will be taken to your presentation URL. When the session is first started, you will be asked whether or not you will allow your microphone and web cam to be used. If you would like to use these features, click allow. If not, deny it. InstantPresenter is most effective when these tools are used.

Near the upper left part of the screen is a button to start the session. When you want to start the presentation, simply click on this button and your presentation has begun. The amount of presentation time remaining will be shown so you can monitor your time during your meeting, unless you are on an unlimited plan. With the 15 minutes before and after the presentation, you have time to have everyone join the meeting as well as finish with any questions the audience may have. The web cam will be in effect at this point so you may want to wait for people and cover your web cam until you’re ready to present.

In the Attendance List, you will be able to monitor who is currently attending the session. This will help you start your session on time and will benefit your audience so they don’t miss out on any of the presentation. See when people have joined the session and when they leave with this roll call tool.

Encourage people to collaborate and ask questions with the online chat and annotation tools provided by InstantPresenter. As a presenter, you can enable or disable these tools at your discretion. There is a disable chat tab as well as clear chat tab. Once the chat has been disabled, it can easily be enabled again. Every participant will be able to view the chat session.

The presenter also has the option of enabling or disabling audience participation of the whiteboard. They can also clear it at any time. To create a whiteboard, simply click on the whiteboard tool on the left of the slideshow screen and it will appear over the current slide. To go back to your presentation, click on the whiteboard tool again and you will return to the last viewed slide.

NOTE: If you do not clear the whiteboard before returning to your slides, the notes made on the whiteboard will now be shown on the slide within your slideshow until you clear the white board.

Take advantage of the web cam tool for a more effective online presentation. Your points will be more clear by being able to have visual enhancements to your presentation. When using the web cam, make sure you are visible in the screen where the presenter is shown. When you have gone to the URL of your presentation but not yet started the session, verify how you will be seen by your audience.

Use the audio to eliminate your conference calls. Before starting the meeting, verify that everyone participating can hear you clearly. Use the extra time allowed before the meeting to adjust the microphone as needed. In the email invitation, verify that the audience members will need to have access to their sound on their computer with headphones or speakers.

If you have any technical issues our support staff is available 24/7 at 1-800-706-6762.  Good Luck

InstantPresenter now offers a Pro Package for our customers.  The Pro Package is a compilation of all our web conferencing features wrapped together with our seating plans, delivered in a lower price.  We still offer our traditional web conferencing pricing with all of our features individually, but the new Pro Package allows you to have all the paraphernalia necessary to delivering a professional webinar.

Our Pro Package includes Video/Audio/Power Point Presentations, Recording Hosting, Registration, Survey, PayPal Integration, Screen Sharing, etc.  The plans are broken down into the number of seats in a room.  Our plans begin with 5 seats and go all the way to 1000 seats.  Each plan comes with the ability for up-to-6-presenters, Audio and Video broadcasting, polling and instant file uploading during your presentation.  A traditional 15 seat video plan is $39, and to add Recording Hosting and Paypal would put the price over $79/month.  The Pro 15 seat plan costs $59 with no additional cost because all features are included.

If you would like to sign up, upgrade your current plan, or get more information, please contact our sales team at 1-800-706-6762 or support@instantpresenter.com.

We recently added an extremely helpful feature in the Survey Tool.  The survey tool allows you to receive feedback regarding your presentation and your performance.  When you send out an invitation, you may attach a survey when you add a registration to an invitation. The survey is completely customizable with personally tailored questions, multiple-choice and fill-in answers.  The survey also includes required and optional fields where you can determine which questions must be answered in order to complete the survey.

The survey can be launched immediately following the completion of your presentation.  The attendees are sent to the survey URL as soon as you survey presentation is complete.  The survey opens and asks the participant for their input. Upon completion of the survey you are emailed a confirmation of completion. You can view the completed surveys on your Account Manager page under Registrations. Click on View Surveys to see all completed surveys with responses.

If you would like a demo of the Survey Tool or to add it to your current plan, contact our sales department at 1-800-706-6762.

We pride ourselves on excellent customer service.  We constantly receive feedback on the quality of customer care and quick response of our service.  Just to blow-the-roof-off the entire experience we have launched our Community Forum.

The Community Forum allows our customers to ask questions of our staff, make comments about InstantPresenter, talk about your likes and dislikes of the application, and take part in our weekly polls. Our staff monitors the forum during the day, and if you post a question  you will receive an answer within a short time frame.  The part that makes our forum a community is our clients and customers.  Joining the forum will allow you to answer a question or reply to a comment. The forum is open to all clients.  We are promoting peer to peer support as well as creating a great resource for info and answers.

Our Forum can be found at http://forum.instantpresenter.com.   Signing up for an account on the forum is free and easy and gives you access to and ever-expanding resource.  Once again, if you have any questions feel free to contact us at support@instantpresenter.com.  Have a great day.

In our ever expanding InstantPresenter universe, we always try to keep our clients up on all the latest products and features.  In the past, to help keep everyone informed, we launched the support number (1-800-706-6762), the support email address, the Blog, and now the Frequently Asked Questions.  We spent numerous hours and tons of brain storming sessions to create a list of the most-asked questions. The FAQs can be found off our main home page under the support tab.

We researched years of questions asked of support and found we could break them down into seven categories: Getting started, How To, Features, Troubleshooting, Screen Sharing, Billing, and Technical.  The purpose of the FAQs was to allow you to find an answer to your question without having to pick up the phone or writing an email.  We understand you time is short and in demand so we want you to find answers fast.  We feel that 90-95% of questions that come into support can be answered from the FAQs.

If you feel you have a question that should be on the FAQs, let us know.  You can call us (1-800-706-6762) or email us at support@instantpresenter.com.

On January 3, 2009, we introduced the new Account Manager.  This new Account Manager has the same useful tools but presented with a more “user-friendly” template.  All options are still located on the Account Manager page but we designed this interface with an contemporary feel.  We have added easier short cuts to all your favorite features and designed a socially pleasing appearance.

We here at InstantPresenter enjoy all facets of website design especially when it correlates to our personal product.  When we were percolating potential blueprints for our new Account Manager we took influences from our own lives.  We used technology and effects that produce our personal beings.  We looked at cell phones, MP3 players, gaming consoles, etc, and developed our foundation.

Our Development Team here is very impressive and can take a few influential ingredients to construct a masterpiece.  We are very pleased with our new Account Manager and welcome any personal feedback from our valued clients.  Please write us at support@instantpresenter.com.

When presenting a Webinar, the object is to educate your audience and create an atmosphere which entertains all learning styles.  Our vision for creating this experience is to create tools that allow the presenter to customize and personalize his/her webinar.  One of our valuable tools that complete this goal is the Whiteboard. 

The Whiteboard allows you to be the “John Madden” of your Webinar.  While you are discussing your topic on your uploaded slides, you can draw attention to specific areas or points.  The Whiteboard gives you the feeling of an interactive touch pen and monitor.  You can choose the color and size of your markings along with shaped stamps, inserted shapes, text boxes, arrows, lines, and many more.   

Below is a presentation with the Whiteboard uploaded:  Arrow A points to the “Options” button where the presenter can select “Show Whiteboard,” Arrow B points to the editing options of the Whiteboard tools, and Arrow C points to the applicable objects and characters available on the whiteboard.  

Starting January 9, 2009, InstantPresenter will be offering a weekly Free Live Demo.  This Demo will be conducted by our Client Care Manager.  The sessions we be held every Friday at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The live Demo will last approximately 30 minutes with time for questions.  

InstantPresenter will cover the general ins and outs of the application and our numerous features.  We are particularly proud our Up-to-6 Person Video Feeds, Screen Sharing, Interactive Whiteboard Tools, and more. 

The demo will also cover Archiving presentations, proper subscription plans for your business and how to get paid when you give a presentation.  If you have any questions or would like an invite please contact us at 800-706-6762 or Support@instantpresenter.com.