Real-time text chat facilities such as IRC appeared in the late 1980s. Web-based chat and instant messaging software appeared in the mid-1990s. The PLATO computer learning system allowed students to collaborate on networked computers to accomplish learning tasks as early as the 1960s, but the early networking was not accomplished via the World Wide Web and PLATO's collaborative goals were not consistent with the presenter-audience dynamic typical of web conferencing systems.
Several point-to-point and private-network video conferencing products were introduced in the early 1990s, most notably CU-SeeMe, which was used to link selected schools around the United States of America in real-time collaborative communications as part of the Global Schoolhouse project from Global SchoolNet.
In May 1995, PictureTel announced LiveShare Plus as a general-use data collaboration product for Windows-based personal computers. The software allowed application sharing, user-granted control of a remote PC, shared whiteboard markup, file transfer, and text messaging. List price was given as $249 per computer. PictureTel referenced an agreement with Microsoft in its announcement press release, and a May 26, 1995 memo from Bill Gates to Microsoft executive staff and direct reports said "Our PictureTel screen sharing client allowing Window sharing should work easily across the Internet."
In May 1996, Microsoft announced NetMeeting as an included component in Internet Explorer 3.0. At the time, Microsoft called NetMeeting "the Internet's first real-time communications client that includes support for international conferencing standards and provides true multiuser application-sharing and data-conferencing capabilities."
In 1996, PlaceWare was founded as a spinoff from Xerox PARC. In November of that year, PlaceWare Auditorium was described in a public talk at Stanford University as allowing "one or more people to give an interactive, online, multimedia presentation via the Web to hundreds or thousands of simultaneous attendees; the presentation can include slides (made in PowerPoint or any GIF-image editor), live annotation on the slide images, real-time polls of the audience, live audio from the presenter and those asking questions, private text and audio conversations in the auditorium's "rows", and other features." PlaceWare Auditorium was formally announced in March 1997 at a price of $150 per simultaneous user.
In February 1998, Starlight Networks released StarLive (the exclamation point being part of the product name). The press release said "customers can access familiar Web browser interfaces to view live and pre-recorded corporate presentations, along with synchronized slides. End users can communicate directly with the presenter using real-time chat technology and other Web-based collaboration tools."
In June 1998, PlaceWare 2.0 Conference Center was released, allowing up to 1000 live attendees in a meeting session.
In February 1999, ActiveTouch announced WebEx Meeting Center and the webex.com web site. In July 1999 WebEx Meeting Center was formally released with a 1000-person meeting capacity demonstrated. In September of the same year, ActiveTouch changed its company name to WebEx.
In April 1999, Vstream introduced the Netcall product for web conferencing as "a fee-based Internet software utility that lets you send business presentations and other graphic information via e-mail to a Vstream server. Vstream converts the content, again using streaming technology, and makes the presentation available for viewing by up to 1,200 people at a time." Vstream changed the company name to Evoke Communications in 2000, with a further change to Raindance Communications in 2002. In February 2006, Raindance was acquired by the InterCall division of West Corporation.
In December 2003, Citrix Systems acquired Expertcity, giving it the GoToMyPC and GoToAssist products. The acquired company was renamed as the Citrix Online division of Citrix Systems. In July 2004, Citrix Online released GoToMeeting as its first generic web conferencing product. In June 2006, GoToWebinar was added, allowing additional registration and reporting functionality along with larger capacity in sessions.
In January 2003, Macromedia acquired Presedia, including the Breeze Presentation product. Breeze Live was added with the 4.0 release of Macromedia Breeze to support web conferencing. In April 2005, Adobe Systems announced acquisition of Macromedia (completed in December 2005) and changed the Breeze product name to Adobe Connect.
A trademark for the term WEBinar (first three letters capitalized) was registered in 1998 by Eric R. Korb (Serial Number 75478683, USPTO) and was reassigned to InterCall.The trademark registration was cancelled in 2007. Learn.com filed a claim for the term "webinar" without regard to font or style in 2006 (Serial Number 78952304, USPTO). That trademark claim was abandoned in 2007 and no subsequent filing has been made.
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