What Is A Webcast?
A webcast is a way to distribute live or recorded video over the Internet. In fact, it is just a play on words -- a broadcast over the web. Combine them together and you get the word webcast. In general, a webcast utilizes streaming media to distribute video content to many viewers simultaneously.
Streaming media typically reduces the quality of the video in favor of being able to play the video smoothly, without having to wait for the viewer to download the file, since typically videos that are not streamed are large in size. By using streaming media the user can now download the video as while it plays, and not experience any lag time -- even if they are on a slow connection.
Webcasting technology is used by a variety of different organizations and individuals -- in fact, many Fortune 500 companies are now using webcasts to present their annual general meetings to their stockholders. Also, online universities are using it to transmit seminars and lectures, and all types of organizations are using it to send out information and knowledge to a larger audience.
The reason why webcasting has become so popular is because it is very cheap to create a webcast and upload it to the Internet. In fact, many home users are now able to create webcasts simply with a cheap video camera and an Internet connection. There are variety of third-party hosting companies which allow you to upload your webcast. YouTube is the most popular of all these type of companies. In fact, almost all the major news sources are now using webcast on their websites, from the BBC to CNN and even the Vatican radio. Also, a variety of musicians are now webcasting their concerts "live" on the Internet, so those who cannot attend concerts and person can now watch them from the Internet. While webcast seems to offer many benefits to large organizations, it is perhaps the everyday web surfer who uses webcast the most. Here, friends share videos with each other, small businesses present ideas to other businesses and consumers and so on. Anytime you have a message you'd like to share in video form, simply learn how to upload it to the Internet, and then share it with those who the message is meant for -- if you can do that, then you can call yourself a webcaster. That's all there is to it. In conclusion, I hope I have answered your question -- what is a webcast?
Webcast
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