Great America Networks Conferencing Blog

Why GANC For Your Virtual World Needs?

Quite simply, there is no company in Second Life that can offer the variety of services and products that we do.  Our technical infrastructure is built around a server farm and audio conferencing platform that would cost millions of dollars to recreate.  We are a full service provider of audio, video, and web conferencing services to leading businesses throughout the world today.  Where our competitors in Second Life offer conferencing via Skype, and utilizing only the existing Second Life parcel land streams, we take those models 10 steps further.  Here are some examples:

Virtual World Pricing Announced

Pricing Options for Second Life Conferencing Events

Audio conferencing................................$3.60/hr/user
Web browser conferencing...................$8.40/hr/user in SL
Audio & Web browser conferencing....$10.00/hr/user in SL
Audio Streaming..............................$1.50/hr/connection (note the SL Parcel Stream is 1 connection)

1 hour min required

Bringing Business Communication To the Virtual World

Is your organization ready to experience the transition from a life of constant travel and the associated expenses associated with attending meetings across the globe?  Are your employees constantly flying throughout the country, spending an hour to get to the airport, an hour waiting for their flight, 5 hours on the plane, another hour to get to their hotel room and yet another hour to travel to the meeting location,  to then sit in a meeting room with colleagues or clients for a ONE HOUR MEETING?  If this is a frequent scenario for your organization, then you will be glad to know that there is an alternative.

Collaboration in a Virtual World environment will allow your organization to achieve all of the results from that same face to face meeting, without all of the wasted time, effort, and expense.  Imagine this scenario: 

Press Release

Finally Real Business Level Conferencing Available in Second Life!

A new full service audio conferencing solution has arrived in Second Life. Great America Network Conferencing (GANC) unveiled its full service conference packages to companies or groups that want to hold large meetings in Second Life.
Source: Great America Networks Conferencing, LLC May 27, 2007 18:40:14

Great America Networks Conferencing

(PRLog.Org) – Is your organization ready to experience the transition from a life of constant travel and the associated expenses associated with attending meetings across the globe? Are your employees constantly flying throughout the country, spending an hour to get to the airport, an hour waiting for their flight, 5 hours on the plane, another hour to get to their hotel room and yet another hour to travel to the meeting location, to then sit in a meeting room with colleagues or clients for a ONE HOUR MEETING? If this is a frequent scenario for your organization, then you will be glad to know that there is an alternative.

Collaboration in a Virtual World environment will allow your organization to achieve all of the results from that same face-to-face meeting, without all of the wasted time, effort, and expense. Imagine this scenario:

Your marketing team is getting ready to roll out a test concept of their new product. The Marketing Director calls for a product assessment meeting to be held. Each member of the team is told to meet in "Morocco". The members go to our website and sign on to Second Life directly from our home page. After signing in, each member is taken directly to a "Tutorial Island" that provides them with a detailed walk-through of how to coordinate and interact in their new environment. The training will consist of how to use their interface, what an avatar is and how to change their look and feel, how to move throughout the world of Second Life and much more.

After the initial orientation session, each team member is directed to his or her conference facility. Upon arrival a fully trained and knowledgeable Meeting Consultant greets them. The Meeting Consultant's responsibility is to ensure that each team member is capable of participating in his or her meeting to the fullest extent. This includes providing them with detailed instructions on how to access the audio portion of their conference either through an audio stream, or via telephone conference and Toll-Free number, as well as how to view and access any documentation or presentations on their web browser or in-world.

So, what do we have? A fully interactive team meeting, a 3D Rendering of the new product to be launched, a power point presentation, an aesthetically pleasing visual layout, crystal clear audio conferencing powered by millions of dollars in audio conferencing equipment, an audio stream through the PC speakers for attendees who only want to "listen" to the conference, and the capability to collaborate in real time with various documents and products. A fully trained Meeting Consultant that will provide a multitude of services facilitates all of this.

Audio Conferencing - done through our state-of-the-art Compunetix bridging platform with the capability to bridge up to 5,000 participants at once. Crystal clear voice quality on a platform that is designed for 24/7 uptime and reliability on a fully redundant carrier network in a co-location facility in downtown Chicago IL that provides for emergency backup power, multiple power grids, multiple carrier egress and much more.

Web Conferencing - we will allow you to project your PowerPoint presentations, documents and applications into the Second Life world, while also allowing your participants to choose to work in world, or directly through their Internet Browser, based on their personal preference. You can do PowerPoint presentations, desktop sharing, application sharing and much more with our proprietary web conferencing platform.

Conferencing Venue - We currently offer a Moroccan based theme that will literally "wow" your conference participants. The attention to detail is amazing, and your conference participants will be talking about your event for months to come. You truly have to see this venue to believe it. In addition to that, we provide a fully staffed Meeting Consultant platform that provides your participants with a one of a kind service. Think of them as a concierge for your conferencing event.

To wrap everything up with a tidy bow, we also offer a single sign on for your participants directly from our website, they are then taken directly to our own personal tutorial sim where they are given an in-depth tutorial walk through on how to use Second Life that will knock their socks off.

As you can see, there is no comparison to our services and offerings in the entire world of Second Life or the Real World for that matter. If you are a business who is trying to conduct more effective meetings, or trying to bring your business into Second Life, that we truly are the partner who can make that happen for you.

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SLNN Press Article

Firm  brings RL audio conferencing  service to SL   by Jenette Ellison     May 23, 2007

Great American Network Conferencing has meeting facilities on its island

GANC 2-- A new audio conferencing solution has arrived in Second Life ahead of Linden’s built-in voice beta client. Saturday, Great America Network Conferencing (GANC) unveiled its  two-sim conference center, offering full conference packages to companies or groups that want to hold large meetings in SL. A kick-off party attracted about 24 guests for a tour and live music. Using proprietary software, hardware and servers, GANC will offer a way for a full sim of avatars to have two-way phone conferencing, while hundreds more will be able to connect at the same time by phone-- up to thousands via Web conferencing. "No matter how much we get used to the chat environment, the reality is that the ability to communicate and get things done effectively is still over the phone," said GANC's chief executive officer Atalar Longstaff (Reno Provine in real life). "We want to give businesses the ability to conference the way they normally do, with the tools they normally use, here in SL," he said. "We will allow people to use their real phones and it will stream into SL, through our hardware." With LL releasing voice capabilities sometime this summer, soon it will not be unusual for a conference room of avatars to voice chat. GANC is positioning their service as superior in sound, scalability, and reliability. "SL voice, along with Skype and Ventrillo that people use with SL, are fine for the consumer level, but these are really not up to the level of business," said Pierce Benelli, vice president of GANC Sales. "That is why we offer our full audio bridge. It's clearer and more reliable, independent of headsets and sound cards," he said. Saturday people were able to listen via the parcel streaming, or call in and be part of the phone conference. A parcel listener, GEOELDER Clary, said, “The sound on site is excellent.” The company has included in its build a private orientation island, with login direct from its Web site. "We want to make sure that people attending can effectively come in and have a good experience," Benelli said. The orientation consists of many stations, each showing a series of slide shows and notecards, and will have personal greeters and helpers along the way. He estimates it will take people about one hour to one hour and a half to complete the training. After finishing orientation, participants may use lindens provided in the conference package to go to a shopping area to buy accessories customize their avatars. "What we want is the smoothest transition into SL for someone with no experience. And along the way, we will have a group there to hold their hand," Benelli said. From the shopping area, the guests can directly teleport to their conference location. The first is a Moroccan themed build, with two conferencing facilities, a cafe, an entertainment area, a pirate ship, and caves to explore. Other themes will be added in the future. "We are selling a memorable experience, something your clients will remember and tell others about," Benelli said. Many package sizes are available, but a small conference up to ten people can cost around $2000 USD. Audio and video conferencing is not new to SL. January's opening of the U.S. Congress is one example. Hipcast co-founder Eric Rice created a convention center in SL last summer, with live media streaming capabilities, built by Endira Udal and Rez Menoptra of Rezzust. Jeff Pulver of Pulver.com brought in a conference center last fall called Pulveria. The first presentation at Pulveria was a live talk from the joint session of VON, or Video on the Net. Some however, aren't sold on using Second Life for mission-critical business conferences. "SL is a small conference venue and works best for groups that are regularly meeting," said another SL conference coordinator, Biscuit Carroll, founder of Conference Island. "To get a newb up to speed for conferencing takes 60 to 90 minutes. This is not a sensible proposition for a one-off meeting." Using the Holodeck designed by Carroll's parent company Inside This World, the Conference Island meeting environment can be transformed from a pool party to a board room, an office, a zen garden, jungle, tree house, or desert island. Carroll said many of his conference groups use a Web cast solution called Messagebank, or bring their own teleconferencing systems. He had a bleak view of the future of this market in SL, saying, "The reality is that most people interested in conferencing in SL buy their own sim." The technology that sets the GANC centers apart from its competitors is in the audio bridge, which runs off numerous redundant servers at the company's Chicago headquarters, GANC sources said. The firm offers automated and operator-assisted audio conferencing options, dial out, video conferencing, Web collaboration, as well as a number of added features, such as participant polling, transcription, and call recording of audio conferences to enhance the conferencing experience. "Our goal is to have all of our products available outside of SL, available in-world," Reno said.

Launch party in Second Life

Great America Networks Conferencing will be holding their official launch party in Second Life on their conferencing and events sim, The Alhambra Conference Center.  The official event starts at 2PM PST and will include opening remarks and comments from Reno Provine, the President of Great America Networks Conferencing, as well as demonstrations of how the features and functionality will extend to allow corporations to have completely integrated events within Second Life.  Some of the shortcomings that our company will be solving for corporations are:

1.  Most companies use the telephone to communicate.  Second Life has no solution for this.  Our company utilizes state of the art audio conferencing bridges from Compunetix that allow for the connection of up to 5000 participants via telephone.  I know most people in Second Life are thinking "who uses the phone?  we use skype and ventrillo, and teamspeak.  and what about Second Life chat and voice?"  Our answer is quite simple.  Businesses do not use those tools for corporate communications.  While some may be capable, most use the telephone to communicate.  It's that simple.  None of the aforementioned solutions are business quality communications tools, nor are they reliable, nor are they simple to setup and use.  All of them also require a different type of interaction then most business employees are used to, ie PC, microphone, etc. instead of the phone they just pick up and dial.

2.  Most companies that hold press releases and large scale events don't want to be constrained with a maximum participation of 50.  Our company allows our clients to have their participants take part in the event in the following ways, all in a seamless fashion:

• Up to the maximum in SL for a sim - generally speaking 50
• SL users can listen one-way via the land stream parcel
• SL users can participate 2-way via telephone
• SL users can view the movie or slides via SL screens in-world
• SL users can communicate via SL chat
• Non-SL users can listen one-way via standard media player through audio stream
• Non-SL users can participate 2-way via telephone
• Non-SL users can view the movie or slides via standard Internet Browser
• Non-SL users can communicate via web tool chat in standard Internet Browser

All of this is coordinated by our trained meeting consultants and bridge operators.  We can conduct formal Question and Answer sessions, provide polling results, and much more.

3.  Most corporations who will be inviting clients or new users to attend their events will have to deal with the reality of the steep learning curve for a new person coming into Second Life for the first time.  We provide their participants with custom avatars, clothing and accessories right off the bat.  This will save them a lot of time and allow them to be impressed with their first experience.  We will also bring them directly into our customized full-sim tutorial island.  We have designed a truly outstanding environment for them to learn the basics of Second Life.  They can go through the tutorials as quickly or as slowly as they like.  They also have the option to come back at a later date for a more advanced tutorial session.

4.  We will provide a truly unique experience for their event participants to come in and have their hands held the whole way.  There will be pre and post event sessions held and allow for fun and exploration, as well as smaller breakout sessions.  Participants will also be able to try their building skills in our customized tutorial sandbox, and explore our breathtaking sim layout.  Easter egg hunts, and many other add-ons will be available to increase customer participation.

5.  We provide a variety of add-on services including recording and archiving your event, converting your event into podcast format, providing archived streaming access to your event, customised registration pages with information capture, and much more.

In summary, we are truly providing a unique service to companies that are coming into Second Life and have a need or desire to host unique events for their clients such as press releases, sales management events, IR calls, and much more.  This is all in addition to our core offerings of audio conferencing, web conferencing, and video conferencing.

To find out more about how you can use our organization for your next event, contact Pierce Benelli, Astryd James or myself Atalar Longstaff in the world of Second Life.  Or go to www.ganconference.com for information about or company outside of Second Life, or www.slconferencing.com for information about our Second Life Division.  You may also call 1-877-GET-GAN1 to speak to a live person.

Reno Provine
President
Great America Networks Conferencing
rprovine@ganconference.com
www.ganconference.com
312-432-5325
skypeid:  rprovine

Press Release for new Second Life Division

SLR_Exclusives: Video Conferencing Takes a Big Step in SecondLife (News, SL Reports)

Great American Networks Conferencing opens Orientation and Conference centers Saturday 19 May 2007 By Farqot Gustafson, Reporter SLReports.Net Updated: 16 May 2007 4:45 p.m. SLT As SecondLife evolves beyond its virtual Las Vegas environment—and reputation—more companies are establishing a presence here. Consumer retails such as Circuit City and Sears, as well as IT heavy hitter’s Cisco, Dell, IBM and Microsoft, have created showrooms for their products, and many more are on the way. And why not—with 30–40,000 potential in-world customers at any moment, it’s a logical, albeit passive way of making your presence known. (Click “Read More” to View Entire Article) So what’s the next step? How about bringing your employees or even customer’s in-world, for orientation sessions, conferences and product demonstrations? I had a chance to spend some time this week with SecondLife avatar Pierce Benelli, V.P. of Sales & Marketing for Great America Networks Conferencing (GANC), at their orientation and conference centers. GANC is a Chicago-based RL video conference provider, which offers audio, video and Internet conferencing and services. We began our tour at the Tutorial Center, located on GANC 1. Developed by Anarchy in the UK, Ltd., the island at first reminded me of a cleaned version of SecondLife’s Orientation and Help islands (I half expected to see a newbie tooling around on a Segway). What I found was neatly laid out city plaza, leading to a series of projection screens, and a sandbox to practice in. Pierce showed me several of the tutorials, which explained the basics of SecondLife, better than SecondLife does, frankly. As an RL trainer and technical writer, I was very impressed with how GANC will introduce newbie’s to the fundamentals of SecondLife. From there, we flew to the dock and teleported to the conference center on GANC 2. We landed in the Main Square. Laid out to resemble Granada in southern Spain, the square area includes a modern open air café, a market area of old stone buildings, and the conference center itself. Designed to imitate Granada’s 14th century Moorish Alhambra Palace, the conference center is one of the most visually stunning sites I’ve seen in SecondLife. The variety of textures, use of color and low prim count make for a memorable experience. I saw two conference areas. Conference suite 1 (located in what looked like a small castle, with design elements from a mosque, temple and church) was primarily a large room, with tables seating 8-10 people. This setup allows for small, intimate discussions, and should work well with smaller group audio sessions. The second, in the Alhambra Palace, was a large round chamber, with a projection screen for a ceiling (thank planetarium in layout, only much larger). The participants are seated in the round, facing a speaker’s stand. Here participants can have streaming audio and video presentations, including 3-D mockups, as well as MS PowerPoint presentations. According to Pierce, groups of up to 50 can be set up between the two facilities. Although they can seat more than that, the limitations of SecondLife itself slows everything down way too much for that to work. And due to those limitations, the quality won’t match that of the holographic projections of a Star Wars Jedi Council meeting, but Pierce see’s that improving over time as well. The rest of the island is a visual treat to explore as well. The market area allows visitors to pickup clothing to customize their avatars, and even some building materials to work with in a second sandbox. The rest of the village has a variety of buildings to explore, and there are plenty of paths to walk, and even an old sailing ship to explore. Hopefully, conference participants will get the chance to do so; I know I’d loved to have entered SecondLife here! Having sat through all too many jumpy RL video conferences over the last 10+ years myself, I can appreciate what GANC is doing here. In a little over a decade since the public was really allowed access to the Internet, we’ve seen great changes in it, and how it is being utilized by both individuals and businesses. GANC is one of those businesses who are pushing out the frontiers, and are doing so in an exciting way within SecondLife. My thanks to Pierce Benelli for his time on the tour, as well as Atalar Longstaff (GANC President) and Astryd James (GANC V.P. of Client Relations) for their time answering my questions, and showing me around. For more information, look at either GANC website (www.ganconferencing.com or www.slconferencing.com). Pierce can reached at pierce.benelli@gmail.com.

Online Communities

We've all seen the headlines.  Social networking is the next "big thing".  From Myspace to Youtube we're all asking ourselves, are these companies really worth what they're selling for?  Hundreds of millions to billions of dollars are being spent on these social communities.  What makes them so special and valuable? 

Personally, I think the true financial value of these organizations are still to be determined, however any medium that can draw millions of subscribers is obviously worth a lot of money to the right organizations.  I have been involved with a few of these communities and have a bit of insight.

Second Life - This is one of the largest virtual worlds in existence today.  Over 6 million residents and $1.5 million dollars are spent daily in this virtual world.  Sure, you'll find many articles on both sides of the fence about this virtual world, but the fact remains that it's the most popoular in terms of subscriber base for a non-gaming virtual world.  I have recently launched a presence in Second Life for my company and am currently offering conferencing and collaboration services within this environment.  It's not a game per se as there are no "levels" or killing, or any end-game at all really.  It's purely a social networking environment on a large scale, combined with a revenue generation model and economy that allows individuals and businesses to earn decent to envious sums of money.  You can find out more about what we offer in this medium at www.slconferencing.com.

Project Entropia - A completely different take on a virtual world environment.  This follows the more traditional MMORPG systems including wepons, hunting, leveling, etc.  In this sense it is probably more easily acceptable to traditional gamers then Second Life.  However, it also has a deep economy as well that allows for individuals to literally make thousands of dollars.  They recently launched Virtual Banking Licenses that were purchased for an average of $90k each in addition to the purchasers needing to deposit $100k to secure funds.  As you can see, we have moved well beyond your traditional "game".

There are several others as well that I have not tried yet, including There.com (too cartoony for me and not enough real dollars involved) and several others.

I firmly believe that over the next 5 years there will be a transition from traditional 2-D web pages to these 3-D virtual environments.  While these virtual worlds are still looked down upon by most traditional businesses and individuals, I predict these attitudes will change over the next year or two.

For more information you can go to www.ganconference.com.

New Weekly Roundup of Top News Stories From Second Life and Other Major Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are big money, big brands and big news--over 600 stories a month--and growing. Experts predict virtual worlds like Second Life will capture 80% of all computer users and Fortune 500 companies in the next five years. Every day www.TheNextBigThingSite.com Your Virtual News Network brings you the top news stories from around the virtual world and around the globe. Now, in addition to daily coverage a new feature, The Weekly News RePlay, offers a second chance to get all the news of the week, delivered to your mailbox.

 

                                                                               

                                            Miami, FL (PRWEB) May 8, 2007 -- Virtual worlds are big money, big brands and big news--over 600 stories a month--and growing. Experts predict virtual worlds like Second Life will capture 80% of all computer users and Fortune 500 companies in the next five years. Every day www.TheNextBigThingSite.com Your Virtual News Network brings you the top news stories from around the virtual world and around the globe. Now, in addition to daily coverage a new feature, The Weekly News RePlay, offers a second chance to get all the news of the week, delivered to your mailbox.

"We wanted our readers, who already enjoy our extensive daily news coverage to get a second chance to read the top stories from virtual worlds, including Second Life," says a company spokesperson. "We now offer an entire week's worth of news conveniently delivered directly to mailboxes every Friday. This is designed to eliminate the 'I can't believe I missed that' factor. It makes a big difference to companies and individuals who must stay on the cutting edge of all the latest developments in the newest, hottest, virtual markets."

Weekly News RePlay serves up such features as Virtual World News--a comprehensive round up of the top news stories of the week; Virtual Video Watch--selected videos highlighting brands and activities in virtual worlds; Blogs Weigh In--commentary from top bloggers; Special Sections--real estate or other business opportunities in virtual worlds; Editor's Picks--featuring key research, marketing, and consumer data from top research companies around the world; Books--top titles (including pre-publication titles) about virtual worlds with instant Amazon links for easy ordering; Meetings & Conference listings--updated regularly and featuring links to top events; and more.

"Did you miss these news stories and reports last week?" asks a company spokesperson. "If you didn't log onto www.TheNextBigThingSite.com Your Virtual News Network every single day last week, you might have missed these news stories like: The virtual 'tween' market; virtual marketing Nascar-style; Zwinky biggest virtual world launch ever; USA Today virtual world rankings; and James Cameron's Avatar."

"You might also have missed these top stories from Second Life; Top corporate sites in Second Life; Survey on Second Life brands; Visa Europe enters Second Life; Paula DeAnda concert; how to dress for ''virtual' success; positive cash flow for Second Life businesses up 25.9% and Second Life reports six million sign ups. Now, we offer both our comprehensive daily news plus a new Weekly News RePlay so nothing is missed or overlooked that may mean keeping the edge for yourself and your business."

To sign up for the  Free Weekly News RePlay visit www.TheNextBigThingSite.com Your Virtual News Network

New Sim Builds Coming To a Close

The 2 new sims are almost completed.  The first sim "GANC1" is an extremely detailed orientation island.  This is where new residents to SL will be greeted by our fully trained Meeting Consultants.  We realize that for most business employees, SL is a completely foreign product for them.  It's our job to ensure that they are 100% comfortable in this new medium.  Our client's will have the opportunity to go through a full sim dedicated solely to orienting them in their new environment.  They will also be in immediate and constant communication with our Meeting Consultants via SL Chat, and Audio Conferencing via phone.  This unique and personalized experience will take away any fears that companies may have about conducting a virtual event in Second Life. 

Our clients will also have access to a wide assortment of SL goodies, customized avatars and clothing, and an outstanding sequence of tutorial events.  Basically, by the time they are ready to attend their event, they will be able to function appropriately in the world of Second Life.

From there, our clients will be transported to their event location on GANC 2.  This is our first customized conferencing and events sim built on a Moroccan Themed environment.  With multiple venues to choose from, our clients will be able to immerse themselves fully in a 3D world that allows them to achieve the most from their collaboration session.  Client's will be able to choose from several customizable packages, ranging from small intimate sessions, to large-scale events that max out the SL Sim and have thousands more available via audio stream and teleconferencing bridges.  Our client's will have the ability to utilize Audio and Web Conferencing to it's fullest extent, including an audio stream to the SL parcel, connectivity via telephone connections on our state of the art audio conferencing platforms, and web conferencing via our award winning QuickPresenter software.  For more information about our company you can go to www.slconferencing.com for our Second Life Division, and www.ganconference.com for our Parent Company.