Ubique has implemented conferencing and collaboration systems that use the World Wide Web for context, content and navigation. These commercial technologies, collectively known as Virtual Places, have been used for online conferences, virtual trade shows, guided tours, casual chat, and other forms of community-building.
The principal components of Virtual Places are:
At the Workshop on WWW and Collaboration, I will demonstrate the currently available versions of Virtual Places, explain the architecture, cover specific case studies of current use, and make note of future product directions. For the breakout sessions, I plan to offer up several discussion topics, including client-side APIs, extensions to the http protocol, and customer requirements for security and authentication.
Because my presentation will address current technical and commercial realities, as well as furture directions, it should be of great interest to other workshop attendees. As one of the pioneering companies in Web communication and collaboration, Ubique has learned important lessons in its effort to establish a market for collaboration systems on the Web.
Virtual Places is based on a client-server architecture designed to enhance any Web server or browser. It extends the multimedia and hypertext capabilities of the World Wide Web with live interaction, text and audio conferencing, and joint navigation. While its emphasis is live co-presence and interaction, Virtual Places also supports some asynchronous messaging, transcription, and other forms of document conferencing. Additional information and demonstration software is available at our Web site: http://www.ubique.com/
Ubique, Ltd. develops, markets, and supports software for real-time communication and collaboration over the Internet. Ubique's Virtual Places (TM) product line brings live human presence to the World Wide Web, enriching information publishing, commercial enterprises, and virtual communities. Ubique supports academic institutions and charitable nonprofits by making Virtual Places software available for free for non-commercial use.