Webcasting as a Source of Income

Introduction

Since the turn of the millennium , the advent of the internet has began revolutionizing the practices of human interactions (Yohan , 2004 . The influence of the World Wide Web has stretched across social , political and economic aspects of interactivity which has opened new doors for public expression and commerce . One particular innovation that had been brought forth by the computer age is that of webcasting . According to McHenry (2006 , webcasting is uploading live media s over the Internet distributed using streaming media technology . In essence , a webcast is a live broadcast

that is made over the Internet . While this undoubtedly tackles the applications of webcasting in the context of education and educational institutions , its main focus is the use of the webcast a viable means of funding for schools . As E-commerce spreads its domain across various goods and services , it cannot be helped that a mainly socially and politically relevant tool as webcasting can also be turned into an economic instrument that could allow educational organizations and institutions to profit from their webcast productions There are three potentially viable means for generating funding that this focuses on . These are sponsorship sales , advertising , and pay-per-view charging

Webcasting Technology

The initial processes involved in webcasting are mush like typical broadcasting productions . Primarily , it involves the media coverage of certain events through broadcast technology such as video cameras . The main difference is that webcasts are sent through streaming media that can be accessed through the internet (Paul , 2005 . Video streaming involves a direct feed of either pre-recorded or live productions to remote computer screens without allowing the remote user from saving the production . This protects webcasts from being distributed without the producers ' permission . Once the material is uploaded in the internet , it can be made accessible to the millions of people surfing the World Wide Web . The huge volume of people who surf the internet makes fundraising through webcasting a very lucrative idea . The amount of exposure that events get through online productions makes then prime avenues for sponsorships and advertising . Since webcasts are able to reach more people , events that could be marked up as pay-per-view could reach a potentially larger consumer audience

Sponsorship Sales

According to Allen (2006 ) defines sponsorship sales as an investment in cash and /or in kind , in return for access to exploitable business potential associated with an event or highly publicized entity . In the context of webcasting , this process involves setting up an event that would be covered via webcast . This event should be of interest to particular external institutions . Through various means of correspondence , the hosting organization such as the school can ask for sponsorships from those external institutions in exchange for allowing their products to be seen through the webcast . Unlike advertising which is also discussed in the succeeding portion of the , sponsorship sales require a direct link between sponsors and events . Schools can provide webcasts of sporting events which could ask sponsorship from the various establishments that sell particular sporting gear...