That was actually a main point of me bringing this up, is to stir conversation.

These days video conferencing are reaching new heights in effectiveness.  I am looking to move one of my audio classes that is more lecture based to a video conference type setup for about 2/3 of the class.  I am part of an international team (Well actually have been part of several) that use video conferencing to communicate/critique/etc.

Now that is great, but in all my cases above it is a smaller team of people, usually no more than 10 or so active participants.  That obviously doesn't work for a conference how I have currently used it, my question is, how can the broadcast method be pushed more towards something really suitable for a conference instead.  I feel like IRC is only a stepping stone to it, and I personally feel like the people on this list are likely the perfect group to innovate something different in this regards as well considering the variety of backgrounds and common interest in audio and/or visual communications.

Now all that being said, I don't have many ideas myself yet.  A rework of video conferencing to allow for a broadcast with videochat questions*(see below for clarification) along with text based questions is a step, but I wonder if that is all that is needed.

* What I see for video chat, would be a primary presenter, that people could click a button to 'raise a hand' to ask a question and see them via video when they ask the question, but not otherwise.

Another question or possibility would be, would it make a difference, for example, to have satellite campuses for the conference.  For instance the cost from my side of the pond is much larger than someone in the EU obviously, so what would it look like to do a satellite conference, which I do annually with other conferences with decent success, and is there enough interest?  And what would that look like, as likewise I can only see something non-standard working in this type of situation.

           Seablade