Watershed Webcasting, Arauco uses VDOnet technology for an Internet first

With its 15,000 shareholders spread throughout North America and Europe, Arauco Resources Corp., a Toronto-based gold mining company, has long realized that it's impossible to round them up for the annual meeting - at least physically.

But technology from VDOnet Corp. enabled Arauco to gather its shareholders together virtually at last month's meeting, marking the first time that a public company's shareholder meeting has been broadcast over the Internet.

"The annual meeting is such a big forum for talking to shareholders, but you meet only with those who are in the city where the meeting is held," said Kerry Knoll, director of Arauco. "Some companies move their annual meeting from city to city, which means that shareholders have to wait five or six years to meet the management. Others hold teleconferences, but that usually means that the shareholder has to go somewhere to listen in.

With the VDOnet Web broadcast, however, shareholders just download the enabling software, if it isn't already bundled into their Internet browser, and log onto the appropriate URL.

The live video of the meeting was fed from the camera set up in the conference room to a broadcast station at the back of the room, where it was compressed and sent out over the Web. At the user end, the VDOnet software decodes the live video and displays it on the PC. The software also scales at the user end, meaning it automatically adjusts the quality of the video if Internet traffic is slowed. Remote shareholders were able to ask questions via e-mail, which popped up onto a screen in the meeting room for the chairman to answer.

Over the last year, VDOnet has provided the technology for a number of media companies to deliver Web broadcasting to the consumer market, including full coverage of the Republican and Democratic national conventions by CBS News, around-the-clock financial news by the Nightly Business Report, full-length classic Hollywood movies from the American Film Institute, and the Cannes Film Festival.

But the Arauco meeting marks a new trend in Web broadcasting, said Steve Case, vice president of marketing at VDOnet.

"Until now, a lot of the streamed video out there was being used for corporate Web sites, various private Web sites and maybe adult entertainment," Case said. "This was an example of a growing trend toward more mainstream business applications.

Case sees Web broadcasting becoming a key part of the intranet arena, with companies using video streaming technology to help employees communicate with each other by offering interactive phone directories with embedded videoconferencing; facilitate employee, investor and public relations by delivering executive addresses or other full-motion video; and support marketing efforts by offering customer access to product rollout packages.

And Case expects to see more innovative ways to use Web broadcasting emerge as bandwidth capabilities increase.

"We'll be able to do a lot more when the pipe gets bigger, in terms of new applications for broadband networks," he said. "Now we just need people to build those applications."

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