The ability to create virtual communities with Web-based conferences and real-time chat is rapidly gaining converts from the ranks of computer bulletin board subscribers and members of online service discussion forums. Why? Because Web conferences offer any user with a Web browser a richer, more accessible set of discussion tools without the hassle of newsreader programs or the cost of proprietary online service memberships. Plus, Web conference administrators can easily create an unlimited number of free Internet- or intranet-accessible discussions, allowing anyone on the Web -- or just a select few -- to participate.

Building Your Own Web Conferences is a complete guide for Windows® 95 and NT™ users on how to set up and manage dynamic virtual communities that improve workgroup collaboration and keep visitors coming back to your site. This book comes with O'Reilly's WebBoard™ 2.0 software on CD-ROM. You'll get the software and expertise you need to:

• Provide real-time chat areas with the ability to sell advertisement space in your chat sessions
• Set up Web conferences to run in conjunction with WebBoard 2.0's internal Web server or with any Windows CGI- or ISAPI-compliant Web server (including WebSite and WebSite Professional™, FastTrack™, and IIS)
• Create forums that can be viewed in frames
• Give participants the ability to attach files to a message, including text, audio, video, and multimedia files
• Offer spell checking with WebBoard's 100,000-word American-English dictionary
• Create multiple conferences in each conferencing area, and build "virtual boards"

WebBoard 2.0 supports two virtual boards with ten conferences per board. For Webmasters who need to extend their WebBoard conferencing areas beyond the two virtual boards (with 10 conferences per board) included with WebBoard 2.0, O'Reilly offers WebBoard version 3.0. WebBoard 3.0 lets you create up to 255 virtual boards, and have an unlimited number of conferences in each of your virtual boards. Your virtual boards are all fully customizable, so Webmasters offering Web hosting services, or those who need separate conferencing areas for different corporate departments or university groups, can easily tailor the appearance of each conferencing area and control access.

Give your WebBoard users a helping hand in learning how to get the most out of WebBoard 2.0. O'Reilly's Using WebBoard 2.0 offers 80 pages of detailed instructions that teach your users how to participate in Web conferences. This user's guide is a must for any company whose employees need to know how to master all of WebBoard's user features. And in educational settings, the user's guide is every student's indispensable manual on how to communicate with their classmates and professors using WebBoard. Packed with screen shots, plain-English instructions, and real-life examples, this reference will show users how to log in, manage passwords, attach files, use real time chat, find new and specific messages, and contact other WebBoard users via email.