Torque virtual online meetings/trainings

I've been following the Torque Boot Camp news very closely and I'm very excited about the prospect of driving down to Eugene to attend one in the near future. However, I came across some technology that's VERY cool and it's been bugging me to throw it out and suggest it. It's called Livemeeting (previously Placeware, just sold to Microsoft) and it's more than just a way to display powerpoint presentations. It doesn't look like much when you first see it, but seriously, once you dig in to the features it has, and when you see it in action with virtual conference rooms giving presentations to hundreds of people, it's VERY cool stuff. It's a shame so many people can't make it to IGC, and this would be yet another tool to hook them up and spread the word.

I think it'd be awesome if GG had some regular online presentations (weekly?) through Livemeeting (or a similar software) with topics similar to the break-out sessions at IGC. "Demystifying DTS Exports" for example would be a perfect topic for a first test run. Or a TGE feature overview for newbies interested in purchasing it but who haven't made the dive yet. Livemeeting even allows the presenter to "share" an application window with attendees, so they can show some slides then jump into Maya and TGE and show the whole process LIVE down to every mouse click. There's even VoIP (voice over IP) options, but that gets a little spendier than doing it without audio, though that may change in a future version. Without VoIP it's not an expensive thing to get up and running at all. With VoIP you'd probably have to charge a small sum per session (less than $5?).

I know, you guys aren't busy enough as it is :) And every time I seem to suggest something, you guys seem to one-up me with something you had in the works anyway :) But seeing this program in action, seeing it bring together people from all over the world in a virtual conference room, learning, asking questions, interacting, collaborating... it's just very cool. Microsoft bought it for a reason -- it's good stuff. As indies we need to leverage the tools of the big boys and make them work for us!

Cheers,

Josh