Brainshark circles in on sales and marketing

With the introduction of its hosted Fast-Start application, Brainshark gives users the ability to instantly self-author, publish, edit and distribute rich-media content (audio, video, documents and visuals) over the Web. Brainshark explains the software has been specifically designed to improve the effectiveness of sales and marketing organizations, particularly sales training events and new product roll-outs.

According to the company, Fast-Track provides a comprehensive set of capabilities and services for pre-event materials and collateral preparation, event production and support, and post-event services. It adds that the software helps ensure that sales and marketing presenters are properly prepared, the event is well executed and the information conveyed through the presenter’s voice is captured and converted to on-demand assets, which can be updated and accessed anytime.

Brainshark says Fast-Start help users review, rehearse and refine presentations prior to the event, adding that it provides services to facilitate the set up and administration of the Brainshark application for each company, including:

• working with the customer’s IT department to make sure the users’ computers are rich-media ready;

• loading all users into the application;

• establishing user profiles and assigning each a password; and

• coaching

On the event production and support side, Brainshark offers:

• synchronization of the digital audio recorded for each presentation with the PowerPoint slides ;

• content conversion to streaming format and upload into the customer’s own online rich-media library; and

• content translation into foreign languages ;

After the event is finished, Fast-Start provides presenters and participants with a library of content captured at the event. Additionally, it includes the conversion and hosting of streaming video that can be used as rich-media collateral or training material. Brainshark provides a master CD containing each presentation that is converted to on-demand format. Included is a special version of the Brainshark application that enables viewing of Brainshark content without an Internet connection.

In other news, Brainshark will integrate WebEx’s real-time meeting capabilities into its communications platform and resell WebEx services through its various channels.