@faceface
I've given a talk to an online conference, and it was quite disconcerting. I didn't realise quite how much I rely on audience 'feedback' to modulate what I'm saying, how and how fast I'm saying it. 20 minutes into a 30 minute talk (plus the usual 5 minute coordination debacle at the beginning) I had the distinct feeling that nobody was listening... Instead of listening to the other talks I started checking email and eventually wandered off for lunch...
Whatever it looks like, it should somehow keep people (speakers and listeners) connected and engaged throughout.
Could the speaker hand out 4 or 5 ’interrupt me' tokens, bought using points earned for up voted tweets or something? Conference pack includes two INTERRUPT and one COLLAR ;-)
The idea is to have multiple levels of interaction, since we're based on google hangouts on air there are a total of ten seats, so minus one or two for the producers those are live-audience seats that will be distributed a variety of ways (given to the speaker to invite a friendly face and reservable with one of the VIP conference tokens in advance, but if there are availabilities the next tier lower of membership all can see the URL and join if there is an open seat.
Beyond that, live text-chat in the audience + private rooms and messaging, and we'll certainly have some feedback forms. We also might do things like give all ticketholders a handful of "Pick of the conference" tokens each that they can send to their favorite speakers and at the end of the event we'll award those speakers.
