Does Charging for a Webinar Lessen Zoom Bombing?

[mdh]

I was hoping to do a free webinar for a very large group but some friends think I need to at least charge $1 to lessen the possibility that the webinar is bombed. First off, it seems such bombing in webinars is highly unlikely as compared to zoom meetings, though maybe I'm wrong? Secondly, would a $1 charge lessen the possibility of problems or just annoy my webinar folks. Thanks!

[Ray_Harwood]

Hey, @mdh –

That’s an interesting thought; I doubt there’s any research on it (might make an interesting behavioral science study!), but it’s worth thinking about.  Maybe try one with a small charge and one without – and come back here to post the results of your experiment!

If your expected turnout is relatively small (a couple hundred is small – a couple thousand is not), there are ways to deal with Zoom bombers – if you get any.

First of all, you can lock down some of the features of Chat and Q&A so that other attendees can’t see what one attendee does; one downside is if you have panelists, they’ll see it – you just have to let them know you’ll deal with anything that comes across that’s inappropriate. The other downside is that your audience would be prevented from interacting with each other – so if you’re hoping to capitalize on that interaction, this might not be good for you. 

Next, I’d highly recommend having a trusted cohost on board – especially if you are going to be doing the speaking/presenting. You don’t want to be distracted by any issues – so go over the process with your cohost, and trust him/her to take care of it — don’t let yourself get distracted from your presentation. A cohost is also good to have even if you’re not the main speaker. 

Another thing to consider is requiring authentication – meaning that all attendees have to be logged into Zoom to attend the webinar, and nobody can register anonymously using an email address that isn’t associated with a Zoom account. It might frustrate some potential legitimate attendees, but I’m guessing most Zoom bombers aren’t doing this with an active Zoom account. 

And there’s always the “Report to Zoom” menu option for anything that gets out of hand. 

[mdh]

Thank you! I hadn't thought of a co-host. Also, I won't be having my webinar folks interacts accept on the chat or asking questions, so I hope that would limit problems. And I was going to have them register anyway. It seems you don't think the added $1 would do anything in terms of reducing the possibility of bombing. Thanks for your thoughts.