WebX != WebEx

Before we get too far here, let's be clear about who we are and what product we're talking about.

One thing that irks me to no end is people confusing Webcrossing (often abbreviated WebX, like in our URL even) with Cisco's WebEx product. I discovered this tweet just a few weeks ago: "Bayspire, current owners of Web Crossing (née WebEx)..."

AGH!

But I have to admit there are, unfortunately, reasons people get confused:
  • Cisco owns the domain WebX.com. So some unwary surfer looking for Webcrossing.com would end up at WebX.com and the wrong product. Since they had lawyers with bigger biceps than Webcrossing's, it stayed that way. (Right now a surfer looking for Webcrossing.com lands at Bayspire.com, but I digress...)
  • The old Webcrossing logo - which I believe predated the existence of WebEx - didn't help, as it used a swoopy red X between the words "Web Crossing."

    old logo

    [Trivia fact: A large version of that logo was actually animated on the Webcrossing website splash page way back when people actually had splash pages]
  • Before the advent of actual WebEx-style web conferencing, the word "conferencing" used to refer to a large-scale web forum like, say, Salon or Electric Minds (archive) or the WELL. Along comes WebEx, offering - you guessed it - web conferencing.
So next time you see or hear somebody referring to Webcrossing as WebEx, set them straight, willya?

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