Whether it’s IBM’s virtual events in Second Life, in which an avatar shows you around, or lesser sophisticated offerings, those interviewed for this story found online events less than satisfactory.

They can be jumpy, just irritating, the technology’s just not there, says TechVentive President Brian Sommer.

And while Brent Arslaner, vice president of marketing for online events management company Unisfair, talks up the advantages of “affording employees the opportunity to learn and network from the comfort of their desks,” Ian Abramson, president of the Independent Oracle User Group, sees that another way.

Abramson explains: “…if I’m sitting at a desk, I’m probably going to be interrupted a million times, I’m going to have a million things I have to do and I’m probably not going to absorb as much as I can if I was there in person.”

However, it’s hard to argue with the advantages of online events that Arslaner presents:

• Global reach
• Less expense
• No travel
• Lower environmental impact
• Rich online metrics
• Busy executives can pop in for just an hour or two

He cites research from FactPoint Group that those who attend virtual events typically spend 2 ½ hours there, visit 16 locations and download five resources.

FactPoint Group published these best practices for planning such an event. (IT Business Edge’s Knowledge Network also offers a document on planning a webinar.)

Arslaner maintains that virtual events can create meaningful online participation with potential customers at 50 to 80 percent of the cost of physical events.

Eric Weaver, president of social marketing consultancy Brand Dialogue, however, foresees live events becoming even more interconnected with online aspects, but still not giving all their value away for free.

There already are blogs, online user groups and other social-networking aspects associated with trade shows. But he was intrigued by a recent event with technology to allow people around the world to ask questions and watch them being answered in a live session.

“There’s a tremendous potential to leverage some aspects of these events using technologies so there will be conversations about your event [even long after the event] that possibly you wouldn’t have … and now it can be global,” he said.

He says many vendors go to trade shows because their competitors are there, not because it makes business sense. He believes that event budget is better spent on online engagement with potential customers. “… if you’re making enough noise online, you can show you’re still in the game,” he says.

And he said popular social-networking tools create some other interesting effects at trade shows.

Technologies such as Twitter and Facebook, he says, are facilitating “meet-ups” “where you put out a tweet that you’ll be hanging out at the bar at the Venetian or whatever … “and suddenly you meet these people for the first time that you’ve known virtually.”

However, he notes that Twitter and other technologies also mean there are conversations going on in the audience unbeknownst to the speaker. In fact, he recently attended an event in which members of the audience were discussing whether a phrase the speaker used was a racial slur. Those conversations can create embarrassment all around when Twitter and other feeds are displayed on a giant screen behind the speaker and the conversation is not complimentary.