Broadcast conducted 1,100 Webcasts for the quarter ended in June, twice as many as in the year-ago period. These sites provide calendars of events so investors can see schedules for specific companies. It lists schedules for about 2,000 companies. Many conference calls are timed to companies' quarterly announcements, so it is important to keep an eye on when earnings are expected. But as more firms embrace the Web as an outlet for dissemination, they are going online to discuss new products, host annual shareholder meetings, announce mergers and more.
Some sites go a step further.
CCBN, for example, lets investors sign up to receive e-mail alerts for coming Webcasts from companies they track. In July, CCBN sent out 1.6 million electronic messages. The sites normally charge the companies for hosting the call, and many companies are happy to participate because the costs are a lot less than telephone-based conference calls. Users should have at least a 56K modem and decent sound quality. It generally takes less than 15 minutes to download.