Meeting management software provider StarCite has decided to stop charging hotels and conference centers the per-room-night fees it had been receiving from them for group bookings generated via StarCite’s supplier database and RFP engine.

The company says the fees will be ending in 2010. Here’s the story.

Thank goodness I can still be surprised in this industry. I just found out about a truly unique webconferencing product that deserves much more publicity than it has received. It exists for the sole purpose of bringing online collaboration to those with limited physical capabilities. With it, attendees who are blind, deaf, or colorblind, have partial vision, or are hearing-impaired can take part in webinars and webconferences.
Read more.

How can an organization extend the messaging from its face-to-face meeting around the country—or the world? What are your options if the must-have keynoter can’t be in your ballroom? Practical technology solutions to these real-world problems are the subject of a free MeetingsNet Webinar next Tuesday, September 29, at 2 p.m. EDT. Join John Folks, chairman of the board of the Professional Convention Management Association, and president, Minding Your Business Inc., and other guests to consider cost-effective virtual technologies that are broadening the reach of face-to-face meetings.

For more information on this free, one-hour webinar, or to register, click here.

I’ve spent the past few months looking into some of the latest technology tools and resources—some ready to use now, a few still on the horizon—that are helping business generally, and the meetings industry specifically, work smarter and faster. This roundup includes everything from a projector that fits in your pocket, to a report on the Twitter elite of the convention bureau world, to an early look at Office 2010. Click to read more.

As attendees bury their heads in their BlackBerrys to update their Facebook accounts between sessions, and people whip out their netbooks to blog about the last session during breaks, I can’t help but wonder if social media is making us antisocial, at least with the people we’re actually in the room with.

So I asked Jeff De Cagna , chief strategist and founder of Principled Innovation LLC, what exactly might be up with that. Here’s a podcast of our conversation, which did not go anywhere near where I thought it would—but Jeff posed what may just be the challenge of the new millennium for meeting planners.