A new site focused on smartphone apps for meeting professionals launched yesterday at MeetingApps.com. With about 500 apps in 25 categories, such as meeting management, motivation, organizational tools, hotel search, and risk management, the site aims to be the go-to portal for the mobile planner.

A remarkable 96 percent of meeting and event planners report that their organizations use virtual meetings solutions—either Web-based meetings, videoconferencing, or TelePresence. That finding comes from a comprehensive and wide-ranging study on meeting policy and spending by travel-management giant Carlson Wagonlit Travel. While a snapshot of virtual meeting trends is just a small slice of the 131-page study, the authors track some noteworthy trends against which to benchmark your e-meeting efforts.

U.K-based In Situ Digital has created a humorous video called “The 7 Deadly Sins of Webinars.” While the video gives some good, quick, tactical advice in a way that makes it fun to watch (with the extra benefit of listening to a classy BBC-style English accent), it’s also worth tuning in just to study the production techniques. It’s a good example of a professional and polished production without a lot of fancy camera work.

Technology forecaster and business strategist Daniel Burrus believes that meeting planners who aren’t developing custom mobile technology apps for their meetings are making a big mistake. He outlines seven things an app can do for a meeting that will save the meeting organizer time and money and help attendees navigate the event.

On the road again. Summertime is travel time for so many of us, which makes it a great time to share some Web tools and phone apps designed to help us travel more efficiently, whether for planning meetings, attending meetings, or for that hard-earned vacation. Here are nine services you need to know about.