Blog Articles

Webinars have been around for decades and, just like almost anything that’s been around this long, they have evolved. Over the past years, webinars have seen a huge uptick and continue to gain popularity.

In an era of globalization, business communication is reaching across international borders, geographic locations and time zones, and getting closer to barrier-free communication than ever.

As more events leverage digital technologies and hybrid formats, it’s increasingly easy for interested parties to participate in seminars, conferences, meetings, and the like — all in their chosen language. Ultimately ensuring multilingual communication doesn't get interrupted by language barriers.

And it’s all thanks to talents and technologies that allow for translation, interpretation (both simultaneous and consecutive), captioning, and subtitling to take place virtually and manifest locally.

Across the globe, these technologies are transforming how content is delivered and bridging communication gaps. They are enabling greater collaboration, supporting more opportunities to spread knowledge, helping people to pursue new business opportunities, and allowing us all to embrace other cultures.

It’s important to note that these processes all operate independently and are not interchangeable — so getting the most out of them means understanding how each one works and their best use-case scenarios.

In this article, we’re going to look at the differences between translation, interpretation, subtitles, and captioning, and where their best use case is.

Interprefiers Take the Floor is now available on your preferred podcast directory.

Listen and download the podcast below:

Available for download on:

Maha El-Metwally is a highly experienced interpreter who has been working as a conference interpreter for Arabic and English for over 15 years. She is also an RSI trainer. 

Note: Title idea: How to scale up your webinars on any platform

In just months, the global landscape has changed dramatically, with almost every sector having to pivot to digital technology. For now, in-person meetings, lectures, events and conferences are off-the-table (or restricted to fewer numbers), leaving companies to rely on virtual meeting and webinar platforms such as GoToWebinar, Microsoft Teams and Zoom to continue operations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the events industry status quo. And for companies to survive and thrive in our ‘new normal’, they need to rise to the challenge of hosting smooth, engaging events in virtual environments.

Updated May, 2026

The events industry is in uncharted territory. With many conferences having to pivot to the virtual environment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, what does the future hold for international conferences, and how will the global events industry — worth $1.5 trillion* — recover? 

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a key driver in the rapid adoption of virtual environments. 

This is not to say that their rise in popularity was unforeseen — the format has carved a niche in the events landscape and will continue to alter the DNA of physical events in the future. Hybrid events are expected to continue to gain relevance, catering to both on-site and remote attendees.

Up until recently, online events were considered a last resort for event professionals. Mainstream digital experiences lagged behind their on-location counterparts and were largely the preserve of art exhibitions and the “the really risqué” (or borderline gimmicky). 

With more events move online, event organisers and managers of traditionally “offline” events are coming to realise that the landscape is much different.