First growing in popularity at technology conferences, backchannel is increasingly a factor in education where WiFi connections and laptop computers allow participants to use ordinary chat like IRC[1][2] or AIM to actively communicate during presentation.
Victor Yngve first used the phrase "back channel" in 1970 in a linguistic meaning, in the following passage: "In fact, both the person who has the turn and his partner are simultaneously engaged in both speaking and listening.
[19] Since its inception in 1998 at Argonne National Laboratory, the Internet2 initiative known as the Access Grid (a large-format presentation, video conferencing and interactive environment) has used backchannel communications to permit the node operators to pass URLs for display at another site, troubleshoot problems and even discuss what's for lunch at their location.
Joichi Ito's HeckleBot includes an LED text panel displaying phrases sent from the chat room to catch the attention of the speaker or audience.
The USC Interactive Media Division has experimented with "Google Jockeys" to feed visual information and search results between the speakers and the backchannel, projected on multiple screens surrounding their seminars.
In 2007 the Building Learning Communities Conference in Boston, Massachusetts used tools such as Twitter and Skype to create backchannels that included participants who were not on location and at times in remote parts of the world.