shown in fig1 b the system 10 can further include a plurality of central servers 20 1 20 2 20 k located at respective terminals 30 1 30 2 30 k in addition to a central server 20 fig2 c is yet another embodiment of the virtual conference system 10 unlike the embodiments of fig2 a and fig2 b which employ a client server architecture the embodiment of fig1 c employs a peer to peer communication channel by which terminals 30 can directly communicate without passing through the central server 20 the peer to peer communication channel helps reduce the load on the central server 20 by utilizing the resources e g bandwidth storage space processing power of the network participants terminals 30 although not explicitly shown the peer to peer communication channel may be added to the embodiment of fig2 b where the central server 20 is not in one location the peer to peer channel may be especially useful in certain situations such as in a two participant conference where the active node is constant the inventive concept disclosed herein pertains to a system that is capable of collecting accurate attention information from participants the system presents each participant with the option of focusing attention on one of the nodes or choosing to focus attention on nothing more specifically the system presents the nodes at a low image quality except the active node if any is selected if a participant selects an active node the active node is displayed at a high image quality while the rest of the nodes remain displayed at a low image quality as used herein a u201c high image quality u201d has.