System and method to create a collaborative web-based multimedia contextual dialogue

A system to collaborate, interact with and perform multimedia tasks in a shared space within a network comprising:

• a host server for communicating with a database and a file storage through a network;
• one or more user machines with associated user applications for logging onto the host server to join a shared space session with other user machines running user applications, wherein the shared space session is generated by interaction of executable codes in the host and the user applications and the shared space session is described by a session attribute list;
• a media application with a plurality of tools loaded into the user machines;
• at least one user provided graphical content installed into the media-layers;
• and a stage manager to facilitate the display of media-layer updates to other users in the shared space in one of a synchronous or asynchronous mode that includes one or more user messages contained in a sidebar panel anchored to a region of a web browser of a user machine, whereby at least a portion of the message relates to graphical content displayed on a whiteboard within the browser, and whereby points of interest within the graphical content are highlighted and associated to said message by one or more persistent lines.