Video Chatting Revolution-
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Continuing my original log from last week, I decided to go with my initial idea of video chatting as a rising revolution. After reading several articles and blogs I found this piece from the New York Times. It is about a venture company named Toxbox based in California. The company is seeking to push video chatting and video conferencing to the next level. Many companies such as AOL, Yahoo, and Skype already offer video chatting but require both users to download the application in order for the interaction to work; Toxbox is simply a streaming site that allows live chat between users, no programs needed only a camera and a browser. Chief executive Serge Faguet said,
“Video communication has never really taken off, despite the fact that people talk about it as a part of the future,â€
But the 21 year old Russian founder of the company believes the answer is in accessibility and ease. Many investors, after their success with the Youtube epidemic, believe this company is the next huge step in internet communication, Toxbox looks to do for video chatting what Youtube did for video watching.
After reading the article that was written in October of 2007 (Toxbox Article) I decided to try the site out for myself and see if the EASE was really there. From the beginning the site seemed laid out fairly well, objects were obvious, animation was at a minimum and I was not bombarded by a plethora of advertisements. I quickly created an account with 3 short question and it allowed me to sync my contacts from Google and aim accounts alike. I then decided to put the tool itself to the test. I invited my friend who is equipped with camera enabled computer to have a chat with me through this site. It could not have gotten easier all I had to do was direct him to an address that toxbox provided me and bam! he appeared. This program seemed revolutionary until one problem occurred, the quality was horrible. The sound constantly echoed, image was foggy and pixely; he immediately signed off and opted to use macs ichat video conference which was as smooth as butter. No glitches or flaws just a perfect stream.
My feeling on the Toxbox are mixed, I believe in the direction of the company as ease being one of the deciding factors in creating a video chatting culture similar to that of AIM, however, the technology does not seem to be there yet. Toxbox believes everyone has the internet and everyone has browsers, so just as Youtube is accessed by a click of the button so can video chatting. The company was just established less than a year ago and is currently in beta phase. There offices are based in California sharing offices with Youtube; what makes me thinking is this another revolution google will get there hands on.
Comments
I see your point but I think the two need to be considered separately. Although they are both used for point-to-point communication one offers certain advantages that the other one does not. With and texting you get the luxury of hiding behind the net, allowing words to be taken out of context and play with your chatting friend that video chat does not allow. With video chat you are able to see your chat partner, its instantaneous and fulfilling, now instead of imaging how my friend or family looks I can actually experience them in a more fulfilling manner. As I said it builds an emotional factor that is hard to attain through AIM.
It is interesting that it never really took off. Could this be changing due to all of the computers that come with built-in web cams? How many of those computers are out there? I believe all apple computers have them.
On a side note, I had a satellite class in high school (we got a grant for it from some corporation that could only go towards that). We had two teachers and conferenced with the other AP Psychology class at the high school across town. There were microphones wired at each place on the desk and if you had something to say you’d tap it to turn it on and the teacher would use a remote control and have the camera zoom in on you. It was bizarre but we all really liked it. We had one camera to show the teacher and one to show the class. The teacher also had different settings to show close-ups on different parts of the class. This could potentially work in the future for business conferences if they aren’t being used already.
I had never heard of toxbox previously but I agree that the appeal of video chatting only works if the video conference is smooth and clear, aka if the technology works properly. As someone who has family spread out all over the world being able to have a video conference is nice but I still think it will be along time before it replaces AIM because a lot of people who find it easy to say hi and have a conversation typing do so because it enables them to talk while doing other things – and a video chat does not allow that. Students can’t be working on a paper while talking to friends or family in a video chat so in the respect of multi-tasking I think that video conferencing will be a valuable feature but will probably not be able to take the place of AIM and other services like that.