New Skype Client, Video Calls, and User Ambivalence

Kevin Maney voices this: Do people really want to make a lot of video phone calls? Or is a video phone call more like an audio book -- good for certain circumstances; more of a pain than it's worth most of the time?

Skype has unveiled a new client that makes a big bet on video calling. Pundits such as Om Malik generally like the new software download, and Malik says he'd like to do more casual video chatting. But even if Skype can make video calling easy -- which, in a general since, it's still not, because the other party has to be on Skype, too, and right there that means most of your phone calls can't be video -- a big, interesting question is how much humans want to do that.

Every sci-fi show or movie makes video calls the de facto choice. But in the long, long history of video phones, followed by video capabilities in software such as AIM Phone and Yahoo Messenger, consumers have always been unsure about the idea of being seen as well as heard. It might be great when you want to see your young kids while on a long business trip, but how about when you answer the phone first thing in the morning? When you want to talk while cooking or walking? When you want to listen politely but actually tune the caller out?

Back in 2000, responding to that year's efforts to bring video phones to market, AT&T's historian, Sheldon Hochheiseron, told a reporter: "It's still not entirely clear that people want to be seen when on the telephone. This was not a question that was really studied before the introduction, and it's not a question as far as I know that has ever been answered."

As far as I can tell, the question still hasn't been answered.