Why Video Calling Is a Wasted Feature In the UK 232
An anonymous reader writes "Technology affects the way we live but sociocultural influences also dictate what technology we absorb into our day-to-day lives. Take video calling on the iPhone 4 for example; it was pitched as an impressive feature, but will people adopt it? According to one British writer, the UK is unlikely to start making lots of video calls because it's awkward and, well, not very British. 'It's not the way we look when we say them, but the way we say them in order to inject the most bile into a negative statement. Or, on our more enthusiastic days, finding the most wryly witty way to say something while indicating that you couldn't really care less about it. This is the reason we've taken so well to Twitter and are better at watching than creating YouTube videos, to put it in sweepingly generic Internet terms.'"
face for radio (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess the British all have great radio faces.
Awkward? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they can invent avatars for your teeth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Broad sweeping statements are foolish (Score:3, Insightful)
You're thinking laptop camera though (Score:3, Insightful)
There's enough of a separation between the frame of a laptop (where the camera lives) and the video you are watching, that the direction of eyesight being different is noticeable.
With a mobile device, it seems like it would look a lot more like the person was looking at you, rather than offscreen.
Proximity and usability (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the difference that will explain adoption is this - the degree of usability and proximity.
With Skype, you have to launch the application. Then the other person has to be running skype - if they are not a skype user they are probably not going to do so. Then you have to arrange to have a time when they will run skype, and in the end wasn't a phone call just easier? I don't use skype video calling for just this reason.
Furthermore, you can call someone with a phone in your pocket when you have to go to a laptop or desktop to make a video call. Again, the phone call (or text) is simply easier.
But by the looks of things Apple has again, taken an idea that has been around for some time and made it easy enough to use that the level of convenience is nearly the same as a phone call. By the looks of things it's just another option when you are calling someone (and on WiFi), a video option appears and you are video conferencing. There's no setup by the end user, and they can video chat on the device they always have with them.
That leaves the other factors remaining - will people want to receive video calls at random times? When it's as easy to video as call, will people do so? That remains to be seen. But the first, necessary, step to adoption was to make it no harder than a phone call.
It is not an Apple invention (Score:5, Insightful)
The article makes it sound like a breakthrough by Apple but videocalling has been around for at least 3 years in Italy and has not taken on for a variety of reasons, the main one being that it does not solve a problem the user has.
Video skype is popular amongst families distributed over various countries mostly because it is free. I don't know, but I think international mobile videocalls are probably not free or cheap.
I had a Nokia e61 with a front facing camera for years and have not used it even once.
Dennis.
Re:Proximity and usability (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing I like about voice-only on phone calls is that I can be naked, and the other person has no idea whatsoever.
The same goes for Internet forums.
Redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
Video calling is simply redundant in Britain. Wherever you are, you can simply say: "Mr. Policeman, could you please forward a copy of this surveillance footage to Mr. So-and-so?"
Multitasking (Score:3, Insightful)
With a computer, it's not QUITE as noticeable if you're also surfing while chatting (though you CAN still tell if you pay attention or if you're noisily typing away) but it's still a bit of a problem.
generation difference and convenience (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that there are plenty of YouTube submissions from the UK I suspect the broad generalizations painted in the article are unrealistic. Also I have found some younger Brits to be culturally different in attitude(and wit!) than 30-something and older Brits.
I suspect cell phone video conference will not be widely adopted for other reasons. Mostly revolving around obvious things like convenience. Texting is convenient because you can do it more discreetly than a voice call, which explains its huge popularity with teenagers. Parents and teachers can't overhear a texting conversation, but they could overhear a video call.
I suspect video calls will mainly be used by horny teenagers so they can expose themselves to other horny teenagers.
Re:Awkward? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a lot easier to lie to someone you're looking at because you can learn how to position your eyes/faces/hands/etc in such a way as to gain their trust.
Body language in general helps people get away with lots of things that don't transfer well over phone/e-mail/letters. Whether it's lying, bullshitting, persuading, or otherwise.
But on the converse, what the grandparent said is also true. It's easier to tell a lie to a piece of paper then it is to a person assuming you have any amount of empathy. If you lack empathy, then you'll be able to lie equally well to both.
Re:Maybe they can invent avatars for your teeth? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, people here voiced all kinds of reasons why video call aren't useful, but I think David Foster Wallace summed it up best in his amazing novel, Infinite Jest. The book was published in 1996 and revolved about a future USA (~10-20 years in the future). In the following excerpt he gives an assay about why video calls failed (past tense):
Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation [...] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet -- and this was the retrospectively marvelous part -- even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end's attention might be similarly divided.
[...] Video telephony rendered the fantasy insupportable. Callers now found they had to compose the same sort of earnest, slightly overintense listener's expression they had to compose for in-person exchanges. Those caller who out of unconscious habit succumbed to fuguelike doodling or pants-crease-adjustment now came off looking extra rude, absentminded, or childishly self-absorbed. Callers who even more unconsciously blemish-scanned or nostril explored looked up to find horrified expressions on the video-faces at the other end. All of which resulted in videophonic stress.
There is a bit more at this link [kottke.org] and a lot more at the book itself, which I highly recommend.
Re:Proximity and usability (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>One thing I like about voice-only on phone calls is that I can be naked
The one thing I LIKE about video calls is that my girlfriend can be naked, and I can watch. :-) Webcam chatting has become popular with teens, and I bet Video iPhone calls will too. They are young, thin, and naturally beautiful. They don't mind being seen.
It's only us older folks (30 and up) that don't want to be seen, due to sagging skin, expanding waistline, or whatever
.
Re:Apple made a mistake, I believe... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe this whole thing is indicitive of something else
That not everyone else is as anti-social or socially inept as many of us here?
I don't think that video calls will become as popular as voice calls or SMS. But people will still use it for all sorts of things, including being a more personal form of communication. People like options when it comes to how they communicate; that's why SMS and email are popular.
Apple hasn't made a mistake here. They've finally taken steps to make video calling easy enough for anyone to use. It might be a while before society completely adapts to the technology, but I don't see any reason why it won't happen.
On the other hand, yeah, what does Apple know about popularising technology, right?
Re:Proximity and usability (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only us older folks (30 and up) that don't want to be seen, due to sagging skin, expanding waistline, or whatever
People all over the world are fatter than ever before. Kids in the USA hold the title, but UK kids aren't far behind. Further, kids are usually highly critical of their own appearance, in large part likely due to the messages they receive from advertisers.
Toilets, Cars, etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody wants video calling.
It's been out for years. Nobody wants it.
Re:ha (Score:3, Insightful)