I’ve posted before about why I think Video Calling and Video IM is failing now, but has tremendous promise. I myself have used it with a PC and the Nokia Internet Tablet to call my then-fiance from Amsterdam to Fort Worth with live video. It’s a tremendous tool, and I’m anxious to be able to do it from my phone, and I think we’re closer than you think.

Nokia has a new video teleconferencing tool called ‘Halo’, which was covered on the Nokia Conversations blog recently. I’ve not seen one of these rooms, but I’ve talked to several people who have,and they say it’s simply fantastic. However, the important thing in the story isn’t the Halo service, but a particular sentence:

The really cool bit though (as if all that wasn’t cool enough) was when Charlie dialed in from his N95. Using 3G and the video camera on the phone, Charlie was able to join in (in a pretty pixelated way) and what’s more we all showed up on his ‘ickle screen. EDIT: Turns out, Charlie was indeed making a standard video call, though that doesn’t affect what I’m suggesting next…

The answer to the problem, as I see it, is Gizmo Project. Yes, that’s right. They’re absolutely the best positioned to break video calling away from the carriers, and make a bundle doing so. Here’s why:

Video calling, historically, hasn’t taken off for a few reasons:

1. It’s charged in minutes. Not only is this expensive (cause carriers are greedy), but it also inherently means it will be compared in price to regular minutes, in which case it comes off *really* expensive. Bad idea.

2. It requires both phones to be capable of sending the video. This also means that when the call is answered, video is sent both ways. Why not give the person a choice of only seeing my video, while not sending any of their own? There are countless reasons for this, such as them not being ‘presentable’, on a busy street, low battery, etc. Similarly, why shouldn’t I be able to call my mom, whose phone is perfectly capable of streaming video, but maybe not of sending video?

3. It’s restricted to phone-to-phone. This is perhaps the silliest one of all. Why should I only be allowed to video call another phone? Why wouldn’t I want to call my grandma, who has a computer, but only the most basic phone?

Currently, Gizmo Project solves all of these issues with its Nokia Internet Tablet software and PC-based. I can call another Internet Tablet or another PC, from either, and I get to choose whether or not I want them to see me. There’s already a rather robust S60 client, I wonder what it would take for Gizmo to support video calling from S60, as well?

What do you think? Would you use video calling if these things were addressed?

Categories: Personal Rants
Tags: features, gizmo, video calling