There is a great daily news style podcast about all things technology from CNET.com called "Buzz Out Loud" (BOL)  A few days ago they were commenting on a story that reported that Facebook was planning to add voice chat to their instant messaging functionality.  I joined the hosts in wondering if this something that people would actually use?  Is there a demand signal for multimedia communications on Facebook?

My IT Thought for the Day is, “Do people really use all of the high-tech chat tools available to them?”  Do they even want to?

IBMVideoChat

I think that the reality is that we have moved from using our computers and networks as information processing devices to thinking of them as communications adapters.  We all have workmates, friends, and family.  We also have multiple communications choices for each including phone, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), chat, voice chat, and video chat.  I expect that there is a different group of people that you associate with each means of communication based upon your intimacy with them and the richness of each communications method.  I think that we all find that, by choice, we would e-mail or call anyone on a phone, but video chatting is reserved for close friends and either trusted workmates or people we are trying to sell.  An interesting poll would be to determine how each service stacks for different people.  I suspect that we would find many who preferred e-mail to phone and nearly none who used IM more than phones for example. 

So this brings us back to Facebook and how we actually use it.  Personally, I like Facebook and use its messaging (e-mail) functionality a lot to keep up with people.  I occasionally use its IM features to chat with a closer ring of friends that form a subset of all of my Facebook contacts.  If they add voice, I would use it with a smaller circle, and video would be limited to only the closest of family and friends.  I just worry that with these added features will come an added expectation that we use them.  I can see new avenues to hurt peoples’ feelings here based upon differing levels of rich communications tolerance/preference.  Another new conundrum brought to us by the Information Age!

One article that is germane to the discussion that I found is:

Mashable.com: Facebook to Launch Video Chat?

Two online sources that I found relating to this idea were:

  • Pidgin is an open source, universal instant messaging client that aggregates and cross-publishes to all of the major IM services.  The did a customer survey and found that only 15% said that their not supporting video chat would influence them to leave the program and a full 20% said that video chat was not important.
  • Also, The University of Wisconsin at Madison conducted a 2007 Faculty Study that showed only 17% of faculty used video conferencing with only 11% having any future plans to do so.

Does your organization really use video chat?  Do you find that your users are increasingly adopting it after your chose to support it or is the luster wearing off from an initial swell?  Do you see your team adding functionality in the future? 

That is my Information Technology Thought of the Day (ITTOD) for September 18, 2009 ©Scott Coughlin 

Image Credit: IBM

 

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