3G Mobile Video Calls: success or failure ?

I’m really happy to see that the discussion on 3G mobile video calling became hot more and more.

After my first “provocatory” post “Why 3G video calls are useless“, I’ve asked for comments to bloggers and professionals, in particular to those living in countries where 3G is not available.

I’ve received interesting feedbacks from Jeff Pulver, Andy Abramson, Martin Geddes and Peter Csathy. None of them needs introduction, so you can understand I’m speaking of “high-quality” feedbacks.

Everyone made very good points hence I’ll try to comment each of the feedbacks I’ve received.
Before doing that, I’d like to say that I agree with everything you stated, because it’s the truth. The only point that I’d like to highlight is that from “theory” to “practise” there is huge distance. So, I’d say that in “theory”, everything you said is absolutely right, and I totally agree. But, if I think of the reality (as it is in Italy, at least), what you say unfortunately doesn’t always really work.

First of all, Jeff askes what a service must be to be considered “useful”.
In my opinion, a service is useful if people use it because it adds some value or it solves a particular problem. If those conditions are not satisfied, the service would fail.
For 3G mobile video calling, it’s true for both, but it’s not enough because for many reasons there are still issues to be solved in order to make this service really easy-to-use. I already listed some reasons in my previous post.

• make (or receive) a videocall while you’re on the go is not easy neither comfortable (think what happens if you’re driving…)
• privacy issues: if you don’t have a headphone, people around you can hear what your interlocutor is saying
• costs: usually a video call costs two/three times a voice call
• you usually don’t get more information from seeing the person on the other side (except for the cases described above)
• on
  most devices (Nokia included), you don’t have a dedicated button for
  video call, you have to choose a particular option from the menù, so
  it’s not properly user friendly
• you’re not always willing to show your face to the caller (just woken up and so on…)

Martin Geddes states that it’s a matter of “high cognitive load”:

The problem is high cognitive load — you have to be constantly thinking about what the other person is seeing, both from a technical viewpoint of where the camera is pointed (no pun intended) as well as the specifics of the content.

I agree with Martin, this is a very important point. It’s another way to say that there are still no ideal sourrounding conditions to let mobile video calls become a service to be widely used everyday like voice calls.

Then, Peter made very good points listing some use cases in which video calls can be a real value added. I agree with him if we refer to video calls in general, but if we focus attention just on mobile video calls using 3G devices, they are more “theorical” cases than real-life cases. Well, they can be real as well, but how many times those occur ? Just, like Jeff states, as “3G video moments” and no more ?

For me being somewhere special or experiencing something unique is such a

“3G video moment” when I would like to call my friends or family at home and

PC “Video-pals” to share.

Peter refers to “3G video moments as well”

In other words, mobile video calling uniquely enables spontaneity
(flexibility and freedom are some other good words to describe this).
Now, no matter where you are, you can share any moment with anyone else
and enable them to “see what I’m seeing.”

I’ve used video calls to call my wife just a few times (three, maybe four) even to let her see what I was seeing, even if 3G is “up and running” in Italy since 2002… So it’s not so “early stage” as Peter writes. In a few days I’ll become father for the first time (!!!), so maybe I’ll use it more. But I guess it’s still not enough.

Peter then refers to the SMB market:

And, think of the SMB user — let’s say, a real estate agent — he or she could better serve his or her clients by conducting a live video “tour” of a property with his or her mobile device (so that the client need not visit every property). Again, the visual element gives power that cannot — even remotely — be matched by audio only calling alone (and therefore gives the real estate agent an exciting new tool in his or her arsenal).

It would be great, but 3G video calls are not like those made with SightSpeed So, Peter and Andy, for real estates neither for cars I can really perceive any detail by a video call, so a couple of photos would be much better. You can use high quality videos, you can use high definition photos, but like something that you download into your mobile device and you then watch at home. Not a real-time mobile video call.

This said, Peter continues:

At the end of the day, current implementations of mobile live video
“calling,” as pointed out by Luca and others, still lack in terms of
quality and ease of use. And, I doubt they have been marketed
particularly effectively as well. But, I don’t believe we can judge the
potential of this uniquely compelling market opportunity — both for
consumers and businesses — until these preliminary usability hurdles
are solved and until proper visibility is achieved.

It’s true, quality is not so good, but even if quality was better, I don’t think the situation would change so much.
In Italy we’ve been bombed out by commercials regarding mobile video calling and fixed to mobile video calling (Telecom Italia totally failed in trying to sell a fixed line video telephone one year ago), but this service still doesn’t “explode”. Mobile operators are making money with some video-services (like InVideo by “3″, a sort of mobile YouTube) but through services where no video-calls are involved, only streaming video.

The point is that there is still something missed to really fill the gap and make this service grow up.
I think this “brain storming” is very interesting to everyone in order to try to discover what is missed here. Because, in my view, only the first which will find the key to solve this problem will be the winner.

Of course, more feedbacks are welcomed

DISCLOSURE: my view on this subject is not just a general opinion, but it’s due by many factors: I’m a 3G user, I shared my thoughts with many 3G users in Italy and with professionals working in 3G mobile companies and I’ve taken into account the number of video calls made and received by my friends and my relatives. That’s the reason why I say theory is much different from practise

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