Some technologies are just released before their time. And, because of a certain technology’s early arrival, consumers (or the industry itself) just isn’t ready to adopt new products or services until they’ve been ignored in to oblivion. Now, that’s not to say that video calling, video conferencing, whatever you want to call it, will go by the wayside, but a Nokia VP recently explained why video calling just isn’t as popular as you would think.
Apparently, the angle from which most people would frame their faces in a video call (from about mid-chest height and angled upward towards the face) just “isn’t very flattering” – at least that’s the way Nokia’s Ukko Lappalainen, VP Category Manager for Nokia N-series sees it. In other words, video calling hasn’t picked up as much steam as, say SMS text messaging because people just plain look uglier less pretty in a video call than they would in person, on a webcam, or on a regular voice call (obviously). The more flattering angle is apparently a higher, downward-looking camera angle – like we see with most webcam setups.
On the flip-side, much like Betamax, video calling could have just been introduced too early and costs a bit too much. Unlike Betamax, there’s no competing inferior alternative to video calling, so the bulk of video calling’s less than stellar adoption rate could be attributed to some carriers’ too-high costs.
In either case, how many of you out there actually use video calling on a regular basis? How many don’t use it because of costs versus how they look on camera? The question goes out mainly to non-US residents for obvious reasons.
[Via: TechDigest]