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Why Video Calling Is a Wasted Feature In the UK
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.'"
note the correct wording: "couldn't really care less"
It's couldn't care less.... not could!
Seriously, I could've guessed this after reading this
http://www.amazon.com/Watching-English-Hidden-Rules-Behaviour/dp/0340818867
This is essentially a birdwatching guide fort the English, which the author finds horrifying, but there it is.
Front facing cameras and video conferencing have been on almost every 3G capable phone since circa 2003.
It has never really taken off in the UK, it is cool to show someone something, but it costs 50p per minute, so people have never bothered.
"Take video calling on the iPhone 4 for example"
Videocalls where supposed to be the killer app for 3G phones. As someone already said, this was in 2002/2003. This was not accepted because of the same reason because SMS are popular. SMS are cheap, fast and more impersonal.
If it weren't data plans and social networking, UMTS still it would be serving voice and sms.
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
It's actually quite a bit cheaper now. I looked at the prices a few month ago, and it was only slightly more expensive to make an in-network video call than a voice call. My last two phones have both supported it, but I've never used it.
The problem with video calling rom a mobile phone is that a mobile phone is, well, mobile. You use it while walking around. Even in your own house, you don't often sit or stand still somewhere and make a call. This completely messes up video calling.
The problem with video calling in general is that you need to be awake, dressed, and looking approximately human to use it. My current laptop has a front-facing camera too, but the only time that I've used it for videoconferencing (which, unlike the iPhone version, is completely free) has been to connect remote people to someone giving a talk. Even when I had a long-distance girlfriend, we rarely used video calls, because you can leave a voice call on speaker in the background, but having a video of a person's head seems weird and makes it seem rude if you get up from the computer for a bit.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I had video calling on my last phone, here in Korea most phones support the capability.
Basically, it's not very useful for any actual communication but it can be fun. It's definitely a novelty the first couple of times you use it and occasionally fun after that (usually when drinking). I would say that most people use the front facing camera to take self photos, it's certainly a lot more convenient then trying to position a camera with only a rear facing camera.
Yay me! ^^
I've been working for one of the major 3G companies and even with free Videocall minutes packages the traffic only made for a single digit percentage of the total traffic. No matter in what country.
The only times i used video calls, and i had them for free, was to show the recipient the surroundings i was at. For instance, when i was at a party.
In most situations where it is convenient to make a phone call it is not to make a videocall. That and not the price is the reason for it's low usage
How can people's memories be so short? Video calling was all the rage 3 years ago with Sprint Vision phones and many others with front-facing cameras. Guess what, it was a massive failure, for many reasons. For one, people talk on the phone while doing other things, they don't want to have to hold a phone in front of their face 9stupid reality TV speaker-phone calls aside). For two, no one wants to see you answer the phone in your boxers on Sunday morning.