I’m on a plan that includes an add-on where I can get free text, video and voice to a nominated number. I find that when there is no difference in price between them that I will choose voice for most occasions, and video as a second preference, usually when there is no-one else around me. I particularly like holding it to the steering wheel while I’m driving with the camera facing in the direction of travel. (it’s not illegal to use a mobile and drive in NZ)

James, thanks for the comment, there will always be exceptions to the rule! But the price issue got you in the end I suppose

Malcolm: good point, I think that good “composition” can work in natural ways on some phones and with certain people, but having witnessed people testing the concept of video calling, I have seen that quite often people tend to hold the phone in a way that they don’t when they are (say) texting or browsing. Agree that it will always be a niche thing compared to voice calling.

Michelle: I agree with you that video calling can play a very important part in certain lifetyle “solutions” and the examples you give are good ones. I would add also perhaps that ad-hoc remote viewing (a bit like your open the door to the plumber example) e.g. home security could be quite useful application area.

Cheers nkuli! Tilting camera might be one solution, but perhaps a separate “adjunct” camera which can be placed at different levels or in different places to the phone could be quite interesting.

Dean: interesting points that I hadn’t thought about – especially the “context-aware” aspect e.g. through presence-like mechanism as you say. So agree completely re the lack of a video-calling etiquette and the tools to enable them. It would be interesting to know if there are any solutions to this that are being considered by anyone.

Got to agree with all of this. And another aspect – to be really useful, you need to have motion-sensors & software in the other phone to give “enhanced presence information”. If you can see that someone’s walking briskly, don’t videocall them as they’ll be interrupted. Same thing if they’re driving a car, or they’re using a bluetooth headset at the time of the inbound call.

The problem is that there’s no obvious “video call” etiquette for the caller, nor the tools to create one. There are times it’s appropriate to make a video call, and times when it isn’t. Unfortunately the present version of the technology avoids all this, and IMS won’t help either.

Although maybe you don’t want your wife to know you’re in the pub you may equally wish to know that she hasn’t untied herself from the kitchen sink?

I’m sure the real opportunity arises from 3G Video Applications:

Maybe you want your bank to validate with you an expensive card-holder-not-present transaction thats taking place while you’re travelling home on the bus.

Or you want to see the cleaner/plumber you’re letting into your home whilst on the bus (using your GSM doorbell of course!)

Possibly (like the 7 million singletons in London who haven’t got a partner) you’re on the dating scene and want to meet other genuine adults looking to find that Miss Right. 3G Video calling is certainly going to give you the opportunity to avoid the various abusers and pretenders…

“so what are you doing on the bus when you’ve got a Ferrari in your garage?”

“why does the suit you wear to your big job in the bank look so much like a McDonalds uniform?”

If you’re still in any doubt i heard companies pitching the idea of blogs years ago and no one thought there was going to be anytime in the day for the mass consumer to ruminate online…

So I would have to say that this reason, if it applies at all, would only apply to little kids with badly designed 3G phones.

Of course, all the other reasons for not using video calling are perfectly valid ones, and why it is, and will remain, a niche thing.