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Posted on April 11 2007 by Jag @ 3:32 pm
I was thinking about this whilst on the top deck of the bus on the way home the other day. Have you ever seen anybody making a video call to someone using their mobile phone? I mean really making one, not just testing it out for the first time, but really doing it, like“in the wild”; i.e. on the street, on a bus, in the pub? Amazingly, I haven’t yet.
Video calling was meant to be one of the reasons why billions of pounds/euros/dollars were spent by the mobile phone companies building new “3G” (3rd generation) mobile networks over the last few years. So now that “3G” and phones with video calling have been around for a while there should be a sufficient number of people with video calling capability in their pockets for us to be able to make a reasonable guess as to its popularity. But my personal observations tell me that despite the fact that people have it, people just don’t do it. Video calling that is. Many commentators in the mobile phone industry have given many good reasons why people just don’t do it. And I’ve studied those reasons. Pondered at them. Thought about them hard. And whilst I agree that many of the reasons given definitely have something to do with it, there is one reason that is never quite given. In my own view, it’s the real reason why people don’t do it. Or rather the real reason why people won’t do it.
It’s not just the fact that you turn off the 3G capability on your 3G phone in order to conserve battery life. (Most people I know who have 3G mobile phones do this!) No, it’s not just about that. It’s not just about the fact that it’s sometimes more expensive to make a video call compared to a normal “voice only” call. And it’s not just about the fact that you never quite know if the other person you wanna call has a 3G video calling phone, and is in an area with 3G coverage and hasn’t switched off their 3G capability in order to save battery life just like you do. And even if these issues were overcome (which I’m confident they will over time) and everyone had 3G everywhere, and everyone had video calling, and fantastic 3G battery life and it wouldn’t cost any more to make video calls, then it wouldn’t only be the fact that you don’t generally like the idea of showing the other person how you’re looking at that moment. “No I haven’t just gotten out of bed boss.” Or exactly where you are at that moment. “No, I’m not really in the pub darling.“. No. And it’s not just about the fact that you don’t want other people nearby to you overhearing your entire conversation – in fully unprivate full-duplex as opposed to half private half-duplex. No, and it’s not just about the fact that when you get fed up of seeing the other person in poor-quality jerk-motion you can’t just “upgrade” the video call into a standard voice-only call. And that’s after you’ve worked out how to make a video call in the first place (there’s no “make a video call” button on any mobile phones that I’ve ever seen). Nope. It’s none of these reasons that will confine video calling to occasional uses, like grandchildren calling grandparents far away. Or couples where one partner is far away from another for a period of time. Or possibly in some cases where you might want to show someone something, like “see what I’m seeing” type of thing. No. No. No. If all the above problems were overcome somehow, the real reason why you won’t make video calls is this:
Video calling gives the other person a great view of your nostrils
No joke. It’s a classic case of bad usability. With the help of my most gracious model above you can see that the most natural holding position of a mobile phone is the position that we all know very well; the phone is a comfortable distance away from the face so that she can see what’s on the screen clearly, and her arm is comfortably bent at the elbow, with the elbow resting against her side. The net result of this completely natural and comfortable way of holding the phone is that the video calling camera on the front side of the phone is now at an angle which is acute to the horizontal plane of her face. Which means that if you were lucky enough to receive a video call from her, you would get a great view of her nostrils – in extra wide-angle perspective. And she would see herself in the corner of her screen and probably go “eeuugghh“, and compensate for the fact she’s looking like that by extending her arm out so that the phone camera is now in the horizontal plane of her face. Like below.
Video calling requires you to hold your phone out in the horizontal plane of your face.
The problem with this pose is that it’s unnatural, and uncomfortable and requires a dramatic extension of personal space. And won’t last for very long. Your arm will get tired very quickly, and when done in public, your spatial self-awareness will cause a tendency to resist it. And so it will be the reason why video calling will never be as popular as regular calling, even if all the other problems were solved. In my view it will be the reason why most people will just not do it at all. (All the pictures used in this blog posting were taken with my mobile phone) This posting featured in the Carnival of the Mobilists weekly mobile blog-news roundup number 69 at Mobile Marketing and Spam on April 16th 2007.
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Route 79 Reflections on a bus journey home |
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| From London: By a British, European, 2nd-Generation Indian. Probably confused - but proud to be them all! Half of my journey to and from work is a 20-30 minute bus ride: London Bus Route 79 - between Alperton in West London and Kingsbury in North West London. I very frequently get pissed-off and frustrated waiting around in the DARK, WET and COLD - waiting for the 79 to turn up. But I have to be eternally grateful for the quality thinking time I get to myself. | ||
And have you ever tried walking along while making a video call? Impossible, you keep bumping into stuff. Not a problem with a voice call as it doesn’t involve using your eyes.
Even video calls from home phones has never taken off and they can have the camera built in to the base unit so that you get a better position. Video conferencing isn’t anywhere near as popular as phone conferencing, it’s just unnecessary in most cases. Why would I WANT to see these other people?
Even picture messaging isn’t used by that many people when you consider the number of phones which have cameras. Sure, they’ll use the camera to take pictures, but I think I’ve received one photo by picture messaging in the 5 years I’ve had a photo-capable phone.
Comment kindly left by Nigel — April 11, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
Couldn’t agree more Nigel! And no I haven’t tried a video call whilst walking, unlike most of us who have no problem making a regular call whilst walking. Once upon a time it was considered wierd talking whilst walking, even more so wierd when using a headset, but now it’s considered perfectly “normal”. I cannot see this being the case with video calling at all.
Comment kindly left by Jag — April 11, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
Your little one’s going to love you when she gets to 18 and there’s still a picture of her nostrils on the internet for you to show to her new boyfriend…!
Comment kindly left by A Simple Man — April 11, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
Heh heh Simple Man!
I never thought about that. Hopefully the image (and this posting) will fade away into obscurity by the time that day comes!
Comment kindly left by Jag — April 11, 2007 @ 7:25 pm
When I tried to make a video call whilst walking down Tottenham Court Rd, I bumped into at least 3 people, almost dropped the phone & felt like a complete nutter. Fun times!
Comment kindly left by JC — April 11, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
JC: Nigel’s point nicely demonstrated!
Comment kindly left by Jag — April 11, 2007 @ 8:56 pm
Oh Jag ,here I was waiting for it to arrive in India
)))) I am sure it won’t be popular here too.Afterall who wants to show their nostrils 
)))
You really have good observation
Comment kindly left by archana — April 12, 2007 @ 4:01 am
Cheers Archana!
Comment kindly left by Jag — April 12, 2007 @ 9:01 am
i kinda know what you mean, its not really been the mass thing that everyone thought it would be! only time ive really used it was about 2xmas’s ago when 3 had free video calling for a month! apart from that just use it to use mates occasional video minutes that they get bundled with contracts.. i guess yeah it maybe invades on that certain bit of privacy that people want to keep to themselvs, sayin that imho it will one day take off, as it gets cheaper and as the phones get better i think it will be more appealing!
Comment kindly left by randomdude — April 12, 2007 @ 10:21 pm
I must be the exception to the rule as I *did* video call people all the time.. But since o2 stopped their “Video Calls at Voice Call prices” special offer I’ve stopped. It’s really not worth 50p a minute.
Comment kindly left by James — April 14, 2007 @ 3:20 pm
Well, video calling is definitely a niche thing. However, I tried seeing what my phone’s (P990i) view of me looked like in a natural posture (as shown on your page, although I’m a full-grown adult), and, holding the phone where I normally hold it for viewing the screen and operating it, it gives a nearly perfect framing of my face, and straight on because I’m looking at it.
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.
Comment kindly left by Malcolm — April 17, 2007 @ 2:30 am
Yes there are lots of reasons why video calling won’t an shouldn’t happen. but isn’t this the same with every technology. People don’t buy technology they buy solutions for their lives.
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…
Comment kindly left by Michelle — April 17, 2007 @ 4:27 pm
Really great post. I had always considered only the other issues you considered. Do you then think a tilting front camera would be the solution?
Comment kindly left by nkuli — April 18, 2007 @ 8:20 am
Jag
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.
Comment kindly left by Dean Bubley — April 19, 2007 @ 8:42 am
Kabi, I do agree that it will get more popular as more and more “barriers” are removed, but there is no doubt in my mind that the expectation that person-to-person video calling will be as massively popular as regular calling is wrong on the basis of a more complex usability model.
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.
Comment kindly left by Jag — April 19, 2007 @ 1:15 pm
I had an idea similar to Dean’s a few years back, which was to use the phone microphone to judge background noise before ringing, and adjust the ringing volume to a suitable level.
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)
Comment kindly left by Rhys Lewis — April 24, 2007 @ 1:42 pm
Hi Rhys, “see what I see when I’m driving” ! I never thought of doing video with phone in my hand whilst driving but I did have the idea once upon a time to mount a wireless webcam on my dashboard!
Comment kindly left by Jag — April 25, 2007 @ 11:46 am
Nice coverage:)
So nice that it made me link to it in my 3G article
Comment kindly left by Tim@Todspace — May 5, 2007 @ 10:01 am
Cheers Tim! Great article too!
Comment kindly left by Jag — May 7, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
please help me finish my research. I neen ur help positively. I love reading your article but i need positive comments regarting 3g video call… hoping for your kind responce
Comment kindly left by Babychinee — July 24, 2008 @ 1:10 am