Video Conferencing Fits Perfectly - in My Personal Life

I was going to leave a comment onDon Dodge's blog about this, but after thinking about it I decided the comment would be too long, so I decided to write my own post.  Please see his blog post for more, but the original question was

Are you using video conferencing/chat? What are the best uses of real time video? What are your favorite products or services? What will it take for video to take off? Will a poor economy and travel restrictions cause more people to use video conferencing services?

I've been using video chat for many years.  When MSN Messenger first came out with video (I think it was NetMeeting, but I don't remember which version), I installed it and thought it was a super-cool thing, just because it was new and different (and FREE!).  These days I mostly use MSN Messenger for video chat, and for the most part I use it to chat with my parents.  I would use it more frequently with more people if more people were forward-thinking and installed it; it's just that I guess people don't want to have to be "dressed" to chat on the computer!

One of the coolest things to me is the ability for small children to know what their relatives look like and interact with them, despite living far away from each other.  My parents are only three hours away, but my brother is 11 hours by car and we only see him once or twice a year.  My boys know the names "Uncle Tophie, Aunt Kelly, and Lacen" - but they can't put real faces to the names unless they are present (yes, we have pictures but let's face it; do you look at the pictures on your own walls all the time?  I don't).  Video chat would solve that problem at least a little, but my brother isn't big on chat (or maybe we're just never on at the same time).

As for business uses, I've found that email seems to do the trick.  I have used online services (Skype and Messenger) for demos before with other businesses, but never video chat, as such.  I don't know why - maybe it's because I do a fair amount of business with people in different time zones and that makes it a little more difficult to coordinate meeting times and such.  But then again, if you can get the message across passively at someone else's own leisure, a video conference really isn't necessary.

My father has been using video for conferences as well as training for many years.  In the early 1990s, my parents were living in Phoenix, AZ and I am pretty sure his company was using the jerky video conferencing that was available then, and it was most certainly not free.  He was also an early adopter of VOIP for business and they still use that for long distance today (after roughly 15 years).  He is proof that you can be over 50 and be technically savvy.  He does still use video conferencing to have meetings with people all over the country without having to travel (which he does plenty of as well).

So, all that was to say that yes, I've been using video chat for quite awhile, and I love it - especially when it's free and easy to use like MSN and Skype.