mark nottingham

Video Chat — It’s Here

Monday, 9 February 2004

We’ve been playing with iChat AV, and I’ve got to say that it puts video chat in the same class as E-Mail and Web; killer app.

This isn’t video chat like you’re used to; it’s fluid, has good resolution, and is easy to use (as long as the firewalls aren’t too picky, that is). With distributed family (US East coast and Australia) and work (pretty much everywhere), it makes a huge difference; this is what the pundits and hype a few years ago promised.

We started using the DV camera hooked up through Firewire, but today I strolled down to the Apple Store and bought an iSight, which is much easier to set up and use. The plan is that I’ll be able to take it when I travel, so that I can say goodnight to Charlie when I’m on the road.

As a bonus, version 5.5 of AIM for Windows is interoperable with iChat AV (so they claim), so there’s a decent chance that I’ll be able to talk to most people who have a reasonable computer and Internet connection.

Everybody should get hooked up with this — it’s a classic network effect; the more people who have one, the more value we’ll get from it.