Skype CEO makes the case for video communication

Although it will be his counterpart Skype CSO Christopher Dean speaking at IT Expo today, CEO Josh Silverman has a few things to say as well and perhaps Dean will speak about similar theme--namely video. 

Silverman wrote a guest post for GigaOm highlighting why he believes Video to be the killer app. He thinks voice is great and it has done wonders for Skype and long distance communication in general, but in the end its the promise of visual communication that video brings that will be a game changer for IP communications. Silverman believes video taps into our traditional forms of communication--you know face-to-face before we invented writing. As our communications systems advanced we were able to replace time-shifted letter writing with voice calling and then email and chat. Finally with video calling we can get back to our original form of face-to-face communication--but this time over distance. "At the very least, real-time video is getting us closer to where the communication medium itself becomes almost invisible, letting people themselves be the platform," says Silverman touching on how face-to-face feels much less mediated than other forms of communication.

Silverman concludes his comments by saying that we are still in the early days of video communication, but even now, only 4 percent of international calling is video calling on Skype. HD Video calling on everyone's TV will be here soon, and it is an exciting premise, but it also means today's remote workers will probably be less inclined to work in their pajamas. Perhaps, that's a win-win for all of us.

For more:
- read the GigaOm article

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