With the social media industry worth billions (just look at the value of LinkedIn’s recent IPO) and has a greater awareness than ever due to the potential of this industry, we take a look at Video Chat and whether this could be one to watch over the next 12 months. Video chat does pretty much exactly what it says; it allows you to chat via video however adding a social media element could make for a very viral and very addictive proposition.
Mobiles are likely to play a key role in the growth of video chat and with Google recently announcing the roll out of the Google Talk video chat service to Android devices and Skype bringing video chat to the iPhone in late 2010 expect to see more and more people using this technology.
Whilst chatting with your friends over a video call might be appealing to some introducing this to social networking opens up many more possibilities. There are already apps for Facebook such as 360Mate which allow video chat on Facebook however what could be even more interesting is the range of sites that allow you to randomly connect to other people around the world via webcam for a brief video chat. The concept is great in theory and there are a number of sites that have been offering this facility for some time now however, unfortunately these seem to have developed in to tools for people to expose themselves to (sometimes) un-expecting people around the globe. The problem is that whilst many of these sites were designed with flirting/dating or just making friends online in mind most users will find themselves put off by the rudeness or harassment as there’s no way of regulating users.
This is a gap that has been exploited by one newcomer to the market Natter who have launched their own social video chat proposition described as a clean way for people to make friends on the web. Users access Natter via Facebook and build up Natter points for every minute spent on ‘Natter’. By using Facebook connect and the system of Natter points, users with more points can regulate anyone abusing the polite ethos through a level of moderation which is built in to regulate any unwanted behaviour.
If any of these new breed of sites can manage to successfully combine social and video chat for mainstream audiences they may be on to something big. Whether or not social video chat becomes the next big thing it’s certainly a space worth watching.
Very interesting topic will bookmark your site to check if you write more about in the future.
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It might be the next big thing but I hope that it is not. We’re already spending waaay too much time doing unproductive work so I don’t see how it can benefit anyone or the economy to do more unproductive tasks.
Am I wrong?
/Maria
This is great for me because my family doesn’t live in California, so we rely on Skype and MSN Messenger for when we need to see each other face to face. Technology is developing more each day and allowing life to be easier with each step.
I dot think it will be. Too easy to abuse, think of the amount of negative press it would get..
Social Media has been revolutionary so we can very well expect video chatting to take over as the next best thing. Doing videos or communicating using video facility is a great way of interacting but its just that people with selfish motives misuse it for some kind of destruction. However, with strict moderation let’s hope that video chats on facebook prove better and safer.
Yup your is right but it’s very difficult to stop misuses on social networking sites.
Good to read this and I think social media is a great help to promote your business and to increase your sales as well.
without a doubt, social media has helped so many small businesses in the united states. I am really happy these smaller businesses have grown to truly challenge these huge corporations that don’t care about their customers.
I haven’t heard of Natter before. But the system is genius.
It could be implemented into many other places. Maybe even into fora.
This natter video chat is extremely helpful, this would not let the users to be tempted to do as what we commonly experienced today where webcam where primarily used for live pornography. I hope people will come to know soon about the social video chat offered by Natter.