Videoconferencing Kits Click With Home PC Users
Many Are Adding Video to Online Chat Sessions, E-Mail
by Doug Olenick
When manufacturers introduced videoconferencing kits, they envisioned busy executives holding virtual conferences in their offices. But the products fizzled in the corporate world, falling short of professionals' expectations.
Consumers, on the other hand, have begun to embrace the technology as a means to enhance recreational activities, such as adding video to their e-mail messages and online chat sessions.
"People bought it for live videoconferencing, but video-chat use is growing exponentially, and then they are branching out to video e-mail," said Anna Pappas, senior product marketing manager for 3Com's video products. 3Com makes the Bigpicture Video Phone, which sells for $159 (SRP).
The basic videoconferencing kit comes with a tethered, low-resolution digital camera, a PCI video-capture and compression card, and corresponding software. The cameras' video capability ranges from 8 to 25 frames per second. Low modem transfer speeds slow the frames-per-second rates for video chat and other Internet activities, vendors said.
The kits can handle videoconferencing, capture still images, work in video chat rooms, or be used to make video e-mail. 3Com, Sony, Panasonic, Kodak, Toshiba, Creative Labs and Connectix sell videoconferencing kits priced from roughly $100 to $200 (ESP).
About 1 million videoconferencing units are expected to ship in 1998, three times the 1997 shipments. By 2002, this figure will reach 12 million units, said Kristy Holch, an analyst with InfoTrends, Boston. However, most of the future models will be bundled with PCs, rather than sold as standalone videoconferencing kits, she added.
"The market has been small, but this year the category will take off," Holch predicted.
The driving force behind the growth is word-of-mouth, said James Carlton, product marketing manager for Creative Labs. Sales of Creative Labs' Video Blaster Web Cam II, which the company markets as a consumer product for $99, have grown at a 250 percent year-over-year rate, he said.
"We have really built this one person at a time, through word-of-mouth and people just stumbling across it," Carlton said. "Even during the normally flat summer months, sales are up a bit," he said.
According to Pappas, word spreads like this: Consumers use the kit to communicate in a video chat room. Then they start talking with people they meet in the chat room offline, using video e-mail or regular e-mail enhanced by a digital photograph.
"The home user is spurring the growth because they have no preconceived notion of what it should be, and they are just happy to be able to do something new," Pappas said.
All this consumer attention is leading companies to ship videoconferencing products that focus on fun, not functionality.
Sony originally planned to position its $199 FunMail package as a videoconferencing product, but it didn't sell well, said Mike Vella, marketing manager for the firm's value-added products division. So, he said, Sony chose to position it as a video e-mail product instead.
Sony this fall will upgrade FunMail with new software that enables it to handle video chat. The hardware can do this now, but the user must buy extra software to operate it, Vella said.
In addition to e-mail, consumers are using videoconferencing kits for live Web broadcasts, said Carlton of Creative Labs. Creative's kit can record images at a set time and post them directly to the Internet, enabling users to produce their own "Truman Show" or "JenniCam," he said.
Videoconferencing kits are also becoming easier to use as manufacturers add Universal Serial Bus connectors, enabled by Windows 98, to newer units. 3Com said it will not include USB on its kits because the technology slows the frames-per-second rate, Pappas said.
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