The Future of Real-Time Video Communication
The Future of Real-Time Video Communication
What is the future of real-time video communication and what will it feel like to live and work in a world where real-time video is ubiquitous?
Skype commissioned IFTF to research and start a conversation about this question and much more in this newly-released report.
Video technologies are improving dramatically and rapidly, supporting mobile and ubiquitous real-time video experiences. Low cost, simple platforms for real-time video will become an essential part of the way we communicate with each other, and will spawn the next generation of consumer behavior, business practice, media culture and economics, and innovation policy.
As Michael Wesch, a cultural and media anthropologist noted, "When media changes—human relationships change." Since video communications are at the core of what Skype does, they were more than a little curious about the technological and social future of video. This forecast report was designed as a conversation starter about the likely changes in how we communicate as individuals, businesses, governments, and societies. It examines the current trends affecting the future of real-time video communication, as well as the foundational trends necessary for this future to occur. Included are four scenarios that present plausible futures that integrate real-time video communication into the lives of every day people—an average employee, a sports fan, a newly engaged couple, and a fully-connected small business.
"Real-time video communication is poised to become one of the most transformative technologies of the coming decade, and could be a major disruptive force in domains from business to health to education," notes Jake Dunagan, Research Director, Technology Horizons Program, IFTF.
Video communication is moving forward with near unstoppable momentum, currently 34% of Skype-to-Skype calls include video, video peaks as high as 50% on holidays—it is becoming clear that video is the communications medium that is the closest thing to being physically present with the ones you love. Video will be embedded everywhere—in websites, mobile devices, ubiquitous screens, and in every platform and application. As Skype's CSO Christopher Dean has noted, most people are going to want "all their communications integrated into a single UI." Within ten years, video calls will be as popular as voice calls.
It seems that very soon we will be, as Wired's Kevin Kelly puts it, "becoming people of the screen."
Publication Date
November 2009