Introducing the Facetime App From Apple - Video Chat On the iPhone

Facebook is the new video chat app for the iPhone 4. Here is a demo of what it can do.



Note that users can toggle between the frontal and back camera. Brilliant. A reporter's dream if you ask me.

Also, it's based on open source coding so the prospect of chatting with other folks on other mobile platforms or devices that support this protocol is very real.

Mobility: MeBeam (Second Night)

Yesterday, we spoke a bit about video chats.  Video conferencing sounds so professional and we mobile warriors are like mavericks (you'll only see his word used once.  Now.  that's it), than corporate types.

So, video chats.  We tried mebeam last night again.  This time, we've got a couple of more folks.  Again, what it is is a Flash based video chat with up to sixteen feeds per room.  This is how easy it it.

• No 3rd party software to install.  Runs off Flash (unless you consider that to be it).
• Almost any webcam (set to USB video - at least on the MacWind)
• Browser-based (again, no 3rd party software) - IE, Firefox, Safari
• Does have voice but we didn't like it much.

I'm going to try it at Starbucks today if I get a chance.  This is what I'm getting at. If you need this blog long enough, you know what I mean.  It works anywhere with an Internet connection.  

And I advocate its use as much as possible and I want every mobile warrior to add this to their arsenal as part of his or her 21st Century skillz.  

If we try it again tonight and you're interested, you can join us.  I'll post the room tonight or this weekend.

Note:  We used Skype for voice because MeBeam's implementation just isn't quite there yet.

Another note:  Any other services you like or recommend, let me know.  Any suggestions for video chats, let me know as well and we'll share it with everyone.

Mobility: Using MeBeam

In continue the previous post about video chats, I found chatting using oovoo's function to be buggy and limiting.  We finally got it to work but there is a lot of improvement they still need to make.

Anyway, this was on the MacWind.  We also tried iChat but not everyone has a Mac so we decided on another solution.

MeBeam.

It's a video chat app that using a browser and Flash.  I know a mobile warrior who doesn't like Flash so this isn't for everyone.  But guess what?  I love it!

I had up to 4 mobile warriors including myself and one other individual all the way in Asia.  Supposedly, my video was not as good as others because of my lame upload speed.  I'll try to rectify that when I get a chance to call my ISP for an upgrade.

Anyway, you can have up to 16 simultaneous windows and video feeds.  With four feeds, it worked well.  I don't know about 16.  Anyone with that experience?  Love to know what it's like.

Sound was okay so we abandoned it and went with Skype for voice.  I'm sure we'll try it again tonight if not soon.  If anyone wants to join us, I'll post the room and we can chat away.

I'm tell you, my fellow mobile warriors, video chat is a habit we need to develop.  21st Century skill, my friends.

Mobility - We Need To Make Video Chat A Habit

In my quest to see the feasibility of my MacWind and the amount of productivity I can get from it, I've been trying a lot of true mobility tasks.

Now, the Wind is a netbook.  Not a regular notebook.  It is a fact that I recognize in using it but I want to see how far I can push it despite running Leopard quite handily for day-to-day tasks.

So we've been trying some video conferencing on our netbooks.  As you may well know there are choices for video chats.

• IM services - AOL, Yahoo, and MSN have been around for a long time in offering services.
• Gtalk - just this week, two days ago in fact, you can now chat with your contacts right out of the browser in Gmail.
• Skype - You do know it does more than offer chats, IM, and Skypeout to regular landlines, right?
• Others - definite a lot more but it depends on your cup of tea in this matter.  But you get my idea.  Mobility has never been easier.  
• iChat - on the Mac, it is the default IM program and the video chat is very smooth.
• Oovoo - still in beta but has tons of 

On a Mac, iChat works best for me as more and more people I know start using Macs or install OS X on Intel -based systems.  But we tried something different last night.  I'll get into it in the next post.

But you see.  IM is fun.  Voice over the Internet is more fun.  But video chat is much more funner.  Not to mention productive if applied correctly.

This is the way things will go.  Even future generations of mobile devices like the iPhone, Blackberries, or Google's Android will sport video chat capabilities.  That's a no-brainer declaration.  So, make using video chat, whatever service is employed, simply makes a lot of sense.

Already, students are using it to share information and conduct study groups.  We've said this before at Onxo and we finally have the tools and bandwidth to make it happen.

I'll get into our experience on MeBeam next but I would love to hear stories of how regular mobile warriors use video chats.