New Revelations in a Video Chat World

The last time I tried to video chat was around the turn of the century. The video was as choppy as the Atlantic during a winter storm or like Chuck Noris fighting bad guys. Add to this the fact that there was no audio and you get a scene where two people stare at each other typing. Not the dream of two way video conversations I had seen in 2001 Space Odyssey (even though it really was almost 2001, and the film made in 1968)

Of course I was familiar with Skype, but my prejudice for this software had been shaped by scenes of mole like individuals hovering in the corners of coffee shops and libraries whilst they skype with similarly nefarious individuals on the other end of the internet. It is with these preconceived notions that I gingerly began figuring how to use our computer to reach out and touch someone. Not wanting to associate myself with the Skype Trolls, I decided to use Google chat, a platform built into Gmail and which I was not only familiar with, but also comfortable using. I knew G-chat was capable of including video, and that our computer had all the hardware necessary, I just needed to coordinate the two.

My first victim was our next door neighbor, who, working from home, graciously allowed me to take time from his day to experiment with the system until we connected. Even if it was a mere 100 feet or so away, I was impressed with how easy and quickly we connected.

From 100 feet to nearly 1,000 miles - my next victim was Carrie in Denver. It took a few tries, but as you can clearly see from the photo, Carrie ultimately succeeded in hijacking my screen and

video chatting with me for a while. Great fun.

Next step - get the Grandmas online. That might prove considerably more difficult than a few tech savvy kids who grew up with computers. I'll keep you posted.