In the good old days, meeting a client or family meant travelling some place and meeting with them face to face. Giving a demo of a product meant actually shipping the product with a team member to give a demo of the product to a customer. Watching a movie meant going to a movie theatre or a neighborhood rental store. In the fast paced world of the internet these days, all these are almost outdated modes of communication and entertainment. We can now do all of these tasks sitting in the comfort of our homes and offices.
Faster speeds and bigger data plans have allows us to leverage the power of videos in our day to day life. From video conferencing, streaming videos to sharing videos, technology has changed the way we communicate at work and how we spend our leisure time.
Collaboration at Work
Video conferencing is being used more and more these days allowing businesses to cut down on travel costs. This luxury is no longer limited to big corporates, using Skype and other services, we at home too can stay in touch with our friends and family using our desktops and mobile phones.
Apart from video conferencing, video sharing services like You Tube and Vimeo are also changing the way we share information. These days it’s not uncommon for big brands to have their TV ads and product demos and teasers come up on sites like YouTube. This gives these businesses larger user-base to tap into, instead of relying only on those glued to the TV. Services like this also allow their messages to go viral, with people sharing these videos with their friends on Facebook, twitter and their own blogs.
Sharing Videos made easy
Video based demos are more effective than text based descriptions on products. These days we’re seeing more demos and teasers of products being showcased popular video sharing sites. This is very effective in showing the users how products can be used and their capabilities.
With the spread of high-speed data connection and the availability of apps which allows easy sharing, we’re seeing a lot more people share their lives and events through video. Social media is also a major factor, since these services allows you and me to share our videos with our friends with ease. Compare this to the earlier way of attaching a huge video file to and email and having to enter in all our friends email address, hitting send, and waiting for a long while for the email to get sent.
Mobile Support
With more mobile phones able to consume these videos, video sharing services have ramped up support for mobile devices, with lower bandwidth videos and mobile video codecs. This is enabling the reach of these videos to a larger set of audience.
Video conferencing is also possible these days on mobiles though Video calls which is available for 3G users. The high costs of video calls on our Mobile providers is working as a deterrant to people looking forward to using these services. Of course, if you have a smart phone, 3rd party applications like Facetime on Apple products, Google Talk on Android and Fring for Symbian, Android and IOS, allow you to video chat with your contacts for cheaper or free.
The Future
With high-speed data connections now available for people on the move, we’ll see services and apps which allow people to share and use videos more easily than before. Which apps or services do you use to share your videos? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
