History and trends in teleconferencing

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History and trends in teleconferencing

• Presented by Jeremiah Scholl

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Agenda

• Motivation
• History
• Trends

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Communication

• Human beings love to communicate.
• Our brains might even be hard wired for language.
  Chomsky.
• People arent always around.

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Human communication
Face-to-face
Mediated
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Motivation for teleconferencing

• Telephones work pretty good.
• Up to 90 of human communication is non-verbal.
• Sometimes audio is not enough.

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Pre-History

• 1840s, Alexander Bain Transmission of pictures
  over wire.
• 1927 First television transmission. Video of
  (soon President) Hoover during a phone
  conversation.
• Tremendous amount of press and attention.

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Pre-History

• 1927 New York Times front page story
• The apparatus shot images of Mr. Hoover by wire
  from Washington to New York... These were thrown
  on a screen as motion pictures, while the
  loudspeaker reproduced the speech. As each
  syllable was heard, the motion of the speakers
  lips and his changes of expression were flashed
  on the screen in the demonstration room...

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Pre-History

• 1927 New York Times
• Today we are to witness another milestone in the
  conquest of nature by scienceThe principles
  underlying television, which are related to the
  principles involved in electrical transmission of
  speech, have been known for a long time, but
  today we shall demonstrate its successful
  achievement. The elaborateness of the equipment
  required by the very nature of the undertaking
  precludes any present possibility of television
  being available in homes and offices generally.

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Despite all the hype.

• A more ubiquitous system was needed.

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Building an Ubiquitous System

• After 1927 research was delayed.
• Economic depression
• World War II
• 1956 ATT created the first experimental version
  of the picture phone.
• Goal was to provide teleconferencing over regular
  phone lines.

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ATT Picture Phone (1/3)

• 1964 Released to the public at the Worlds fair
  in New York
• Was very well received.
• Some early focus groups stated that they felt
  uneasy being on television.

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Picture Phone (2/3)

• ATT created the Motto Someday youll be a
  star!
• Estimated that 1 million picture phones would be
  in use by the end of the 70s

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Picture Phone (3/3)

• Only 500 units were sold in the first 4 years on
  the market.
• Why? ATT claims the equipment was too bulky,
  the controls too unfriendly, and the picture too
  small.

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What happened?

• 2 other factors are generally sighted for its
  failure.
• Too radical of a cultural shift.
• People did feel uneasy being on television!
• Too expensive (10 times the cost of a regular
  phone)

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How do we adopt new technology
Pragmatists
Conservatives
Technology enthusiasts
Visionaries
Skeptics
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Too expensive to reach the pragmatists?

Pragmatists
Conservatives
Technology enthusiasts
Visionaries
Skeptics
Moore, Crossing the Chasm
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A change in focus

• The picture phone was the biggest commercial
  disaster in US business history.
• Nobody was willing to invest in home video
  conferencing systems.
• Focus shifted to systems for business users.

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Motivation for business teleconferencing

• Reduce business travel.
• Allow people to work from home.
• This was a powerful message in 1970s US.
• Energy crises
• Rising crime, poverty, and disease in big cities
• Also, it is easier to convince businesses to
  spend big .

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The rise of business teleconferencing (80s)

• Designed and marketed as a replacement to
  face-to-face meetings.
• High quality is necessary
• This was VERY expensive.
• 1982 250,000 system, 1,000 per hour lines
• 1986 80,000 system, 100 per hour lines

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The fall of business teleconferencing (80s)

• High cost kept companies from owning their own
  systems.
• Dedicated conferencing rooms were created that
  could be rented out.
• Usually in places like hotels
• Customers HATED (seriously) the experience
• 1987 Only 210 systems in the whole US.
• ATT is the big looser (again) and closes half
  their conferencing rooms.

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What went wrong?

• Some alternating theories.
• Video conferencing is a bad technology. It will
  never replace face to face meetings.
• Certain cultural factors were not considered in
  the original business model.
• Was it not built right, or was it not used right?

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An early view on the telephone

The telephone has too many disadvantages to be
taken seriously as a means of communication. The
device is worthless for us.
(Internal Memorandum of the Western Union, 1876)
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Where video conferencing falls short

• Eye contact is not possible.
• Uneven communication patterns between co-located
  participants and distant participants.
• Cannot support side conversations
• Does not support informal communication well.
• spontaneous and follow-up meetings

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Spontaneous meetings

• Spontaneous meetings are important
• Many decisions are made there
• Mikael Wiberg, In between Mobile Meetings, 2001

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Cultural factors

• Video conferencing was so expensive it was only
  used for very important meetings
• These meetings are between high powered people
  used to luxury board rooms
• Video conferencing rooms resembled university
  lecture halls.

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Who was right?

• Probably both!
• Prices for VC dropped in the 90s and it started
  catching on.
• Businesses could have their own dedicated
  conferencing rooms.
• People do use them ? (but still hate them ?).
• This points towards cultural factors.
• The first experiment with desktop conferencing
  (1993 Tang and Isaacs) showed great
  improvements.
• Booking rooms no longer necessary.
• Spontaneous meetings achieved!
• Users are represented equally! (Only if the
  application scales)
• This points towards bad technology.
• What else can we do?

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Trends

• What we are up to these days.

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The past has taught us.

• It is REALLY hard to convince people to use/like
  video conferencing!
• Maybe if we just
• Have better technology!
• or
• b) Find a better way of using the technology!
• We will prove the skeptics wrong!

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3 trends

• The old guard.
• They believe that people hate video conferencing!
• Businesses will use it to save travel money.
• Wants to replicate the face-to-face experience
  as closely as possible in high-end business
  systems.
• The Beyond Being There (Hollan and Stornetta)
  people.
• Trying to replicate face-to-face meetings is a
  mistake.
• Lets create tools that are even better than the
  face-to-face experience.
• People will want to use them even when in the
  same room!
• Funky stuff
• Lets just have fun with this technology.
• Support informal meetings.

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Informal communication The Well (Roussel)
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The old guard
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Beyond Being There?
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thanks

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