• Vlip is currently in early beta and has been released as such to learn about user experiences and develop use cases for both consumer and business applications
• They have had many enquiries from businesses who are interested in incorporating Vlip video messaging into both marketing and customers support activities such as training and forums.
• On the consumer side, Vlip is targeted at the 18 to 25 year old demographic who have grown up with interactive messaging in the text and voice space.
• They are interested in learning how Vlip can be used as a social networking tool to help build web "communities"
• Vlip does include "take down" tools to deal with objectionable content.

A second relatively new video service has Robert Scoble streaming live from the lobby of the Web 2.0 conference (although it seems to have taxed his resources and ability to participate in the conference itself; according to an Update he's taking Tuesday off but back Wednesday). UStream TV provides the infrastructure such that you can produce live streaming of events over the Internet. Watched it for a few minutes yesterday as Robert interviewed passersby entering the conference. Mathew Ingram, in the post referenced above, shows how all this user generated content can get carried away:

At one point today, I was watching Chris Pirillo’s webcam, which was broadcasting video of him watching Robert Scoble’s webcam, which was broadcasting video of him driving in the car. Fascinating stuff. About the only interesting part of the whole process was the discovery that a bunch of people seem to think Chris Pirillo’s new wife Latthanapon “Ponzi” Indharasophang is hot (and he agrees).

[Update: Robert has confirmed that 24/7 webcasting can be an exhausting experience.]

A third recent video experience has been real time video calling, not via Skype on my PC, but rather via GTalk on a totally portable - device: the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. More to appear in a separate post but it does contribute to my experience with the Internet video space.

Real time video calling, video messaging, live streaming video production; streaming TV productions to the Internet. The questions we need to get answers to in this early phase of Video over IP include:

• When is it appropriate to use video? I only find myself turning on my Skype video only when I want to show the other party a physical object such as my recently received Nokia N800 Internet Tablet or provide other visual backup relevant to a conversation.
• How many of these tools can be spread or adopted virally?
• What will it take for rapid adoption of "new concept" video applications, such as "getting" the process behind Vlip's interactive video conversation thread, which probably require some user learning, not of the technology, but of the user experience itself (not to ignore the associated social interaction etiquette and protocols)?

I would venture to forecast that, beyond YouTube, video Internet-based calling, such as is available via Skype on my PC or GTalk on the Nokia N800, will remain by far the largest application of video until the killer video application arrives. In the meantime expect more tenuous forays such as Vlip and UStream TV to arrive, all looking for feedback that can turn their product or service into that dominant viral killer video application. But at this point I am not even expecting every real time conversation to transition to a video conversation at this point.

Note: Participants in the Nokia N800 Blogger Evaluation program are eagerly awaiting Skype for the Nokia N800 announced in January at CES and questioning if it will include a video component.

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