I'm at Always-On Tim Draper and Niklas are beaming in via Skype's new video client. This is the first public demonstration. The interviewers are Bambi Francisco MarketWatch and Tony Perkins of AlwaysOn. Tim and Niklas are in Estonia. The talk content has not been memorable. Surprisingly the commentators never asked one question about the SkypeVideo delivery how it worked or when the launch date is. So how good is Skype video? It's very very good! (I expect that the "connection and bandwidth had no limitations and was well tested).

Skype Video:

What did we learn about the Skype Video? What can we now tell you? What will it be called? I like the idea of SkypeSee. This looks like another killer app that will add a new dimension to communication and behavior.

1. New Functionality: Skype's version will bring new functionality to using video cams on PC's. When you make a SkypeSee call and it rings at the other end the video connects as you answer the call. Within seconds what was once a photo of me smiling is now a live video picture. Thus no need to open a video window or wait for it to connect. Calls in the default mode don't need to wait to escalate to video. It's there straight away. That's likely to be revolutionary from a behavior perspective. (You can bet that the auto video answer etc. can be turned off or limited.) This makes the video integration seamless. It will also open up new opportunities for sharing presence to buddies at certain times.

2. Intimacy Gradient: Video is not restricted to being viewed inside the Skype call window. Tony and Bambi opened a large window that effectively filled the screen. Thus there is a secondary mode that enables you to focus on a very personal exchange where video and voice will dominate your desktop and immerse you more intimately in the conversation. The intimacy factor is helped because in this demo the lip synch was almost perfect. It was close to TV quality on the screen. That will be good enough to change perceptions of the product.

3. Benchmarks: The comparison that you should make on Skype's video setup is with phone approaches like Packet8's where phone to phone video is active. Thus that solution is simply brought to the desktop. The behavior that it creates will help the hardware market as well. I don't have a Packet8 phone to compare the quality. I'd expect it to be comparable and yet in the full SkypeSee screen mode you of course get a much larger picture. The investment to go to SkypeVideo is less than adopting Packet8 across two households. Thus Skype is opening up a new "integrated" handset for broadband customers. I just wonder when Comcast will provide a Skype phone like the Boingo Wi-Fi deal equivalent.

4.Release Date: It's not clear how long or when SkypeSee will be released. When Skype? When can we officially have a beta test version?

Now the whole expereince of using Skype Video as a conference exchange is pretty new. It's worth looking at how it stacked up. we can't ask the participants, however we can learn from the audience. Upfront at AlwaysOn are two screens. One contains the back chat channel and the other has Niklas and Tim's video picture.

Learning from a Video Conference to large audience

This exchange lasted an hour in front of a video camera. Niklas and Tim sat side by side. It looked good to us. I doubt it looked good to them. For in their case they had Bambi and Tony on their video cam, they didn't have the audience. So it was clear that Tim in particular became increasingly disconnected with the audience. Without visual feedback or apparent access to the chat channel he missed the "audience" turning on his arrogant and offhand statements. The learning is you must set up and use the technology so you can see the audience at the same time. Skype worked on the setup, they should have enabled additional cam's so they had some sense of the space.

Second when you have a product that is reasonably well known and uses new technology you should demand that the interviewers have really used it. Bambi's questions shed no light on Skype and where it is going. The questions weren't new. I would have loved to have done this interview. There are few questions that Bambi or Tony asked that I would have pursued. Unfortunately, to learn new things you really have to get interviewers that follow these topics. There were good stories that could have emerged.

Important content?

Plenty of quotes. Nothing really new. The summary at the end by Tony was "Tim is over the top!". That summed it up for me. Skype has no need to be arrogant and unfortunately that was my takeaway. A review of the chat session would prove I was not alone.