October 05, 2006
Sightspeed: SMBs and Video Conferencing
Back when I was working on a Master's degree, one class I was in was part of a trial with another nearby university. The course was being jointly taught by two professors, one in each town. The room my class was in was a small amphitheatre with a large screen usually obscured by the overhead projector's screen. The other university had a similar setup. Occasionally, our lecturer would turn on the transmission and we'd see the other professor, who would conduct the rest of the lecture - or vice versa with our professor. This only happened a few times during the semester, and the transmission was over a satellite link. It was video-conferencing of a sort, but very expensive, if I recall.
This was back around 1993-4. I know the room is still there, although I don't know if they still use the satellite link. The campus had access to the "web" back then, which consisted only of email, ftp, gopher, archie, newsgroups, etc., access. The full Internet was only a few months away. Today, there is Wi-Fi across parts of the campus, accessible if you have a student or alumni account. But video-conferencing is not only a lot more accessible these days but far less expensive. Anyone with an internet connection and a video-calling soft phone like Sightspeed can have a video conference.
In fact, several SMBs (small and medium businesses) in the United States are using video-calling functionality. A small teacher certification business in Texas uses Sightspeed's video-conferencing feature to communicate with their students. The founder of a consulting firm also uses Sightspeed to communicate with both clients and colleagues (in another office). Yet another company uses Skype and the Festoon add-on, which bridges both video and voice calls between Skype and Google Talk.
VoIP itself can save a small business. Video conferencing can save a business even more, coupled with the ability to share clickable URLs, documents and desktop applications, the need to travel even locally between offices can be reduced significantly. This not only saves money but valuable time.
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