When the company - DeusM, as Mitch said - relocated to its new HQ last year, a friend who works from the Manhattan office offered to show me around. We connected via videoconference and he walked his laptop throughout the office to display the work area, his desk, the lobby, and the giant cat pictures on the walls (don't ask!). My first impulse, when he said he was going to video me in, was to do exactly what you said, Mitch: Jump up, check my makeup, and make sure I wasn't wearing a tank top. But once I got over the stagefright, I enjoyed my impromptu office tour. 

I know a couple of people in their 20s who sometimes keep the video camera on their computers on when they're working on other things. It makes them feel less isolated. 

I'd constantly be self-conscious. I work alone, from a home office, and I'm used to scratching myself whenever and wherever I feel an itch. 

I suspect prevalence of videochatting is a matter of workplace culture. 

When I freelanced in 2010, my main client was a company where videochatting was popular. And I got to really like it. 

I tried to bring it here, to DeusM (the company that publishes Internet Evolution), but it didn't take. This is not a videoconferencing culture. 

I suspect the reason that people don't use videocalling isn't technology at all. It's the same one joked about in that 1955 futurism film I posted a link to earlier -- people don't want to worry about how they look when they're on the phone. 

I recently set up a videoconference with a colleague, one of the few in the company who expressed no discomfort with videoconferencing. Because I'm a man, and an editor, and work from home, I just showed up as I usually work: Unshaven, and wearing a T-shirt. I just paused my regular work, flipped on my Webcam, and went to it. 

My colleague also works from home. However, she's NOT an editor; she has a more customer-facing job. And she's a woman. So she felt compelled to put on makeup, an office-appropriate sweater, and fix up her hair. 

I felt bad afterward -- our videochat, intended to be a spontaneous thing, was a significant amount of work for her. 

If Microsoft deprecates Skype, that wouldn't be the first time a big company spent a lot of money on an acquisition and then abandoned it. 

Could Skype be extended to support WebRTC?

It's incredible how young they are when they start using video and other apps, too, isn't it? I wonder whether organizations will be able to spend less on end-user training eventually, between the ease-of-use now incorporated into software/apps and kids' seemingly innate ability to use these tools!

@Alison I know what you mean. My daugher asked about buying a web camera so tha she can video chat with her friends. That doesn't exactly push it up to my list of priorities. As it is, chats with friends can take up too much time on a achool night. 

@Alan You said, " As more people use data, calling declines." Do you mean because they are using a social network service or texting instead of calling?

I think video calling will grow exponentially with the next generation of office workers. I'm amazed at the ease with which my daughter's generation (young teens) uses video chat -- Skype, FaceTime, and a couple of other apps -- to chat with each other. They do three-way video chat frequently, just to discuss getting together to see a movie or hit the mall, and are completely comfortable in front of a camera. When these younger people enter the workforce, they'll want to use these same capabilities with their peers, suppliers, partners, and customers. And who knows what video technologies we'll have then!

Hi DrT,

As HSPA+ proliferates and LTE systems are launched, the quality of video calls will increase. Of course, people who use cameras at home or in the office with landline connections don't have to worry about video quality, asumming their connections are fast enough.

However, as Mitch Wagner noted below, and I commented, video calling has been around for years. Although many people use Skype, video calling hasn't caught on as primary form of communications.

Perhaps WebRTC will be too late, especially as people increasingly use data for communications rather than a phone for voice calls.