I had a chance, while at ETel, to meet with Sightspeed CEO Peter Csathy. Sightspeed is one of the leaders in video conferencing applications for the PC, and ships their product in a large number of different OEM configurations.
Anyway, three weeks ago, Peter gave me a preview of what their upcoming release, Sightspeed 4.5, would look like. New UI, and a new community / public directory model, transform Sightspeed from a point to point communications tool, into a virally propagated video communications tool. Skype is trying to do this, but doesn’t have near the video quality that Sightspeed has. And that, of course, will be the big differentiator. Just as Skype disrupted the VoIP market by proving that PC to PC voice could be a quality experience, Sightspeed has the same opportunity with PC to PC video.
Sightspeed 4.5 releases today.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I like Sightspeed, it works great. But someone has to ask the question though~ Does anyone really want video?
Skype's video is cool, as is MSN, Yahoo's etc., what are the business reasons for Video, (get your mind out of the gutter Alec
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Maybe it is just me, but I don't particularily like it, voice is quicker – I can multitask without appearing rude on camera, and I don't have to be stationary.
Do IMlike providers add it just because it is as relatively easy as voice? and younger users constantly ask for it? Personally, I think stereo conferencing is more compelling, but no one seems to be working on integrating that technology…
I think these are all valid questions Andrew. Me personally, I am in your camp. Folks like Erik Lagerway, however, have this strong conviction that citizen journalism, for instance, is an untapped market. I think the jury's still out.
Today, I signed up for http://www.stickam.com , it integrated very easily into my blogger blog. It provides realtime video AND a clientless flash VoIP service, chat, other videos, pictures etc., essentially this is video, but the packaging is very compelling, and I was quick to see potential business opportunities for it.
Maybe video is compelling, as long as it is packaged and presented the right way.