Video Mail Gets Reel

When the future finally arrives and hits us upside the head, some people only see the fallen apple or the cute sheep named Dolly. Hearing Sprint and LightSurf talk nonchalantly about the future they ushered into the U.S. market last month, with the help of phone makers Sanyo and Toshiba, was like imagining George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker in 1931 when they plugged in the first electric guitar and hearing them say, “Isn't that cute? Let's make one for cousin Buford.”

For now, Sprint and LightSurf are satisfied (publicly) with describing the first video mail service to hit the U.S. market as a fun way for friends and family to share special moments. To date, Sprint has the numbers to support such a statement. The company surveyed subscribers to Picture Mail (companion, or perhaps predecessor, to the new video service) and found, according to a company spokeswoman, that “the number one reason they use their camera phones is to take and share pictures of friends and family, and mostly just for the fun of it.”

Isn't that cute?

Both Sprint and LightSurf said they expect the same usage pattern for video messaging, a notion bolstered by usage in Asia, where wireless picture and video exchange is more mainstream. But both companies have to know they're onto something bigger. LightSurf CEO Philippe Kahn wouldn't have risked his own bankroll in 1998 to found the company if he didn't think so. Sprint wouldn't have tried so hard to be first to market. And every other operator wouldn't have quickly followed suit if they weren't just as convinced.

“Philippe had a vision for visual communications as the next mega-trend,” said Robin Nijor, vice president of sales and marketing for LightSurf. “So he set out to build the backbone for multimedia messaging and picture and video sharing so that when the time came for these types of phones, LightSurf would be in a position to support them.”

Even the term “mega-trend” could be underselling this technology given that trends tend to come and go, and video messaging could become a way of life — or, as Nijor described it, “the natural evolution of visual communications.”

LightSurf has deployed its multimedia messaging platform in the U.K., Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands. It is banking on Sprint and the wow-factor to generate widespread adoption of video mail and messaging in the U.S. Nijor said that sending a family member an instant snapshot of your child's birthday is great, but sending a 15-to-30-second video clip of your child blowing out the candles on the cake is so much more powerful.

“Whether you are a consumer sharing personal memories or a business sharing important and timely information, it's still communication. The only thing that changes is the richness of the experience,” Nijor said.

It also brings out the devil in people. “Yes, there will be a downside where people take inappropriate pictures or times when they take pictures when they shouldn't have, but that's the world we live in today,” Nijor said.

Opportunistic naysayers are already developing technology to counter the privacy-invading potential of widespread camera and videophones. Sensaura and Iceberg Systems in the U.K. are developing technology to block a cell phone's ability to take pictures in certain areas using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies.

However, neither Sprint nor LightSurf is concerned about the issue, suggesting the media is more interested than others. “We can't be the police of how people use their phones in the same way that the folks who make the cameras aren't the shepherds of how people use their cameras,” said the Sprint spokeswoman.

LightSurf would rather focus on a different area of privacy. “We focus on making sure your personal video mail account is secure,” Nijor said. “But we don't have a problem with blocking. If a person or business wants to utilize a tool that will increase their level of privacy, so be it. That is similar to theaters that have technology that kills your cell phone when you walk into the theater.”

Give it six months, and we'll see what the penetration is, Nijor said. Then we'll see how long cute will last.