Video chat is where it's at — techies, Oprah and moms agree

Among the many fabulous things we can do on the Web, there is one I've shied away from: video chat. But that's about to change because of an e-mail from my mother.

Seemingly out of nowhere, this note from her landed in my inbox: "Have you heard of Skype? Apparently you can use it to do free video calls on the computer."

My mother, who lives in the Midwest, tends to be a barometer for when a piece of technology is gaining adoption outside the hermetically sealed bubble that is Silicon Valley. Well, my mom, and Oprah. I had missed the fact that Oprah has recently begun using Skype to make video calls with her audience.

So, get ready for your close up, America. Video chat has entered the mainstream.

"There's a lot more interest in video calling," said Gina Clark, vice president and general manager for Internet communications at Logitech, which makes computer peripherals such as webcams.

This moment has been a long time coming. Video chat was once solely the dream of sci-fi writers. It was given physical form by "The Jetsons" and Epcot Center at Walt Disney World. It moved closer to reality as it was embraced by early adopters on the Web who didn't mind the choppy, grainy pictures of fellow hobbyists. But until recently, it remained a niche product.

So what changed?

First, most folks now have broadband Internet connections. Next, webcams have gotten much better and cheaper. And finally, there are now countless free video-chat and calling services.

Google's announcement that it was adding video chat to its Gmail service got a lot of attention. But in many ways, it's late to the game. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL all offer video chat through their instant-messaging services. Skype, owned by eBay, added video-calling capability a couple of years ago. And Skype has a new version in beta that will make video calling much more central to the service, according to Skype President Josh Silverman.

"We're seeing video calls really explode on Skype," said Silverman, who estimated that about 25 percent of the minutes people spent on the service were for video calls. "We're growing faster now than we were a year ago."

But even with these heavyweights staking out positions, there are relative newcomers such as ooVoo, a video chat and conferencing service that launched 18 months ago. Tom Herman, ooVoo's vice president of product marketing, said he believes there is an opening for new entries including ooVoo, which was optimized and designed from the start to be a video service, as opposed to other services that started as one thing and later added video.

And the technology continues to improve. For instance, ooVoo has a premium high definition video-chat service. And in its new release, Skype users will be able to enlarge the video to fill the entire screen without degrading the picture quality.

Still, even with advances, video chat is far from perfect. Rebecca Swensen, a research analyst at IDC, said the quality of a consumer's experience can vary based on quality of webcams and computers, the number of applications running, and the reliability of Internet connections.

Another barrier is that to do a video call, the person on the other end needs to be using the same service. So while you can use Yahoo Messenger to send an instant message to someone on Microsoft Messenger, you can't do the same with a video chat.

Still, expect continued growth for a couple of reasons. With the economy continuing to sputter, individuals and small businesses are expected to cut back on travel, and video chat is an increasingly popular alternative.

The other big factor is families. The folks at ooVoo reported a huge surge in traffic over Thanksgiving. And just about everyone I interviewed for this story had a personal tale about how their parents, or the parents of someone they know, has embraced video chat as a way to connect with grandchildren far away

VIDEO CHAT

What: Refers to the ability to conduct two-way video conversations through your computer.

Why now: The combination of free video chat services, cheaper and near ubiquitous

Webcams, improved video quality and the growth of broadband connections have made such services much better and easier to use.

Major players: Skype, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, ooVoo

Challenges: Quality can still be uneven due to all the variables, such as the Internet connection, computer and Webcam.