Prior to about ten years ago, people dialed telephones to talk to someone at the location designated by that phone number.  Typically, if you wanted to talk to a friend, you’d call their home at a time when you expected them to be there.  But then, almost everyone in the world got a personal cell phone to carry with them at all times, and the concept of dialing a phone number changed from calling a place to calling an individual person.  The mobility of wireless cell phones unshackled people from any specific location to which they otherwise would have been tied using corded phones.  Society quickly adapted to this massive paradigm shift, began dropping traditional landlines, embraced the breadth of new activities that could be undertaken while talking, and accepted the increased presence of telecommunications into the personal life of the individual.

Had the technology existed and been adopted “en masse”, video phones could have worked well under the old model, visually connecting people fixed in one general area due to the proximity of the phone jack by which their conversation depended.  And in situations where this is still the case, the devices may very well find a niche.  But unfortunately, the new model doesn’t lend itself well to mass adoption of video phones, especially since taking meaningful video isn’t really practical while people are mobile, the very advantage wireless phones afford.  It’s hard to imagine sitting idle in a chair talking to and watching someone on the other end doing the same.

Despite the obvious technological step forward presented by video phones, the invisible tether induced by the camera is a huge step backwards in terms of a person’s personal freedom to “do other things” while conversing.  It’s one thing to textually post what you’re doing at any given moment on Facebook…it’s quite another to let people see it.  Do we really want the people to which we’re talking seeing us do the kinds of things we’ve grown accustomed to doing while talking, essentially having another window into our lives?

Again, video phones may have their niche, and services and products offered by 8×8 and Skype, amongst others, exist to fill the void.  But with Asus’ AiGuru SV1T Skype video phone announcement, it seems like the push for mainstream video phones may be on.  The device, which has a large 7″ touchscreen, built in webcam, and supports wireless networking, doesn’t require a computer to function.  Since the device is Skype certified, it can make calls to both fixed and cell phones.

The question is whether the $300 price tag for one of these phones is worth the likely novelty use it will receive, since wide scale acceptance will probably never come.  We’d say it isn’t.  What do you think?