Internet2 offers unique videophone experiment

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by Joel Obermayer

(IDG) -- Tyler Miller Johnson couldn't figure out why Mary Trauner was ignoring his videophone call. "Mary, what's up?" he yelled, only to have her flash him a dirty look. And then he saw: He'd interrupted a presentation she was giving -- in real life -- to a group of administrators. Chagrined, Johnson hit a button and severed the video link.

"You can be a dork on video," says Johnson, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, "just like you can in real life."

This is just one of many lessons Johnson has learned about the future of videophones. Ever since Ming the Merciless contacted Flash Gordon, videophones have allured and eluded all but a few corporations that can afford video conferencing. But Johnson is living the videophone future.

As a researcher working on Internet2, a high-bandwidth private network connecting 180 universities nationwide, Johnson and many of his colleagues use videophones daily for work and socially. And thus they find themselves in the odd position of being guinea pigs in an accidental social experiment.

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In a typical day, Johnson and colleague Tim Poe make half a dozen or more video calls; given the choice, the men pick video over a regular phone call. But here's the real surprise: They seem to prefer dull video to dull real life.

"Your eye just naturally wanders to the screen," Poe explains. Even if a person in the room is talking, he says, "everyone is more interested in watching this other guy pick his nose or whatever."

"We never thought about it as something that changes relationships. But that's what it does," Johnson adds. "We just used it because it was there and it worked."

Johnson, 34, looks like he stepped out of the '70s, with shoulder-length hair, tinted glasses and a mustache. Poe, 38, is an easygoing Berkeley, Calif., native with a long, thin braid falling down his back. Sitting next to each other onscreen, they look like hosts of a public access cable show -- a "Wayne's World" for academics.

In a recent phone call with 20 participants, Johnson and Poe did most of the talking, while the others -- scattered across Tennessee, Greece and elsewhere -- stayed silent. Most systems automatically broadcast video and audio of the person who speaks loudest and longest -- meaning that the aggressive participants can make the shy ones disappear altogether.

"You get the feeling that there were a lot of people listening and lurking," Poe admits later.

And while one-on-one communication can be richer, it's not without its pitfalls. Johnson's colleague Mary Fran Yafchak set up video-conferencing equipment in her kitchen and sees most of her colleagues on video.

The problem, Yafchak says, is that many researchers look at the video stream, not at the camera. That makes them appear shifty. "Eye contact is so important," says Yafchak. "It makes or breaks [the call]."

As camera angles and framing become an important part of how we appear on video, in the future we might all have to think like Orson Welles. Poe says that most researchers perch their cameras on top of their computer monitors to save desk space. But this is not exactly flattering. Says Poe, "It focuses on the top of your head and you tend to look a little washed out. And it's really harsh on anyone with a receding hairline."

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