1-way Video is pervasive on the Internet. Why not 2-way Video?

1-Way Video streaming is the in-thing on the Internet. Every web site has video content being streamed to users. Startups like YouTube have instantly become a platform for the world. Adobe Flash has become the dominant player to play the video content on the Internet. In a very short period, Internet has evolved to become an Entertainment Platform.

Let us look at the state of 2-way video collaboration solutions:

• Room based systems,
• Hard to use and
• Expensive.

We are now seeing HD quality products like Cisco Telepresence, HP Halo, Polycom UltimateHD, etc. However, the reach of these services has been restricted to business communications and mostly for enterprise users.

On the other hand, if we look at the 2-way video communication services on the Web are: AOL, Yahoo, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Skype and few others. Most of them offer varying quality of conversation experience and do not inter-operate. However the infrastructure of Broadband, dual-core laptops & mac-books with built-in video capture end-points is being rapidly deployed. What does it take for 2-way video conversations to become a common place on the Internet?

• Is it good quality?
• Is it the accessibility regardless of the broadband connection?
• Is it the ability to reach anyone on the web?
• Anything else?

How will the landscape of 2-way video conversations change as the Internet evolves? If we want to have a 2-way conversation what do we use to reach anyone on the Web? Which service is poised to become the "Google" for 2-way communications on the Internet?