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Oh hell no. There is, as is noted, a big difference between Internet communications and actually being there. But auto-answering calls doesn't help that; instea

by benwerd 14y ago

Oh hell no. There is, as is noted, a big difference between Internet communications and actually being there. But auto-answering calls doesn't help that; instead, it removes the advantages of these kinds of communications without really introducing any of the advantages of face to face. Face to face works so well because there are so many unconscious cues we can pick up on. There's a whole other channel of nonverbal, subconscious communication. That isn't really picked up over videoconferencing, so all you'll get are unwanted work interruptions at best, and some really embarrassing situations at worst. It's polite to knock on a colleague's office door; I don't see ringing before a call as being different. If you need to work face to face, work face to face.

yuranlu 14y ago
It's a good point that there is a big difference between Internet communications and real life, and we're trying hard to address that difference. There are a lot of nonverbal cues that you pick up in real life, and you pick up more of these with video than just with text or audio. There are times when it's polite to knock, like if the office door is closed. If the door is open, or you're working in an open office, coworkers can generally just come and say hi. Working face to face is often best, but it's not possible for some people, and we're trying to enable some part of the working face to face experience for those people. I know that it's hard to buy that auto-answering will help you be more efficient when working together, but together with automatic status detection, it works well for a lot of our early users. If you're ever in the situation where you want to work face to face with someone, but can't, then give us a try, and if it doesn't work for you, let us know why, and we'll try to build something that does.
hammersend 14y ago
When I'm in my office, I can hear somebody coming so it is rare that I'm caught completely by surprise. For something like this to work, I'd want at least a 3 second delay and notification before the camera turned on. That might help some.

by benwerd 14y ago

yuranlu 14y ago

It's a good point that there is a big difference between Internet communications and real life, and we're trying hard to address that difference. There are a lot of nonverbal cues that you pick up in real life, and you pick up more of these with video than just with text or audio. There are times when it's polite to knock, like if the office door is closed. If the door is open, or you're working in an open office, coworkers can generally just come and say hi. Working face to face is often best, but it's not possible for some people, and we're trying to enable some part of the working face to face experience for those people. I know that it's hard to buy that auto-answering will help you be more efficient when working together, but together with automatic status detection, it works well for a lot of our early users. If you're ever in the situation where you want to work face to face with someone, but can't, then give us a try, and if it doesn't work for you, let us know why, and we'll try to build something that does.

hammersend 14y ago

When I'm in my office, I can hear somebody coming so it is rare that I'm caught completely by surprise. For something like this to work, I'd want at least a 3 second delay and notification before the camera turned on. That might help some.