SightSpeed, a desktop-based video conferencing application, tomorrow launches SightSpeed Light (see screenshot below), a widget video conferencing app, on the Myspace application platform.
SightSpeed Light provides a Flash-based free video chat and video mail between MySpace users, but it is also integrated with SightSpeed on the desktop. The company has plans to relase the widget on social networks LinkedIn, Salesforce, Plaxo, Orkut, Hi5 and others, but so far it doesn’t have a date for these releases.
Last year, SightSpeed released Vlip, a video logging and video chat website aimed at the casual user, but it seems to have fallen off the map.
This seems to be SightSpeed’s first foray into directly attracting the casual user, whereas for years it has attracted businesses. In 2007, some 1.5 billion minutes were used on SightSpeed, the company boasts, but it won’t release metrics on the size of its user base, traction and growth, or profitability.
The original SightSpeed product, mostly used by businesses, is a Windows/Mac desktop video conferencing application that comes in three packages: free and ad supported, a premium $9.95/mo subscription model that includes multi-party chatting, extended video mail, and video mail tracking, as well as SightSpeed business with an admin console and report-building for $19.95/mo.
Chief Technology Officer Aron Rosenberg says he considers the widget as just one way video conferencing will reach a mass audience — and he wants to stay ahead of free competitors Oovoo, Tokbox, and Skype Video.
“For all the people who have heard of Skype, there are billions of people who have not, and millions who associate [Skype] with just phone conferencing. Skype may have 200 million users, but so did Yahoo,” he says in a thinly veiled comparison to Google’s eclipse of Yahoo even though Yahoo was once much bigger.
SightSpeed’s advantage over Skype and other competitors is quality, Rosenberg said. However, Oovoo and Tokbox offer multi-party video chat for free, which SightSpeed charges for.
VoIP phones from Vonage can be integrated with Sightspeed. Sighspeed can be co-branded and white labeled, has an open API, and it also works well with PC manufacturers says Rosenberg, taking another swipe at Skype by remarking how closed and un-interoperable Ebay’s stepchild is.
Sightspeed is included in every Creative Labs webcam installed, which Rosenberg credits for a significant chunk of the company’s distribution, as well as a partnership with Logitech, and has received rave reviews from PC Mag.
The future for SightSpeed is on the mobile device, says Rosenberg, who looks to the US to advance its phones in the upcoming years — Taiwan already has $100-$200 video phones he says.
So far, SightSpeed works with an Nokia N95 mobile phone, with plans to be accessible on the next-generation iPhone.
