With the tremendous popularity of the internet, people have become increasingly overwhelmed with the overload of information exchanged via emails, text messages, blogs, articles, social media sites and the other thousands of information sources out there on the world wide web.

Given this information overload, over the past few years, people’s attention spans have decreased thereby making video communication an effective tool for getting the message across. Though video sharing sites like YouTube, Metacafe, Daily Motion, Vimeo and others have come to the forefront in terms of video sharing, video email is starting to make its way to the mainstream.

I’ve been researching video communication during the past year and have tried several video communication platforms. These platforms mainly offer video email and video conferencing as tools to communicate online with one or more persons. One such video communication platform is iWowWe which offers video email and conferencing.

Video Email

The iWowWe video email platform is available free and I found it quite user-friendly and easy to use. Some video communication platforms charge a monthly fee that could range from $10 to $20.

iWowWe has hundreds of pre-designed video email templates to use in their library so you can customize each video email to your recipient. For example, if you’re sending a birthday greeting to your friend or family member, you can choose one of several birthday templates.

If you’re the creative type, you can even create your own video email template by using your pictures and embed your video message to personalize your email. The platform offers drag and drop functionality, so customizing your templates is quite simple.

In order to create and send your video email, you follow the steps below:

• Add your recipient contact email addresses;
• Enter the Subject of your email;
• Schedule when you want to send the email (i.e. now or later);
• Choose a video (record it now or upload one already recorded);
• Choose a template (pre-designed or customized);
• Enter a signature (optional); and
• Send the video email.

Video Conferencing

The iWowWe video conferencing is similar to the WebEx platform (GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar) wherein you can use it to do one-on-one video chats or conduct online video meetings or conferences with several people. Through the video conferencing platform, you can share presentations, collaborate using a whiteboard and even share you screen with your audience.

The WebEx platform charges approximately $49 monthly, whereas, iWowWe charges $19.95 monthly. The iWowWe video conferencing platform offers a 50 seat room as well as unlimited number of people can join the meeting via teleconference. A phone number for teleconferencing is offered free of charge in case you would like to use this feature when setting up a video conference or webinar.

One good feature that I particularly liked about the iWowWe platform is that participants don’t need to download any special software to attend the video meeting. All they do is click the link and enter the meeting.

To set up a video conference and invite participants, you follow the steps below:

• Choose a meeting title or name;
• Set a password to enter the meeting (optional);
• Choose a scheduled time for the meeting;
• Enter a brief description for the meeting;
• Choose the participants by using their email addresses;
• Invite participants for the meeting.

So far, I’ve been enjoying using both video email as well as video conferencing to keep in touch with friends and family as well as for business and professional purposes. There is a learning curve to people who have never used these sorts of platforms, however, it not difficult to learn watching the video tutorials.