Picturephones, were they true?

In this article Lipartito explores the meaning of failure as it related to the development and marketing of the picturephone. This technological device, available in the late 60’s was extremely expensive (“sixteen to twenty-seven dollars per minute for a call”) and was only available in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. In early 70’s the number of picturephones had raised to 453 (1974) and by 1978 they had practically disappeared.

The author presents an argument as to the reasons why this technology was not adopted by the people, as other technologies were – take for example the television. Some reasons that were given for its ‘failure’ was how expensive it was and the privacy issue. But as Lipartito examines the issue he also notices the limitations encountered at the time for lack of the appropriate technological advances in communication. For example, an image that was seen in black and white, or as he cites an early adopter: “There’s no color. You’re gray. I’m gray.” There was also the political issue, the monopoly struggle of telecommunications.

Lipartito also analyses how marketing impacts the adoption of a new product. “… innovation – he argues – is a process of social change that involves the gradual enrollment of new uses and the creation of a platform or standard from which further product innovation can take place” (p. 71). In the next paragraph, he goes on to say: “connecting users to new technology is not easy. An important part of the process of enrollment is attracting an initial group of enthusiasts to the machine”. And this was precisely what was not done with the picturephone. It was not marketed toward a specific group, that 2-3% of innovators and 10-15% of early adopters that would have spread the word around and showed how exiting the new gadget was (Ward, 2003).

So, should we say the picturephone was a failure? I really don’t think so. It is true that it was not adopted by the ‘masses’, that AT&T as well as other telephone companies decided to stop marketing this product. But the fact is that the idea behind it, the idea “for an integrated approach over a single network for multiple media – data, voice, text, graphics, and video” (p. 64-65) is still with us; that is, what we call today the Internet. And as Lipartito states on page 65, instruction in higher education can be carried out today through information technology, as predicted by the Carnegie Commission in the 1960’s.

Therefore, what can be considered a failure, turned out to be the precursor of the Internet, a system that allows us to share with people around the world in a few seconds. Do you think we would have believed it fifty years ago?

Finally, a few words about the title: I remembered hearing about the picturephone, but never believed it was true, never saw one, and though people were trying to trick me when they talked about it. Thanks to Lipartito I now know it was real.


References:

Lipartito, K. (2003). Picurephone and the Information Age. Technology and Culture. 44 (1), p. 50-81.

Ward, Brian. (2003). The Footsteps of Change: Understand how change migrates from one group to the next, and you will dramatically increase your chances of success. Retrieved on November 26, 2003 from http://www.affinitymc.com/managing_change_and_risk.htm.

Is it really magic or just a bunch of procedures and algorithms?

When I was a little girl (in the early 60’s) I wondered how the little people got into my TV and made all kind of things to make me laugh. If there was something boring in TV I wanted to take the little people out of it, so that the cartoons would come back. Several times I tried to move the big console and looked behind it to see if I could do something about the programming. The explanations my parents gave me were not enough, I wondered about the little people for a long time.

Was it magic? At that time, it seemed to me it was. But growing up takes away the magic of things you encountered as a child, and you come to understand why things are the way they are (or at least we think we do). You might not want to believe it, you might try to run from it, but no matter how far you go, it seems you will never go far enough, sometimes it even hunts you.

Facing the truth is not easy, re-evaluating the lessons we learned as little kids with the ‘facts of life’ is disturbing. So, what do we do? Should we go along and keep doing the same things we were taught to do? Should we adjust our thinking or even change it taking into account the new information we have come across, trying to understand the world we live in today, adjusting to the world we live in, being true to ourselves?

About the article

Stefik is concerned about a lot more than magic; he is concerned about responsibilities. He argued, “we need to consider how we can apply the lessons of the magical literature about power and control to the world we live in” (p. 257). As apprentices of new technology, he contended we ought “to learn awareness, patience, and responsibility” (p. 256). We could become amazed, marveled about new gadgets, we might even embrace them without considering the outcomes, and this is precisely what Stefik says we need to be aware of.

Beepers, wearable computers, smart houses, the ‘new’ IPv6 (Internet Protocol, version 6), new technologies that can transport masses and information seem to be the order of the day. Humans relate to them in one way or another. In some cases they become so attached to them it is almost as an integral part of themselves. And we forget we are part of something bigger, the world we live in, the environment we have tried to control. Responsibilities, Stefik reminds us. How responsible are we with the environment, with the world we live in as a whole? Are we destroying it little by little? Are we allowing this to happen?

Reference:

Stefik, M. (1999). The Internet Edge. MIT Press. [Chapter 10: Indistinguishable from Magic: The real, the magic, and the virtual, pp. 253-290.]