The Flop of the Picturephone in the 1960s - Essay Example

The Flop of the Picturephone in 1960s Introduction The Picturephone entailed a dual telephone system developed and subsequently marketed in 1960s and 1970s. However, it failed in displacing the normal telephone system that was in use by that time. The flop of the Picturephone developed by the AT&T was an instance of useful and important information communications technology (ICT) which was not adopted by the society it was intended to serve. Such an instance makes new ICT equipment turn into technological insignificance and darkness. Several reasons have been put forward to explain the restricted adoption and consequent extinction of the Picturephone technology. Some of the reasons include media intrusiveness and little added value that the Picturephone had over the normal telephones. Reasons for the Failure Lack of Societal Reference Point Some articles report that the Picturephone failed to hit the markets positively because it lacked a robust reference point for its take-up. A majority of the successful new technologies have reference points, which are not extreme, for the society to get. Certain new technologies may seem disruptive but with societal reference point, these technologies are likely to be adopted by the society if they provide incremental improvements to the new users instead of comprehensive divergence from the normal life practices (Coburn 33)i. Prior surveys, before the Picturephone was launched, revealed that the market consumers were uncomfortable with the concept of being seen in the process of a telephone conversation. The Bell System defied the customers’ desires and wants proceeding to develop the new technology which was regarded as a solution seeking a problem. The Picturephone did not succeed because it failed to address the problems of the customers in the market, hence, customers did not have a reason to purchase and adopt the equipment (Brown 16). Intrusiveness The Picturephones were installed in certain areas, such as Chicago and New York, in the United States in the 1960s and the cost of making telephone calls using these new technology equipment ranged between $16 and $27 for every minute used to make a call. Only 71 patrons had acquired the picturephones within the first half year of their development and marketing. Unfortunately, within a span of six years, the patrons of the Picturephones had declined to zero (Kaigo 3)ii. The use of Picturephones in making telephone calls was considered to be intrusive and crossed the privacy boundary of the users. The Picturephones did not improve the information on the voice but only made little advances on the communication. The flop of the technology was associated with the intrusiveness because the users considered the new technology meaningless as a result of the high cost incurred in making telephone calls during that period. A majority of the residential consumers and business customers who used the new technology had little need for it because it added little or negative value to their calls compared to the normal telephone call at that time (Kaigo 3). Controls Were Not User Friendly The market research carried out during the period that the Picturephone had been marketed revealed that most of the people did not like the new technology because the equipment was bulky and its controls were not user friendly. Further, the market consumers reported that the equipment displayed small pictures and that was the problem too. The customers who sued the new technology complained that the Picturephone had usability issues and that its display screen producing the pictures was quite small (McGrath)iii. The developers of the new technology, Bell System, maintained their stand emphasizing that the Picturephone was viable for market use (The Porticus Center)iv. Consequently, the new technology was modified to accommodate some of the changes that the consumers wanted but it was still considered to be bulky, costly, and uncomfortable depriving the users of their privacy. The target market was hesitant to adopt the new technology because of the fear that other individuals would have invaded inadvertently the privacy of the users seeing the private matters taking place in homes of the users. This led the developers of the new technology, AT&T, to throw away the plans it had to market the product rigorously (The Porticus Center). Costly The loss of the Bell Systems on the development of the Picturephone is approximated at $1 billion. The company tried to make several changes after the market reaction but the new technology did not hit the market as it had been predicted. Less than 500 individuals signed up for the new technology. The costly price of the equipment and the call rates, during a time when the call rates were high, significantly contributed to people failing to adopt it and its subsequent flop. The significance of the images to the communication was down rated because of their size. Consequently, the users did not agree to the high cost of call rates because of the improvement of image display compared to the normal telephones (Lozano). It was approximated that a minute call using the Picturephone amounted to $21. Individuals or business who required the equipment installed in their premises would incur around $500,000 for the Picturephone itself besides the high cost call rates (Coburn 32). The effective use of the Picturephone was only possible if both the caller and the person being called were using the new technology. The number of patrons who owned the Picturephone was low and had declined because of the high purchase price. The few consumers who bought Picturephone deemed the new technology as meaningless because they could hardly use it as several people did not own it (McGrath). Eventually, the number of individuals buying the equipment reduced and declined to extremely low level because the neighbors and friends were not buying, therefore, no one continued buying the equipment. The new technology failed and was never adopted in the market (McGrath). Underdeveloped Technological Infrastructure The Picturephone was developed and marketed in the days when communication infrastructure was still developing. At that time, data compression and microprocessors were not yet fully developed for use. The inventions and developments in digital telecommunications were still in formative years. The bandwidth in place for telephone calls was limited such that long distance calls were expensive. The utility of the Picturephone was limited by the size of the network it operated in (Lukas 42)v. The customers who wanted to make calls using the picturephones had to reserve time to be at a public booth. They practically did away with the roaming charges in this case (Bridges). Several individuals would queue at a public Picturephone booth waiting for their reserved time with the recipient of their calls. The technology never pleased the users, it was, thus, not adopted and eventually flopped. Some developers have promised to advance the technology in the present world. Apart from the complaints from the business customers that the equipment did not suit any business situation for its use, one of the biggest challenges to the Picturephone was lack of portability. The equipment was developed in such a way that the users had to sit before a stationary camera when making their calls (Lukas 42). The present forms of picturephones succeed because they overcame the problem of portability. The company marketed the new technology with an emphasis on the network effects to drive its adoption. The network was never built as marketed by the organization. In addition, the developers of the new technology did not realize that the users of the equipment did not fancy seeing live facial expressions in their communications. Ultimately, the Picturephone became one of the most visible failures in the history of communication technology (Coburn 32). Later in the twentieth century, the company reinvented the technology in form of video phone. Little Need for Dual-Way Face-To-Face Communication The case of the Picturephone also can be examined as scenario in which the market failed to respond to the service, which was offered to them. Subsequently, the marketers of the service reacted by removing the service from the market. The Picturephone technology was a remarkable success even though its service marketing was a failure. At the time the new technology was launched in the market, the majority of the target residential and business customers had a limited need for the dual-way, face-to-face visual telephone communication (Noll 307)vi. Consequently, it can be argued that the failure of the Picturephone was neither because of the high costs nor technology issues. The value that the Picturephone added to the needs of the users was negligible compared to the existing telephone calls. Certain users argued that using the equipment offered negative values to them (Noll 307). Conclusion The Picturephone was developed and marketed in 1960s and 1970s but the society failed to adopt the new technology. As a result, the developers of the technology withdrew the equipment. Several reasons have been put across for its failure. According to the research presented in this paper, first, the target users did not have a specific business need that the Picturephone suitably addressed. Second, it failed to add significant value to the communication method that was already in place. Third, the equipment was intrusive and infringed into the privacy of the users. Fourth, the equipment was bulky and not control-friendly to the users. Fifth, the reports revealed that the all cost as well as the cost of installing t he equipment was very high. Finally, the technological infrastructure was still at its infancy phase and the network was very low, thus, several people did not have it. Works Cited Bridges, Mary. 1964: Eye Phone. 17 Dec 2007. Web. 10 July 2012. Brown, Paul B. "Remember the Picturephone?" CIO Insight June 2006: 16-16. Print. Coburn, Pip. "What Were They Thinking?" Across the Board July/August 2006: 31-36. Print. Kaigo, Muneo. "The Picturephone Revisited? The Possibilities of Two-way IP Video Communication." 55th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association. New York: Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 2005. 1-34. Print. Lozano, Angel. The Hall of Innovation. n.d. Web. 10 July 2012. Print. Lukas, Paul. "Picturephones: The Gimme Technology That Wasnt." Fast Company June 2006: 42-42. Print. McGrath, Jane. Introduction to How Video Conferencing Cell Phones Work. 11 June 2008. Web. 10 July 2012. Print. Noll, A. Michael. "Anatomy of a Failure: Picturephone Revisited." Telecommunications Policy 16.4 (1992): 307–316. Print. The Porticus Center. Western Electric Picturephone® (Video Phone): Ahead of its Time - Another Bell Labs Innovation! n.d. Web. 10 July 2012. Print. Endnotes Read More