Skype versus Google Talk

Skype versus Google
Film at Eleven

Skype opened a new market when it started video calls and conferencing, and has several years on Google. Google, the dominant search engine for many reasons, only recently got into the market with its video version of Google Talk. Our assignment was to decide which one was best, and support our decision with facts. This is what I found.

First, the preconceptions need to be discussed. I have used Skype for more than a year, and most of my friends use it. It was first and got the kinks out of their program rather quickly. Google, while now dominating the search engine business, has issued some rather revolutionary software applications (Google Earth among others) but has a tendency to put beta products out and allowing the first users to test the programs. I tend to stay away from Google products for the first six months so they can be play tested by someone else. I don’t know for certain that this is a fair assumption, but I find it practical. I also take the same position on products from Microsoft, and will not even consider upgrading an operating system until the second service pack is issued.

I combined this project in with another project I was involved with. I sometimes do volunteer work for the Doddridge County Starting Points, part of a group sanctioned by the state of West Virginia but depending on donations and grants for their operating budget. There are thirteen Starting Points’ charters in the state, and they are responsible for providing and coordinating non-monetary assistance to new parents with children up to three years old.

It is a good program, but there is a problem with the state charter: the state charter requires monthly meetings of all the charters. Considering the tight budgets made tighter by economic conditions, getting the officers together from across the state each month is a considerable burden. The charter does not specify an actual face to face meeting of all thirteen charters, but does require a central meeting. The individual Starting Points have already inquired about telephone conferencing, and was quoted more than $800 per month to allow the 13 charters to get together via phone. I recommended video conferencing using webcams, and this project allowed me to test the waters.

To make equipment a non issue, we went with three webcams all made by Microsoft. All three were Microsoft Life-Cam VX-3000, purchased from Amazon.com for $18.00 each. They were all installed on systems using Microsoft Windows XP service pack two. One system was hooked to the internet via satellite connection, one was hooked via a telephone DSL, and one hooked via dialup.

For our purposes, there were immediate problems with Google Talk, some anticipated, some not. First, at the time of our testing (Jan. 2010) Google Talk did not offer any conferencing capability, though they plan to soon (and may already have, I haven’t checked lately.) Connection was sometimes difficult, and impossible with the dialup connection. Skype did offer a limited conferencing capability, but due to the dialup connection we were using on one system, it was impossible to get all three people hooked up to demonstrate the conferencing capability. We were able to hook up the dialup connection with either of the other two hookups, but it would not handle both, which is a severe limitation to the Starting Points requirement because several of the 13 charters have access only to dialup.

It appeared that Google was a bit of a memory hog, and Skype was a bit easier to connect and use, but you would expect that considering that Skype has been around for several years and Google Talk for less than a year.

There were two issues that picked a winner for me, one expected, one not so expected. As expected, each service is limited basically to conversations between members with the same service, though it is possible to go through Windows IM to get around this. I would choose Skype at this point, however, for the reason I set out in the opening paragraph: most of the people I know use Skype, making it easy for me to find and connect with them.

The issue I did not expect was in video quality. I cannot explain why, but in every connection we made, the video quality on Skype exceeded the quality on Google Talk. Skype ran a bit smoother, took up less space, and provided a better video quality. We switched around the webcams and got the same result. It is possible that Google Talk does not work well with the Microsoft webcams, but I expected a better quality picture than Google provided. When I started this exercise, I did not think this would be an issue.

As soon as I am able, we’re going to have to go back to see if there is another way to allow Starting Points charters to meet via internet conferencing. They simply cannot afford the one day a month travel that brings some of the Starting Points from the two panhandles of the state to a location at the center of the state, usually Weston. It is a lot of miles to travel while maintaining incredibly tight budgets, and gets to be a real problem in winter. Short of modifying their charter, which is unlikely as the state government is involved, video conferencing is the only way to go. More on this as soon as I am able.