Face it: Video chat is iPad's killer app

If you are not yet used to people sitting in cafes talking to themselves, then you probably will not be ready for the next step--people sitting in cafes talking to body-less faces.

Most--though probably not all--of the people who currently appear to be talking to themselves are talking over their mobile phones via their Bluetooth headsets, ear buds or maybe even brain chips at this point. The people you will soon see talking to body-less faces will be engaging in an increasingly popular activity called video chatting.

This week's announcement that Skype video chat will be rolling out to the iPad 2 is the latest move in the broader evolution to video chat, though arguably it could be the most significant step toward making video chat more popular.

The potential for an explosion in video chat usage is just one of the things that make this move by Skype so interesting. Another is the potential for video chat in general--whether it is Skype, Apple's FaceTime or something else--to become the iPad's killer app. There have been past hints that video, in some form, could be the tablet's killer app, but video entertainment apps for the iPad, such as the recent flood of TV viewing apps, have gotten bogged down in distribution and licensing issues. Video chat may be able to take off without as many burdens (though Net Neutrality issues could prove to be a future ballast).

In any case, when you see your first body-less face talking back to you on your iPad screen, you may realize the meaning of the phrase "perfect marriage."

As a side note, it will be interesting to see if the rollout of Skype's iPad app does anything to quiet some of the criticism around Microsoft's pending acquisition of Skype, a move that many observers continue to see as a future drag on Skype's ability to continue innovating. Recently, it seems Microsoft is getting blamed for anything up to and including the wind blowing the wrong direction at Skype's HQ, but perhaps Skype's iPad offering will show that nothing is stopping the global VoIP juggernaut from helping to drive the next era in communications.--Dan