Describe your opinion of why collaborative interfaces, such as email, are much more popular than others, such as video-conferencing.

What will be an ideal response?

Email has become mainstream for users, whether expert or novice. Video conferencing still has some technology limitations such as throughput (bandwidth) and quality of both video and voice. This all depends on the capacity of the computer, the tools used, and its internet broadband connection. The limitation will soon only be user community and individual preferences of one media vs. another. Some still prefer email rather than Instant Messaging, for example, to not cause interruption --- others prefer that interruption and the more instantaneous response.

Again, similar to this author’s response for Question #1, one can envision a society where the formerly clear border among communications, entertainment, and computing devices continues to blend together. Present examples include: audio streaming, movie and music web sites, television archives, sports and musical performance simulcasts, social networking, etc.