Video conferencing as a technology to support group work: a review of its failures

Teleconferencing systems and services, are the main set of technologies developed thus far to support group work. Within this set of technologies, videoconferencing is often thought of as a new, futuristic communication mode that lies between the telephone call and the face-to-face meeting. In fact, videoconferencing has been commercially available for over two decades, and, despite consistently brilliant market forecasts, to date it has failed to succeed except in limited niche markets. This paper reviews existing teleconferencing literature and provides an analysis of the reasons behind the failure of videoconferencing.