I have been in the messaging space for over 20 years now and It seems that Instant Messaging is beginning to go the route of 8 track tapes.

It seems that Video conferencing whether P2P or video meetings are the wave of the future. Whether it is MS Skype, Lync or IBM Sametime and even Cisco Jabber, people want to have conversations with others that they can see. (yes, even if they are two chairs down the line from them) They want to see the other persons reactions to their comments, ideas or statements. It is said, that body language makes up 70% of a conversation. That, along with the speed and quality of the products and infrastructure today lends itself to using video over instant messaging. Besides, how many times have you had a conversation on instant message and the person misunderstood you or your words had many different connotations.

There was a time that instant messaging took over the free world. Yes, everyone was “IM”ing or pinging as we used to call it. We used to think that IM will take over the email space. Yet it seems we have evolved way beyond that, and even beyond the social messaging type inbox.

For the average consumer, they will keep Facetime-ing or video conferencing their family and loved ones. but for the enterprise, this creates somewhat of a compliance nightmare. Do you allow video conferencing in the enterprise? Do you retain it, who do you need to retain it for?

Are there solutions out there for the enterprise to truly retain this information that has long been considered not required to be discovered? ..to be transcribed.. How do you transcribe a person’s visual ques. Whether the person is deaf or is speaking in hand gestures, how do you retain that information? Assuming that you want to….

If you cant transcribe it, how do you discover it. Does each video need to be reviewed?

If so, what type of infrastructure would be required to begin such an effort? Clearly, once you begin to discuss the infrastructure required, you are delving into the millions of dollars to keep up, vs the liability involved if you don’t. I know the obvious answers and would like to generate a discussion of thinking outside the box..ie will the rules change.. are they changing?

I have been involved in many projects that have had the legal departments state that they don’t need to be retained. I think that may be changing. and may need to. The more then video meeting becomes prevalent, the more it has to be retained.

On the other hand, the less you retain, the less you are required to produce. So at what point does this change in our society, where e-discovery becomes visual and less less text based? At what point does the discovery technology need to keep up with the technology of video.

So is the instant messaging dead as we know it? .. with Facetime, along with the numerous other video conferencing, are we seeing the end of IM’?