During college many moons ago, I worked at a variety of jobs. One of my favorite was working as a back-up babysitter for a certain celebrity’s four kids. (Hint: star of Tootsie) I have never been someone who is impressed by celebrity – which is probably why I got the job – BUT I did like some of his grown up “toys”. The thing that I remember the most is that he had this special phone where his kids could call their grandparents and see them while they were speaking. I thought that was the coolest invention ever.
Fast forward fifteen years and videophones are not a huge deal anymore. That’s the thing about technology – the thing that is super expensive and exclusive one day ends up being reasonably priced for “the masses” if you wait long enough. You know what is even better than reasonably priced? Free. That’s right…and that is where Skype comes in. I have being hearing about Skype for a while, but I wasn’t really motivated to add another technology thing on my plate. Then, several of my friends started asking me if I were on Skype. I still wasn’t interested, because I could see them anytime that I wanted. Then, a couple of my friends who had moved to far-off places (Australia and Costa Rica) got on Skype. That’s when I agree that I would get on it so that we could stay connected and our kids could see one another grow up. (You have to love technology.)
By random coincidence, the very week that I had made this agreement (offline) with one of my friends, someone from Skype’s public relations department reached out to see if I would like to review their FREETALK® BuddyCam. I agreed to do so (of course). At this point, I have signed up for Skype (which is free and super easy to do). Skype is a really great deal (it doesn’t get much better than free!) if you want to call, video call or instant message other Skype users. It also has reasonable rates for calls to non-Skype calls. Let me get back to the FREETALK® BuddyCam though. The first thing that I thought was, “Awww. It’s so cute.” Isn’t it?
You can put the little buddy into different poses. It reminds me of one of my kids little toys. For the $20 price tag, it’s a decent webcam. If you want superior image and sound quality, then you will want to invest in a higher quality webcam. However, if you just want to use it to keep in casual touch with friends and family, it’s fine. (Note: I don’t have a Mac. I have read some negative feedback on this product from Mac users.) As with any computer product, do the research for your particular operating system and spend accordingly!
I was sent two BuddyCams. I sent one home to Virgina with my mom and I will be sending the other one to my dad. The one thing that I miss about not leaving near my side of the family is that my kids don’t get to see everyone as much. (Remarkably) they are still very close with my mom and dad (“Nana and Pop Pop from Virginia”) based primarily on phone conversations. I’m excited that they will at least get to see their grandparents when they talk to them next year. Priceless.
Thanks to Skype for sending me the two BuddyCams to review.
