Finally, e-mail for people who hate typing. Shaw Cablesystems has launched a new free service for its high-speed Internet customers that allows them to send a video e-mail of up to two minutes in length to multiple recipients.

It’s sure to be a hit with those hunt-and-peck types — as long as they make sure they’re dressed when they boot up the computer and start answering e-mail in the morning.

Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw Communications Inc., said the service is available to any of Shaw’s 1.2 million high-speed Internet customers, the majority of which are high-speed or high-speed-lite subscribers.

“It’s going to be great for people who don’t like to type,” said Bissonnette.

“The user is all over the map. I know my mother would like to receive something like that and kids, of course, love it.”

Widely used video e-mail was forecast since the 1970s, but inadequate PC power and network speeds have kept it in the corporate realm until the last couple of years. Many web cams allow for the creation and sending of video e-mail.

Bissonnette e-mailed a brief video message to The Province. The video was short of commercial broadcast quality, but quite watchable, while the audio was excellent.

The Shaw Video Mail interface allows the inclusion of full audio as well as photos in a slide-show format. Shaw’s technicians wrote their own software for the product.

The recipient of a video e-mail clicks on an enclosed link and is taken to the Shaw server where the video messages are stored — which saves the user from using up his own disk drive space. Prospective senders need to have a computer equipped with a web cam.

Dialup users can receive but not send the video e-mail.

Bissonnette said Shaw is the first Internet service provider in Canada to offer the service. Comcast rolled out video e-mail service in the U.S. last August.

A spokesman for Telus Corp., Shaw’s main Internet-service rival in Western Canada, said the company doesn’t offer anything like video e-mail, but added its HomeSitter home-monitoring system allows users to save and e-mail video clips.

On a related topic, Bissonnette said Shaw’s Internet telephone service, launched earlier this year in Alberta, will be available in Vancouver before the end of the year.

“We’ve been working on upgrading the last four months,” he said. “We have to build a separate network for this in preparation for launch.”

© The Vancouver Province 2005