TechCom

I spent about an hour and a half "TechComming" with a friend of mine. I say "TechCom" because I don't really know what else to call it.

• We started with Skype. I was transmitting with both audio and video, but she didn't have a webcam and was only sending audio. We had a very poor connection, so I dropped the video. We were having a telephone conversation using our computers and the Internet (but you already knew that).
• Then we added Instant Messaging (IM) to our Skype communication. We didn't chat as we have in the past with IM, because we were Skpe'ing, but we employed IM to send some Internet links that we were discussing.
• We were also Twittering. Neither of us are prolific or even steady users of Twitter, so we couldn't figure out why my replies to her twitters (and other Twitterers) were not displaying on hers (or their) page(s). We eventually got it working sometimes, but agreed we weren't certain what we'd done and that the interface is annoying. What good is replying to somebody's twitter if it doesn't show up on his or her page?
• When she started discussing Torchwood, a show I don't know but read about this morning, so I directed her to a blog and then Facebook album to see pictures of a Torchwood sight.
• We also debated online-ordering tickets to the Harry Potter Exhibition. There's been a lot of press about the exhibit lately, so we're discussing going in early September when the kids will back in school. 
• And now I'm using a blog to discourse about it. 

This would have been rather expensive in the past. Now it was no extra charge other than our already existing broadband connections. "Charming, simply charming!" 

But I don't know what to call this type of social interaction. We were using several technologies for communicating...thus I said TechCom. Did I coin this term or did I hear/read it somewhere? Is there another term I should be using? It's late Saturday night and the brain has checked out for the day. Somebody rescue me.

Comments

[delmer]

I'm reading your blog while a friend (in Vancouver) is taking a break from our MSN video chat to put her kids to bed. Prior to the video chat we were on the phone -- I have VOIP and the call is free (as it is for her coming this way). When I was little a call to the little town next to us was long distance.

The whole thing still amazes me.

[Missy]

I was very impressed with both of us until something woke Reggie and I up at 4:30 AM the same night. I couldn't figure out what woke us, especially since we were in different parts of the house, so I poked my head outside.

There was a bird-singing symphony decorating the night air. It was beautiful, if not rather loud and inappropriately timed! It was much lovelier than our techcomming, and has always been free. I still don't know what woke us, because I don't think that was it.