You may notice a new little box in the upper right corner of my blog*. That’s a flash widget from a company called stickam. The official launch of this new tool will be on the 15th, but I am testing it now. If I have my camera and mic on, you can talk with me directly in this blog! If I am away, you can view current photos I may have uploaded (nothing really yet), or even videos from my vlog.

There is a comment function that will allow the same threaded discussions you would expect from any other blog. Combining this with tools like 3 bubbles, (which allows a rolling chat box on your blog, and we will really see something closer to the next generation communications device where you have both asynchronous and synchronous conversations going on. Adding a layer of privacy and security would make it complete.

Update April 17, 2006: I’ve removed the widget from this post as it appears to have been giving a false virus message to IE users.