I attended a panel discussion today where 6 of the panelists were present and one called in using Skype. The audience was primarily high school seniors, and it was quite obvious that the Skype speaker had an advantage. Students tuned into the screen better than they tuned into a live speaker. In fact, student walking by the room stopped to check out the screen, but once that speaker had signed off, no one else stopped to hear the others.
Obviously these students have been interacting with screens their entire lives. There is also the cool technology factor. It suggests to me that live speakers have to be brilliant to capture this audience, or else they will be treated as moderators to get past in order to reach the interesting stuff.
