With the development of communication technology, people can communicate with one another anytime and anywhere through mobile terminals. Initially, means of communication conducted via terminal devices mainly include: short messaging, multimedia messaging and telephoning. However, their costs are relatively high to users. Along with the development and advancement of technologies such as 3G (3rd-generation, third generation mobile communication technology), WiFi (wireless fidelity), etc., the reduction of network flow charges and the rapid spread of smart mobile terminals, a number of products are developed in the field of mobile terminal communications, which include mobile terminal communication products (for example, instant communication products or other products such as games having an instant communication function).
Unlike the communication methods of short message and mobile phone, the mobile terminal communication products can organize users into a virtual social network, in which the users can communicate with each other, such as sending text/voice messages, pictures and files, etc., and a message can reach the other party in real time provided that he/she is online. This type of virtual social network makes communication between people more convenient and also reduces the communication cost.
However, problems such as inadequate interaction more or less exist in text and voice communications. Therefore, in order for face-to-face communications between two communicating parties in a better manner, existing technologies offer video communication technology. Through this technology, communicating parties may see a video image of the other party on screens of respective terminal devices, and may further use voice chat to talk to each other during a process of communication. This type of video communication technology is commonly used in a communication process between friends who are well-acquainted with each other. However, if two users have not developed a friendship, the users may not want the other to see how they really look for fear that the other may judge him/her by their appearance, or simply because they have concerns about their own appearance. In other cases, even though two users are friends with each other, one of the users may refuse video communication as he/she may not want to over-expose his/her true image during a video communication process.
Therefore, a technical problem that is urgently needed to be solved is: how to satisfy the need of a user to conduct communication via video communication to improve interactivity while avoiding overly exposing his/her true image in certain specific application scenarios, thereby improving a usage rate of the video communication technology and more fully demonstrating functionalities of the video communication.