So it's social media wars - but we, the users, will be the winners
Yes Mark it is truly awesome: Video calling will be available to 750 million people over the next few weeks in 70 different languages.
As Facebook explained on its blog, "Video chat is still not an everyday activity for most people. Sometimes it's too difficult to set up, or the friends you want to talk to are on different services.
"So a few months ago, we started working with Skype to bring video calling to Facebook. We built it right into chat, so all your conversations start from the same place. To call your friend, just click the video call button at the top of your chat window."
Video calling will be available to 750 million people over the next few weeks in 70 different languages. Facebook's local paper the San Jose Mercury News advised , "Pare down your friends list…and keep that comb next to your webcam." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced group chat, but the video-chat feature is the big talker - mostly because it it comes a week after Google+’s Hangouts, was a launched.. Initial journalist's comment after watching the demonstration via live stream: "Facebook touts it as easy (you click one button) on a platform “where your friends already are,” but it doesn’t allow for group video chats like Hangouts does. " Facebook and Google, it is now crystal clear, are in a social-networking war. The winners will be the users as the Big Two try to outdo each other. Google+ is getting a lot of positive buzz from those who have been able to give it a whirl for the past week. Hangouts is being called its possible killer app, said the Mercury News . The New York Times’ Jenna Wortham wrote that Hangouts “changed [her] life.” The technology worked well, she wrote, and it made hanging out with a group online fun and simple. For now, you can’t do that on Facebook.