By: Aseem Gaurav on July 7, 2011
As expected, social networking giant Facebook has launched a video-chat feature powered by Skype. The video chat product, is browser-based, so one need not download Skype to chat with friends on Facebook. The revamped system now includes a sidebar and it automatically appears when you open up the browser.
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new video calling feature during an event at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto.
The new feature includes an improved group chat feature which allows for a multi-person conversation and the capability of one-on-one video calls with friends.
Zuckerberg also confirmed that Facebook now has 750 million users and they share four billion items such as photos, links and status updates on the site every day.
"We've been cranking on projects the past six months and have a lot of fun stuff to roll out. We have 750 million users now and it is still growing quickly. But the thing growing faster is the amount of sharing per user,” he said.
IM-like text chatting is quite popular on Facebook and the company will introduce a more prominent sidebar that shows the people a user chats with the most, Zuckerberg said.
The announcement by Facebook comes within a week after Google Inc announced its own social networking service dubbed Google+.
Facebook bosses said the company will keep on working with partners like Skype and at the same time build its own programs to enhance the social network.
The video calling service will be universal by next week, but in case you want it now then go to facebook.com/videocalling.
Facebook and Skype aren't making money directly from the video calling service, but in the future they will add premium services carrying charges.
As expected, social networking giant Facebook has launched a video-chat feature powered by Skype. The video chat product, is browser-based, so one need not download Skype to chat with friends on Facebook. The revamped system now includes a sidebar and it automatically appears when you open up the browser.
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new video calling feature during an event at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto.
The new feature includes an improved group chat feature which allows for a multi-person conversation and the capability of one-on-one video calls with friends.
Zuckerberg also confirmed that Facebook now has 750 million users and they share four billion items such as photos, links and status updates on the site every day.
"We've been cranking on projects the past six months and have a lot of fun stuff to roll out. We have 750 million users now and it is still growing quickly. But the thing growing faster is the amount of sharing per user,” he said.
The announcement by Facebook comes within a week after Google Inc announced its own social networking service dubbed Google+.
Facebook bosses said the company will keep on working with partners like Skype and at the same time build its own programs to enhance the social network.
The video calling service will be universal by next week, but in case you want it now then go to facebook.com/videocalling.
Facebook and Skype aren't making money directly from the video calling service, but in the future they will add premium services carrying charges.
