As expected Facebook have announced a partnership with Skype to enable video chat through the social networking site. This announcement from Facebook follows last weeks launch of Google’s social networking platform, Google plus, which features video calling.
The Facebook video chat feature will allow two users to connect face to face, but this feature does not currently bring anything new to free video calling. The Google Plus video calling feature, ‘Hangouts’, can deliver a 10 way video call allowing groups of users to communicate face to face, something you only really find in a business video conferencing application. Although this 10 way video calling from Google Plus will not be suitable for many businesses, it does give it a distinct advantage over the Facebook video chat feature.
However, the Facebook video chat feature will no doubt prove to be very successful, which will be a result of the number of active users demonstrating the power of the social networking giant. This is a luxury Google Plus doesn’t have, needing to fight for new users.
