Yes but people who are bored and browsing Facebook and don't follow technology minute by minute, outnumber people like us by a huge margin. Facebook launching these three (not so new) features just means that its making video calling more accessible to other people, which means its probably going to work for them.
(Personally, I still feel surprised whenever I see anyone even using Facebook chat.)
It will depend greatly on how Facebook actually does this "deep integration" the article mentions. If they are just going to plug into skype and let your FB info become your skype username and pw, then adoption might not take off as much due to having to open and run a separate application to do anything. On the other hand, if they make each facebook chat a virtual skype call and incorporate skype sessions onto the backend, then I could see this improving chat and make adding video capabilities fairly easy. As for it taking off, if it requires no extra work then sure, their userbase might grab it and go. If it's just a plugin for skype the application, then I'm not so sure.
Facebook still requires downloading a plugin to use video chat, so it has the same barrier to entry.
No, Facebook will install it automatically. With MySpace you had to do a separate download to get the MySpaceIM client.
I told my younger sister about Facebook's announcement today, and she didn't really care since she already had Skype to video chat with her friends.
I have Skype and Facebook both today too. I have like 8 addresses in my Skype book. I have about 200 friends in Facebook, which includes almost everyone I talk to. I don't think my setup is all that unusual.
Unfortunately, I think it flows the other way. "Normal" users will probably use it, and some techies may use it too just because their "normal" friends use it.
I think I will never use it because I almost dont use video chat (Hangout can change that) but I see my mother using it to talk with her sisters. She currently uses Skype, but using only Facebook will be much easier for her.
I don't seem to understand why did you put "Facebook Messages" in a line of great inventions. Isn't it just another "Live Chat"? Am i missing something?
I've worked with the new Chat SDK and our customers' use cases aren't geared toward forcing (or even encouraging) users into using Facebook Messenger. Most of them are just trying to meet demand from their customers. In our particular case, we have customers with a lot of international travelers who have access to data while abroad but not necessarily SMS.
IMO it's a lot better than having a dedicated app you have to download to interact with a specific brand.
Sounds like an attempt at competing against group chat on Facebook messenger except nearly all of my friends are already on Messenger and this doesn't seem to add anything new.
I'm no fan of Facebook either, but if they collapse and die one day soon, one thing I'll really miss is FB Messenger. I just haven't found anything remotely like it that works as well for keeping a friends list, letting me chat with them, and letting me do video chats, both on my phone and (very importantly) on a PC.
Everything else fails in some way, usually the PC part. Most chat apps have some video chat function, but it sucks and is totally useless because it's only on the phone; there's no way to do it on a PC, so what's the point? I don't want to see shaky video from someone holding their phone in their hand. I can chat with people using Zoom, but that's a pain because it requires a native application, it's only for video chats (not for keeping a long-running text chat), so while it's great for business meetings it sucks for personal use.
Totally agree about Facebook messenger. This is a game changer. FB messenger is going to be the I'm-on-the-subway-and-don't-know-anyone-so-I-better-not-look-silly kinda app, and that's boring.
FB chat has a jabber interface. It can be used by those of us who don't sit on FB all day too. Pretty convenient. Now, I hope they'll get the group chat working via jabber too.
The article claims that Facebook's messaging features are a failure. I disagree; they have massive potential.
Facebook chat is the primary real time chat system that I use these days and has replaced MSN for me and my friends. I recently installed the Messenger app on my iPhone and it certainly has the potential to kill off whatsapp and similar apps due two reasons: all my contacts are already available, and that I can use either my laptop or phone, depending on whichever is available to me when I need to communicate.
Unfortunately I doubt that this potential will be realised. Why? Because I haven't seen Facebook advertise the app AT ALL. (I heard about the app through HN.) None of my friends are aware the app exists and it's such a shame. It wouldn't be hard for Facebook to push their chat service as an alternative to txt/bbm/whatsapp, they already have an ad network in place that they can use for free.
I really hope to see Facebook push their messaging service as a way to communicate not just when you are browsing facebook.com but instead as an alternative to text-based communication methods on phones.
Having finally incorporated email for all users, in five years time, they'll finally be bothering with voice chat. And all its users will think Facebook invented the idea.
The only utility Facebook gives me is Messenger, which I have to use because several family members use it. The only utility it offers over other messaging platforms is slightly better support for media and GIFs (maybe?) And network effects. I would really prefer they join me where I am, on Discord, which is where my local friends, neighbors and online friends go to exchange messages. (It doesn't support video sharing as well/easily as Messenger.)
Anybody from facebook care to comment? I wonder if this is done as a bandwidth saving measure on facebook's part, or perhaps to make chat traffic more reliable vs using APNS...
Personally in my circle I still use Facebook messenger service - my extended family has a group chat and some of my friend groups still use messenger chats (I'd say post pandemic discord is used more then messenger now) my parents use messenger to video chat with their grandkids. It's essentially become skype. The actual facebook.com friend feed etc. is essentially dead for me at least.
(Personally, I still feel surprised whenever I see anyone even using Facebook chat.)
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