Facebook still requires downloading a plugin to use video chat, so it has the same barrier to entry. I don't see being able to video chat from within my facebook.com window instead of in my Skype.app window as being a huge advantage.
Case in point: 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. Then I told her about Google+'s Hangout feature and her eyes lit up.
Video chatting is no longer a killer feature, but group video chatting is as long as Skype maintains premium pricing for group chats.
My family and I have had more success with Facebook Messenger's video chat than with Skype: the people we want to talk to (grandparents, aunts, etc) are already on Facebook, and the only trouble is that you have to determine whether to accept on your phone or your computer.
A big reason why Skype wasn't big on MySpace was that it wasn't seamless to use -- at least from my vague recollection didn't it require users to download MySpaceIM? That alone makes it a non-starter for a lot of people.
The other issue is that MySpace never reached this critical mass of users that Facebook has. I can see video chat being about Facebook, more than Skype over the next year. "Get on Facebook so we can video chat".
Lastly, broadband penetration and bandwidth is that much better since 2007.
That's not even worth wasting time at answering. Look Google doing a great job of rebranding it's services. Google already had video chat for a while now. If you have gmail you have video chat. I don't get why facebook is just getting around to doing it. And google didn't need skype to do it.
If there is no group chat on FB then I think they are loosing by a point. People don't use Skype's because it is not free while for example iChat allows you to do video chat for free (for limited number of people). Now Google will allow it for free, and my expectation is that people will start using it. This may be one big plus for Google+, and a way for them to attract more people.
All your friends are on Facebook, so you don't have to search/find them on Skype. N-to-N video communication is now much easier. Default will be to use FB rather than the Skype client, especially once they add voice calls, conference calls, and group video chat.
I do understand your reasoning and logic behind your belief. If you were to ask someone now: "What application do you use to video chat with?" the answer is most likely going to sway heavy to Skype. If you ask that question in 3 to 9 months time and that answer has not changed, then Skype will be just fine.
Personally, I don't like the idea of video chatting through Facebook. I use skype exclusively to video chat because its what I am accustomed too, it's the application I trust. Trust being the keyword there because I do not trust Facebook.
Isn't the Skype plugin for Facebook video-chats made in Java, too? Sounds to me like Facebook should be one of the very first companies to want to adopt WebRTC. Not only will they become independent of Skype for video-calls, but they can offer it for everyone inside the browser, too, instead of getting them to install plugins. Hopefully they intend to make it federated though, rather than keeping it Facebook-only.
Considering Facebook news feed having a strong presence in the latest version of Skype, one might assume this is a 2-way partnership and yes we will see Skype inside Facebook.
Don't think anyone has done this (embedding or integrating Skype video chat) before? Technically it has not been possible, I believe?
Might be one more step towards Skype headless client / SDK, which has been talked about for years, but never materialised.
Skype and Facebook are very close to each other.
Skype powers Facebook video chat and you can use FB in the Skype client. Also Skype is owned by Microsoft, arguably Facebook's biggest ally.
I work in a relatively small company, everyone here has a private Facebook account, and I see no way in which Facebook chat is in any way worse than Skype. Both are closed-source, privately-owned, centralized servivces. But only one of them I tend to have opened anyway, as I use it to communicate with most of the people I know, and I can use it through Emacs when I find myself too distracted by the vanilla version.
skype is only a good option if they want users. because the only appeal of skype is the userbase. really.
if facebook has the penetration everyone believes they have, skype would be irrelevant. buy any other media streaming company with an actual decent codec and the rest is commodity.
At first I wasn't sure how Skype played into FB's strategy but I guess it makes sense. Skype would come with a plethora of talent, which facebook is known to spend money for. Also, the Skype technology would allow FB to fill out the video communication side of things that they have yet to tap.
Case in point: 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. Then I told her about Google+'s Hangout feature and her eyes lit up.
Video chatting is no longer a killer feature, but group video chatting is as long as Skype maintains premium pricing for group chats.
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