Facebook launches video chat feature in partnership with Skype

Just days after Google announced a new major social networking venture Facebook has announced a new partnership with Skype that will see the VoIP market leader power a new video chat service.

During an announcement event at Facebook headquarters chief executive Mark Zuckerberg addressed concerns that Google could be catching up, saying Facebook was still years ahead and he confirmed recent figures showing that Facebook now has 750 million users.

The company confirmed three new updates today – video calling, group chat and a new design for the chat window.

Zuckerberg announced a partnership with Skype for the deal – rumoured for several days – which will allow users to chat using video as they would if they had the regular Skype application open.

When users visit another profile there will be an icon suggesting they give that person a call using the video chat feature. Video calling will be a part of the new chat design, with a toolbar on the right side of the screen.

Whenever users click on a name on that toolbar they’ll be asked if they want to initiate a video call and they will be able to leave video messages for users who aren’t online.

“Video chat has been around for years now but it’s 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,” Facebook engineer Philip Su said in a blog post.

Skype chief executive Tony Bates said it made good business sense for the company to be involved with Facebook, especially because users are averaging 300 million minutes per month of video calling.

He said video calls make up half of all Skype traffic and that number is growing.

Zuckerberg said he felt more comfortable about making the leap with Skype after it was acquired by Microsoft.

“We have a really good relationship with Microsoft where we work with them on a lot of different stuff,” he said.

The other major announcement involved Group Chats, which now allow users to speak with more than one friend at a time when using the website’s messages service. Facebook says it was one of the most requested features from users.

Both services have drawn parallels with Google+. Last week the search giant announced similar services with its Huddle and Hangout features and the differences are negligible.

Zuckerberg defended Facebook in the Q&A session, saying the company was still years ahead of Google.

He said the past five years have been about building these types of social networks whereas the next few will be about building apps that pull together all types of social infrastructure.

He said people will be able to have more different social experiences online and the growth of mobile devices will magnify the amount of content shared.

The one big difference between Facebook and Google’s new features is that Google allows users to video chat with more than one user at a time but Facebook does not.

Bates defended that, saying “the vast majority of Google Chat is one-on-one chat … the-one-to-one intimate experience is the most important part of this thing”.

Facebook and Google are preparing to go head-to-head with their social networks, with several reports indicating that Facebook is planning a number of new apps, including a photo-sharing service, as it prepares to defend its position as the largest network in the world.

Facebook will roll out the software during the next few weeks but users can visit this site if they want to download it now.