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Facebook Adds Video Chat
July 7, 2011
On yesterday , Facebook launched two new features to its chat system. One allows people to chat in groups of three or more, rather than just two. The other, powered by a deal with Skype, adds video chat to the social network’s existing text chat system.
There’s one difference fromGoogle’s new social network, Google+, which has been sporadically allowing new members to sign up since last week. While Google+ enables group video sessions of up to ten people, Facebook doesn’t allow more than two to participate in a video chat. Skype has had group chats for a while, but it’s a premium service that costs $9 per month. Facebook hasn’t revealed whether the company plans to add group chats in the future.Right now, Facebook is rolling out these new features gradually. Several friends and I have yet to see the “Add Friends to Chat” option, shown in a post on Facebook’s company blog, appear on our chat windows. But you can start using video chat now by going to facebook.com/videocalling. You’ll be prompted to choose a friend to chat with. The first time you try it, you’ll need to install a small plug-in on your PC or Mac (sorry, no iPad or smartphone apps yet.) So will the person whom you call.
Facebook warns that some computers may have hardware or software compatibility issues, but on my year-old HP laptop and much older iMac, it worked without problems the first time. Now I have a more abstract problem: Friends are video-calling me, but after a few seconds of waving at each other and rotating the laptop to put the dog onscreen, what are we going to talk about?
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