Facebook partners with Skype to launch video chat

Just days after Google rolled out its Google+ social networking applications that include group video chat, Facebook Wednesday launched a new video calling feature in partnership with Skype.

Facebook and Skype introduce a new video chatting option.

The application, which has been the focus of rumors for weeks, allows users to call their Facebook friends in a browser window, although it doesn't yet allow for group video chats. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though, said he "wouldn't rule anything out, but I also wouldn't undersell what we've rolled out today," he said, adding that the majority of video chatting online today is one to one. "As far as the Google stuff goes, I'm not going to say a lot about Google+ obviously."

While Google's "Hangouts" video calling feature is still being offered by invitation only, Facebook's chat application is up and running, and available to all of its 750 million users.

The quick public release of the software gives Facebook and Microsoft, which in May announced plans to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion, an opportunity to gain a step on the competition; while Google's "Hangouts" video calling feature is still being offered by invitation only, Facebook's chat application is up already and available to all of its 750 million users.

"We're using the best technology that's out there for doing video chat with the best social infrastructure that's out there in order to create some really cool new scenarios," Zuckerberg said.

For more:
- see this Skype blog post
- see this Bloomberg report

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