Okay Geek Farm
Hands On With Facebook Video Chat
Connor Scalleat
Facebook is launching a new feature which has been going around in the rumor mill for quite some time, and that is the long awaited Facebook Video Chat. Facebook has teamed up with Skype to allow users to video chat right in Facebook. Video chat with friends is not the only enhancement to Facebook’s chat feature, Facebook is also rolling out Group Chat. These features are now available (by enabling them) to all of Facebook’s 750 million members, in addition they will be rolling out as default over the next few weeks.
If you have been using Google+ recently or just have been drooling over the introduction videos because you can’t get an invite yet, you would understand that Google has a group video chat service called “Hangouts”. With Facebook’s newly added group chat ability it does not include group video calling thus meaning Google’s Hangouts still one up on Facebook. Although today during the live release of the product Facebook really put an emphasis on how easy it was to use, how easy it was to install, and obviously how many people are already on Facebook’s network really trying to drill to point out all the negatives of Google’s Hangouts.
How does it work?
How to start using Facebook Video Calling
- Visit the Video Calling page on Facebook
- Then click “Get Started”
- You will then be prompted to download Facebook’s video chatting software of which click agree to
- Once downloaded you can started video chatting with friends (as long as they have also enabled the feature)
- To video chat with friends you can either click the video camera icon in the chat dialogs, or click call on their profile pages (If the user is offline you can record a message for them)
Comments, roll out! — Let us know what you think of the new service!
