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Facebook To Launch In-Browser Video Chat With Skype
tekgoblin writes "Facebook will be launching a new in-browser video chat application. 'The product has been built on Skype and will include a desktop component. It’s not clear to me whether that means it will just work if a user has Skype already installed on the computer, or if additional software will need to be downloaded even if the user already uses Skype. But it’s clear that there’s very deep integration between the products, and from the user’s perspective, the product will be an in-browser experience.'"
Moves like this, making their site more clunky are what is going to drive people to Google+. When Facebook started they were lean and mean (at least compared to MySpace). They seem to have forgotten this philosophy of simplicity and are simply trying to cram as many bells and whistles as they can into their site.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Google isn't really a competitor to Facebook. However, Facebook is a competitor to Google, as now people spend lots of time on Facebook and find all kinds of interesting links and stuff there, and maybe even use Facebook's search instead of Google. (yes, I know we techies don't do that, but we're a minority)
What comes to Google+, it's quite far from competitor to Facebook. It just misses so much stuff. There isn't any of those games, apps, fan pages, events.. Maybe some of them will be added to Google+, but on their basic idea of circles I don't think they will do games, apps and (fan) pages. Events and calendar, sure. But don't underestimate those apps on pages on Facebook. Normal people love them. So Facebook and Google+ will probably run side to side, serving slightly different purposes for different people. Just like Facebook and LinkedIn are doing now.