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Facebook Announces Video Calling With Skype
An anonymous reader writes "As rumored and anticipated, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced video calling, powered by Skype. The company also revealed other chat improvements, including an option to see the friends you message most and group chat, and confirmed that it now has 750 million users."
Absolutely unprecedented. I'm shocked. Did ANYONE see this coming?
I should have been a girl, with the way I can dance... my moves are amazing!
...and the Facebook bashing begin!
They should have announced real privacy controls, and a google+ circle clone. Instead they've added an unnecessary feature designed to distract people from their true problems. Right now they have an approval rating slightly better than the IRS. I suspect that the stated 750 million users will be their high point, and it's all MySpace from here on out.
Yay, now I'll have a bunch of relatives trying to videochat me like they try to chat me now. And I'll get to spend even more time explaining why I couldn't answer (or didn't want to).
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I'm glad I stayed out of Facebook (not that it ever held any interest to me in the first place), I'm glad I stayed away from Skype before it got gobbled up by Microsoft and made to go to bed with Facebook (who needs super secret telephony protocols when SIP is around), and therefore I'm doubly glad none of my personal information is on any of Zuckerberg's or Balmer's servers.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Bound to be a setting which allows Facebook to turn on my camera without my knowledge.
Now I can not only know what a bunch of people I don't care about are doing everyday, I can also video chat with a bunch of people I don't care about!!!
giggity
That's the question. How does Skype scale? I personally do not trust this peer to peer set-up from Skype.
Try engaging more than 7 people in a video chat to see what I mean.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm really not impressed since it still requires software to be installed on the desktop. I guess it's removing a step by not making me launch skype, but I'd be really impressed if it was purely browser based like the new google solutions just announced.
What's Facebook?
Annoys me when I get a unwanted chat message on Facebook. I want to completely disable the chat feature but there is no way that I know of. I can sign out of chat but that won't stop Facebook from automatically signing me back in later. The last thing I want is video chat requests popping up in my browser.. ugh
Group chat has been something that other apps have provided on facebook for over 4 years, nothing new here, just move along. As for video chat, that hasn't been in Google Talk and Skype for a very long time, has it? It's interesting to see confirmation that facebook is actually teaming up with Microsoft, the new owners of Skype. Maybe this is how M$ will try to make themselves relevant again, other than by being a patent troll.
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
Now instead of launching Skype to video chat, I can log into Facebook and then launch Skype to video chat.
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"To be honest I rather use MSN Messenger with my girlfriend"
What a loser.
Google out socialed Facebook with Hangout - it allows simultaneous video chat with multiple people and allows the group to watch a YouTube video and will probably soon allow sharing of stills and allow collaborative drawing or document editing, too.
Facebook's repost here is a feature that Google integrated into its chat product long ago. Maybe this explains Mark's obvious chagrin in his Google+ profile picture.
Hey, how's it going?
I'm not saying I was an early adopter ... especially here on slashdot ... but I was chatting in a browser a year or two ago with Google Chat ...
Seems more or less that this is exactly the same thing.
Google had the initial perceived advantage that I could just get any video capable XMPP client to work with it ... which of course isn't the case since no one follows any standard when it comes to video so there really is no difference, except this is way later, by someone I trust even less than Google with my personal data, and someone who I trust completely to intentionally fuck up the implementation resulting in data being available to those who shouldn't see it.
Not that Google did browser based video first or anything ... not like we weren't dicking around and 'webchatting' in the late 90s or anything either.
You know why no one knows that anyone with a web cam and some software could do this any time in the last 10 years? Because, as it turns out, just because you CAN video chat with your 'friends' ... doesn't mean you actually want to or have a use for this ability. Sure, some people do, but lets just be realistic, as cool as it looks on TV, no one ACTUALLY wants to video chat on a regular basis. Hell most people SMS rather than just calling someone on the phone if possible. I predict people (in general) would rather spend 15 minutes texting than 7 on the phone, 3 in a video chat.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I kindly ask the moderators to promote to "+5 informative" the first post which provides comprehensive instructions on how to fully opt-out of these new "features".
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
When do we get the new Slashdot feature to block all 'I don't use Facebook because it's stupid / don't have any friends I want to connect with / whatever other high-horse reason' posts so you can actually discuss new relevant to one of the largest online applications in the world?
Now I'll get to see live video of those tasty sandwiches my friends are enjoying - no more of this boring still photo crap!
#DeleteChrome
...how is this any better than using Skype separately? Are we so lazy and dependent that we need video chat integrated into Facebook as well? Now we have to put up with all the hassles of the integration (privacy, more layout changes). Just great.
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
All Facebook has done is bolt Skype's desktop client onto their old Facebook webpage. You actually are forced to download and install the Skype software the first time you try to video chat with someone on Facebook.
You might as well just use the existing Skype desktop client instead of this hack.
This desperate response from Facebook is not in the same league as Google+:
Facebook with Skype bolted on:
* Only 1 on 1
* Clunky first time external software instillation
Google+:
* Up to ten person group chat
* Works on any platform
* Seamless operation - it just works. No clunky external software instillation
* Group video/youtube watching sessions
When you try to use the video calling feature, it pops a .EXE file download. I guess they expect everyone to be using Micro$oft products. They kind of left that out of the discussion.... Would have been a better solution had they just used html5 or flash video.
I'm sorry to say. The relevant pictures, info, and articles I see, along with very nice comment system on G+, and not forgetting the ability to easily filter out morons is quite an innovation. It has to be said and Facebook can't compete on that either.
People have been trying to make video chat popular for YEARS. Every single major comms player since about 1980 has tried to make it into something more than a niche for pervs and loons, and failed - miserably.
The latest flogging of the dead horse of video for interpersonal comms was Apple with Facetime. Flop.* Or at least, everyone I know has iPhone 4s and iPad 2's - they all used Facetime once, and concluded as bazillions of people have concluded down the years, that it was awkward, distracting and just downright useless.
Think about it: you do not open a comms channel in whatever medium and think "You know, I just WISH I could see their faces."
Let's see if FB can make it work. I give it 10,000:1 on past history.
* Cue people making up technical reasons why it was a flop. But they are wrong. The reasons are human. Non-technical. You don't want to talk up somebody's nose, or see them looking away from you, or get fixated on trying to work out if you are on the toilet on not.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
All those "eNgineeRs" and they came up with this! FB is definitely worth a 100 Billion+ $$'s !!!
It took thousands of highly-skilled engineers millions of man-hours to piggy-back on someone else's product in such an non-innovative way!
Is it for people who are too lazy to use skype alone or the millions of pluggins already available for their browsers?
I kindly ask the moderators to promote to "+5 informative" the first post which provides comprehensive instructions on how to fully opt-out of these new "features".
Don't. Click. Accept. On. Incoming. Video Calls. Solved.
Now that Microsoft's having their Partner Banquet with Microsoft you won't have to worry about it much longer. Pretty soon Zuckerberg's going to find Facebook isn't a guest at the banquet - it's the main dish. It is always this way. Over and over and over these stupid companies do this and it always ends the same way.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
goodbye facebook, i hardly liked you. now i hate you.
Normally I don't rag on Facebook for privacy...but they have to have video chat, and choose the ONE company determined to make Law Enforcement's wet dream of total VOIP surveillance even in retroactivity a reality. FB is probably working with them to automatically transcribe your calls so that ads can be targeted at you based on what you talk about with relatives. I am deeply disappointed.
It's not like I have anything to hide really, but I don't understand why the trend went from the "anonymous" internet to "Hey, everybody can see my personal phone number and address! Look at the fetishes I have and guess who I'm cheating with!" I don't even really see the purpose of putting Skype video chat into Facebook other than mashing together your contact lists - you know so now people you barely know over the internet who once wrote on your wall can just up and video chat with you. Seriously, this whole Facebook thing is beyond me and I can't wait until the trend of letting everybody know everything about you and what you think dies.
Does anybody know if Skype will be sharing any data with Facebook? You know, because I've been doing my best to make sure Facebook knows absolutely nothing about me and I'm a Skype user.