With last week’s launch of Google Plus, Facebook has been unceremoniously dumped from the headlines in favour of the new kid on the social networking block. But at 6pm GMT yesterday, Mark Zuckerburg launched the Facebook fightback by announcing the release of a new video-call service.
Google Plus’ USPs appear to be their video conferencing system, and a way of organising contacts into Twitter List-style “Circles”. But thanks to their recent acquisition of Skype, Facebook have pulled the rug from under the first of those unique offerings.
Facebook video chat will be available to over 750 million users, and will allow any two people to have a face-to-face discussion. However, before you get overexcited at the prospect, it’s worth noting that Google Plus already allows group video calls.
Regardless of who does it better, social video conferencing could give businesses a whole new way of talking to customers. It’s now free to contact any of the people who follow your business’ Facebook page, assuming you have a webcam and microphone. And because it’s free, we expect to see many more companies offering video chat as an alternative to phone calls and face-to-face meetings. Whether they do, only time will tell.
The launch of video chat isn’t the only thing that suggests Facebook are taking Google Plus seriously. Earlier this week, Facebook moved to close down a “contact exporter” that would let people move their contacts and network over to Google Plus with a few clicks.
This contest could run and run.
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