New Facebook Features

[Cory]

The social network has tapped Skype for video chat. The partnership will also enable users to import their news feed, send instant messages, comment, and "like" all within Skype.

Facebook is holding another one of its news briefings Wednesday and we'll there to bring you the news, live from the company's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters.

So far there have been murmurs of the company cooking up a number of products, from tablet apps, to new photo-sharing and music-listening services. More recently there's even been talk of video chat service powered by Skype, which Microsoft (a Facebook investor) recently paid $8.5 billion for in a deal back in May.

Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Reuters last week that the company was planning to "launch something awesome" at the event. Whatever it is comes from a 40-person development group from the company's offices in downtown Seattle.

In a post last week, TechCrunch said the company plans to introduce a video chat feature for its existing chat service that's powered by Skype and will work from within the browser. The report noted that feature will "include a desktop component," opening up the possibility of closer ties with Skype's desktop software and VoIP services.

There's also the possibility Facebook's news could be tablet-focused. A report in The New York Times last month claimed that Facebook was cooking up a native application for tablets, something the company's held off on so far. That app, which is said to feature overhauled chats and groups features, along with photo and video uploading, has reportedly been in development for more than a year and is in its final stages of testing, sources told the news outlet.

On the flip side of that Times report is one from TechCrunch, just a day later, with details of something called "Project Spartan." That product was said to be an HTML5 overhaul of Facebook aimed at phones and tablets that cuts out the need for native applications, while letting developers bring their Web apps to iPad users through the browser.

And then there's music, which could be the big wild card. A report from GigaOm last month said that Facebook was hard at work behind the scenes to partner with music services, including Spotify, to better integrate music players into the Facebook experience. CNET last week reported that Facebook and Spotify were in talks about integrating the popular music service when it finally arrives in the U.S.

As usual, we'll be using Cover it Live to bring you updates and photos from the event. You can bookmark this page and come back to it Wednesday morning, or sign up to get an e-mail reminder just ahead of the live blog's launch. The event starts at 10 a.m. PT sharp.

Note: If you plan to watch the live blog from an iOS device or any other mobile browser, make sure you have JavaScript enabled. On iOS you can find that toggle in Settings > Safari. On Android, the setting can be toggled within the native browser's settings menu.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-...#ixzz1RLm5vLWB

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-...or-video-chat/

• Group Chat
• New Design
• Video Calling via Skype
  
  • Download Plugin: http://www.facebook.com/videocalling

Works on most common browsers as well as Google Chrome.

Personally, Google has already accomplished this with Google Video/Talk plugin...so with them already re-branding a few products to integrate into Google+, I'm sure this will as well.

Cory Reviewed by Cory on 6th Jul 2011. New Facebook Features Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-20076874-2/facebook-taps-skype-for-video-chat/ Group Chat New Design Video Calling via Skype Download Plugin: http://www.facebook.com/videocalling Rating: 5

[maloxi]

i banned facebook.com from my laptop browsers

[ShareShiz]

seems like nothing interesting. looks like google came out with some great stuff and then facebook got all butthurt over it

[iMage]

ya there is a live video feed w Q&A going on right now about this

[Froomple]

Not even worth the wait...
Cant imagine they made us anticipate so much for this shit..
lol

[Cory]

ya there is a live video feed w Q&A going on right now about this

It's over...

Added Screenshot.

[Carbon]

Din't notice it in the first post

Anyways, Hangouts are much much better than what fb introduced

[Mr.Host]

Someone can use Skype for video Calling without integrating this feature with facebook.

[Mr Happy]

it fails



It's only one person to one person while Google can have upto 10. The problem is to have a Group Video chat on Skype one of the people has to be a premium users and pay money. Nobody likes to pay money so until Skype remove the payment and allow Facebook Group chat it won't be as Good as Google. One think Facebook do have that is good is one click call. Google should put a call button on people's profiles. It's not that big and would result in one less button to click to contact someone.

[BlackWater]

I guess Facebook will start giving money to keep the users using their website