Facebook adds video Calling, Group Chat - InformationWeek

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Slide show: Top 15 Facebook Apps for BusinessFacebook wants to make it easier for users to see the faces of the other. The company, as expected, brought integrated video calling, Group Chat with a new design of the chat interface.

Facebook video call, powered by a compact plug-in Skype allows users to start a video chat with another session with just two clicks. Because the plug-in is downloaded on demand, with a single authorisation application, users can launch video calls and recipients can respond without preinstallation software Skype.

This approach eliminates a traditional obstacle to the growth and adoption of software services, on the Web and the desktop - the need to install and maintain software.

"The majority of users don't want to take the time to configure this stuff themselves," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to the Group of journalists who had come to the headquarters of Facebook in Palo Alto, California, to see what had been billed as the introduction of the "amazing thing."

Apple has learned the lesson of ease of installation, first with the iTunes App Store and, more recently, with its Mac App Store, and the rest of the industry is running with the idea. Google has made the promotion of the automatic updates to the browser Chrome and its cloud-based applications have reinforced the notion that the software itself, manages with a minimal user intervention.

"We will see, in General, the philosophy of Apple that it-just-works and you do not need to know why," said analyst Gartner Michael Gartenberg in a telephone interview. "The care of the users on les features;" They Don't care about technology. »

New ability to Chat group Facebook adheres to this philosophy: it's simple and some to be appreciated by Facebook users, who can now gather into groups and discuss among themselves.

Ease of use, however, only extends until you touch the walls of the vendors: Facebook video call service can not connect Google or Apple, a situation reminiscent of the balkanized world of instant messaging software.

During the press conference, Zuckerberg faced the inevitable question about recently launched Google + Google social network. Asked what he thought of the chat service Google convocations multi-person video and responded in a way that some described as defensive.

"Today, we're individual [video chat]," Zuckerberg said, as if to suggest chat may be released in the future. "I rule nothing out," he said about the possibility of cat multi-person video. "But I wouldn't also decrease the importance of what we have today.". The vast majority of the video chat is individual cat. I think it's super awesome. »

What Zuckerberg explained was that Skype offers multi-person video chat through its desktop software as a service premium for $4.49 per month to the United States.

"Also beyond the Google stuff goes, I will not say much on Google, more we all just spent a little time on the service," he added, concluding that the growing interest in applications social valid his point of view on social networks, transforming the social infrastructure.

In its preamble for the launch of products, Zuckerberg outlines its vision of the where social networks are directed. He said that the success of social networks over the next five years will be measured not by the growth of the user, but by the applications developed at the top of the now mature social infrastructure. Otherwise put, this is what is built on the platform, at least until that Facebook public goes: the yardstick will be advertising revenues.

Insistence of the Zuckerberg that his company's success should be measured in a new way to sense: having reached 750 million users in seven years, Facebook can count approximately one-third of Internet users in the world as account holders. Get another 750 million is not likely to occur as quickly.

Gartenberg said Facebook with Skype partnership shows that it is much more social networking that update your status and share photos. "It shows that the stakes are high," he said. "This really helps extend Skype as a social network as such".

And, by extension, it contributes to Microsoft, which is acquiring Skype.

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Can Google + dethrone Facebook? -Computerworld

Computerworld - what it take to bring down a giant online?

That is what Google has been asking itself on social networking rival Facebook.

On Tuesday, months of speculation about the question of whether Google is working on its own social network was placed at rest when the company revealed the Google project. The new service, which reflects in good measure Facebook, allows users to view updates of status, upload photos and share links - just as people do on Facebook. It could also do appeal to users of the company.

The big question is whether Google can sing song of a siren enough soft to attract users, who tend to be creatures, from largest social network of the world.

"It is no doubt this is going to be a difficult ascent for Google, said Brad Shimmin, an analyst with CurrentAnalysis." "" Google has been very good to respond to what consumers want in the market. "But Google has a way to go."

In fact, since Google is from square one, he has a very long way to go.

Last summer, Facebook announced that the social network has a billion users worldwide, making it easily the largest social network in the world. The company has not published a more recent update, but various sources say that the number of Facebook users is now close to 750 million users.

And now, the company, with six people on the Forbes billionaires list, is used by the FBI in the hunt for the fugitives and serves as a lifeline for people who are struggling with a tsunami, tornadoes and other disasters.

This is not to mention the hundreds of millions of people taking to Facebook just to tell friends and family on their last trip to the beach, download their cats sleep videos or images of their children in Halloween costumes.

Because Facebook has become the go - to social networking site, it may be difficult for Google convince people to add another social network to their list of sites to check all days - or toss Facebook cancel entirely to Google +.

An obstacle: that will go with Google + when not many people still use? Social networks are not all the fun when you are almost alone.

"I think it's a long shot," said Ezra Gottheil, analyst with technology Business Research. "It is not so much that people's time is fully occupied by Facebook.". There are always some attrition. It's just that organic growth which requires all new social network will be very difficult... How gather you a mass critical without being first there all by yourself? »

The good news for Google is that Myspace was once top dog in what was then the social sphere brand-new networking. Then Facebook is come and reversed, leaving behind a has been online.

"Google has a gun, but only because they are Google and have a lot of power market," said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. "They cannot be counted out." But it will be very difficult and they are going to need a bit of luck. Facebook is massive and very well established and Google did not have to fight by behind during a long period. Can they still do it?

Olds suspected also that Facebook makes it easy for users to move seamlessly between the two social networks. That help because of Google, but will consolidate some Facebook users.

"People have enough time to another social network?" asked Olds. "We will see, I guess." But it seems if anyone could take on Facebook, it would be to Google.

Sharon gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technology and chips and laptops for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @ sgaudin or subscribe flow RSS of Sharon . His e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

Read more on Web 2.0 and Web applications in the Computerworld Web 2.0 and Web Apps topic Center.

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Google + faces uphill climb vs Facebook - msnbc.com

Many people is on Facebook. How they are going to pass? It will have to be large enough.

It was the reaction of some members of Facebook-addicted to my family that read us the blog post and watched videos Announces Google + today (last) moving to the social networking giant research.

The functionality of Google + look interesting, offering a fee take on social networks, at least. Circles is a way to Group friends and family members into specific categories for easy sharing. Sparks is an "online sharing engine" that delivers content on specific topics to sharing with specific groups of friends. And "Convocation" will bring a degree of spontaneity of multi-person videoconferencing.

(For more details on Google +, click here.)

But the most important feature of any social network users themselves. And with more than 600 million of them, Facebook has a huge - and perhaps insurmountable - ahead on this front.

Of course, Google has many users itself, including 65% of the search market to the United States and a percentage even more important in some countries overseas.

But keep in mind the news last week that the Federal Trade Commission of United States has launched an antitrust investigation on giant research, have been emphasizing that Google has unfairly used its dominant position in the Internet search company for its own products to those of its rivals.

We have worked on some new stuff to share on the web more as sharing in real life. Just check the first five features of Google + plus.google.com.

It is not illegal for a company to hold a dominant position on a market. It is illegal for a company to use its dominant position to give an unfair advantage in other markets.

Which probably goes too far on this point. Google + is just begin its public launch as an essay on invitation only land and videos and preview, published by the society provides only an overview of what the ultimate experience will be in the long term. But no doubt the FTC will be watching closely to see how Google integrates elements of Google + basic research experience and connects users to Google search.

Along these lines, it is significant that Google is called a "project" rather than a product. Danny Sullivan of search engine land explains that the idea is to "Google itself more social rather than a stand-alone social network to Facebook."

That sounds familiar, it is not? Internet Explorer is a web browser or a feature of Windows?

Then, Facebook is no Netscape.

And Facebook is not easily renounced its giant customer base. As explained by Steven Levy of Wired at the end of the piece of mammoth on the Google project +, Facebook declined until now to create a mechanism to allow users to export their connections Facebook Google +. A Google Executive said Levy that Facebook is open to it, but also "fear that we are trying to kill them."

That can go too far, as well. Ultimately, the initial reaction of my family will be probably true: to save our time and attention to Facebook, this Google thing + will have to be large enough.

And all our friends will have to think, too.

Todd Bishop of GeekWire follow on Twitter and Facebook, at least until what it gets in this field test.

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