1:11 PM
indigo
Facebook adds Skype video chat feature
As expected, the “awesome” product launch hinted at by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week turned out to be the incorporation of Skype video chat into its social network.
Today’s declaration also brought the attention back to Facebook, after Google Inc. has hogged the social media attention for the last week.Facebook's new chat feature will show up on the site as a "call" button at the top of users' profile pages. By clicking that button or finding someone in a new "buddy list" sidebar, Facebook users can talk to each other via webcams. The company began turning that service on for millions of users on Wednesday and will add it to more accounts over time.
Facebook engineer Philip Su said at the news conference here. The Seattle programmer was Facebook's only full-time engineer working on development, along with Skype, a Facebook spokeswoman said.Facebook also introduced a change to its instant-messaging service to allow people to perform group chat.
One takeaway from the press event that did, indeed, sound “awesome:” Facebook now has 750 million users.
