Los Angeles — The tech industry is buzzing with what “awesome” new product the popular social media giant Facebook plans to unveil on Wednesday, but there is a good guesswork floating around that it will reportedly be unveiling a Skype-powered video chat platform.
Swooned by the intoxicated love-fest over Google+, Facebook is attempting to steal back its prominence with an “awesome” mystery announcement on Wednesday.
There is obviously a great deal of speculation encompassing what it might be, and that rumor is based on a report by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, who spoke with “a source with knowledge of the partnership.”
“Facebook will launch a new video chat product, powered by Skype, that works in browser,” writes Arrington. Also, Facebook’s Seattle team was behind the new feature, according to TechCrunch. Skype and Facebook already have a serious collaboration that incorporated Facebook social media data directly into the Skype client. Now it looks like Skype will be coming to Facebook.
However, the latest move suggests that Facebook members, already adapted with posting status updates and photographs, sharing news stories and sending messages via their profiles, would also be able to video chat live with other members, if the rumored service is true.
The report also states that the feature will “include a desktop component.” TechCrunch further states that Facebook and Skype have a history of product integration, including the ability to instant-message with Facebook friends from within the Skype client.
Though Arrington asserts that one thing is for certain: “there is a very deep integration between the products, and from the user’s perspective, the product will be an in browser experience.”
Besides, the timing of this release is pretty unusual, and the report is sparse on details about how it will work. Will it require a software download? Will it support group video chats? Undoubtedly it will be a major addition to the Facebook platform. Google+, the search engine giant’s answer to Facebook, unveiled recently, packed with a group video chat feature, Google+ Hangouts. Google is seeing a lot of traction with the feature, but if Facebook can release a video chat product next week, Google+ Hangouts may not seem as revolutionary.
Rumours about a collaboration between Facebook and Skype have revolved for several years without a finished product emerging. But this latest round of speculation is given credence by the fact that Facebook’s young founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced a major news conference for a new product this Wednesday.
Zuckerberg informed reporters that the company would “launch something awesome” that had been devised by the firm’s Seattle research engineering office. Predictions that this would involve video chat were also boosted by the fact that press invitations to the event were decorated with a small chat icon with a silhouette of a person in one of them. “Suddenly those chat icons in the invitation have a lot more meaning,” Arrington commented.
Another influential tech blog, Mashable, confirmed the story. “While Facebook and Skype are not saying anything officially, our sources confirm that Skype-powered video chat on Facebook will indeed be launching next week,” the website reported.