July 12th, 2011 Facebook and Skype Launched Video chat

Chat has appeared in Facebook social network. Administration of recource announced about this launch on Wednesday, July 6, on a special event at the headquarters of Facebook in Palo Alto, California.

Videochat runs inside a browser, but before the communication, you must install a special add-on.

Video chat is integrated with Facebook text chat. You can make video calls to people from your friends list. To start the call, click on the icon with a video camera in the top of the text chat or go to the user’s page and click “Call” button.

Facebook promises that video call feature will be available to all users of social networking “in the coming weeks.”

Facebook has launched video calling, in cooperation with Internet telephony service Skype. The rumors that Skype and Facebook are preparing a joint project, appeared in early July. Information was indirectly confirmed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who told reporters that Facebook is preparing to launch “corker”.

The function of video calls, as well as group chat, is also avaialble at Google + social network, which was founded on June 28.

In Skype group calls are available only for users with paid accounts.

News about Skype purchase by Microsoft was announced in May. It is expected that Microsoft will get ownership of Skype in 2011. It is known that Facebook was interested in Skype purchase.