Facebook Brings Video Chat Into Mainstream

Some quick reactions to Facebook's announcement about incorporating video calling from Skype into the site:

• Andrew Tarantola, Gizmodo: "By integrating video calling directly into the Facebook experience they're able to drop this technology directly into the mainstream. You thought getting Friend Requests from your parents was a hassle? Then you're going to love explaining to your mom why you don't love her enough to accept her video chat requests."
• Verne G. Kopytoff, New York Times: "To a certain extent, Facebook is playing catch-up," writes Kopytoff, noting the recent launch of the Google+ feature Hangouts. "The new Facebook service does not allow for group video chats, for example. It also is not available on mobile phones, unlike Skype’s ordinary service."

• Fast Company: "Facebook's pushing it as being more simple, stripped down, easy to use than Google+'s Hangout (Only one-on-one for now, though) Stay tuned."
• Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch: "So why is this a big deal? Facebook emphasized the fact that users will not have to create new Skype accounts to make calls, and that this will allow users to call their friends and family with a very minimal amount of setup (the flow for installing the applet only took a few seconds)."

(More Facebook stories.)