Video-chatting is not a new way of social activity, but both Google and Facebook have put a new twist on this old and familiar concept. We put Facebook powered by Skype and Google+ Hangouts in a head-to-head comparison.
While other video chat tools may have been built on top of Facebook’s application platform, this now comes out of the box for Facebook users, old and new. The result is that Facebook’s added yet another way for its 750 million users to communicate with one another.
But moving beyond the hype, the big thing you’re probably wondering is how this new service stacks up to the groovy video chat tools found in Google+, the social network Google recently launched as a Field-Trial. One of its crowning features, besides providing an alternative to Facebook, is that you can video chat with your friends in multiple ways. How do the two compare? The short of it is that Facebook is simpler to use. The longer answer is that you might be happier with Google in day-to-day use.
Facebook-Skype video calling
Facebook has added a video call item to every user profile to let you start a chat from that page. Users can launch video calling by visiting facebook.com/videocalling.( A step By Step guide on how to make video call on facebook is available Here). It is also accessible by opening a chat window with a friend, and clicking the camera icon at the top of the window, or by visiting a friend’s profile page, and clicking the new “call” button, which is located in the top right, between the “message” and “poke” buttons.
Once launched, you will have to download an application to run video chat. From our tests, the app downloaded quickly, and we were able to launch our first chat in a little less than one minute. Our test subject, who admitted to being less than knowledge with technology, said he found the download and start-up process easy and straightforward.
We experienced a few problems in the initial tests, however; specifically the person we called not being able to see us on webcam, with an error message saying that our camera wasn’t installed. After another couple of tries, the problem apparently fixed itself, and we were off and chatting. The quality of the video call was not very good, quite lower than the video call feature in GTalk.
Facebook also includes a number of other key features aside from the standard video calling, If the friend you try to call isn’t available, you can leave a video message for them when they return, a very important feature. A notification window will also tell you when you’ve missed a call.
Google+ Hangouts
Pretty much the same deal as on Facebook with regards to the plug-in aspect. The big difference is in where Google surfaces the video chat option. Unlike Facebook’s one-on-one video calling feature, Hangouts in Google+ allows for group video chats. So the two features are actually entirely different creatures. Another necessary fact that must be pointed out is that Google+ has only been live for one week, and is still in invite-only testing mode.
Because Hangouts are meant for groups of up to 10 people, launching a video chatroom which is what a Hangout is and it’s much more casual and passive than Facebook video chat, which is more like a regular telephone call between two people who have a particular reason for communicating.
To start a Hangout, you simply click the green “Start a Hangout” button that appears on the right side of the Google+ homescreen. Like Facebook Skype, Hangouts launches in a separate window from the rest of the browser. It also requires a plug-in download, which is the same as the plug-in needed for GTalk video calls, so if you’ve already done that, you don’t need any other additional software.
Once in a Hangout, users appear in a row at the bottom of the window. Whoever is talking at a particular moment is automatically placed in the large center display. In addition to standard video chatting (with multiple people), Hangout members can also play YouTube videos on-screen and watch them together, an impressively cool feature. Text chatting is also an option, and those in the chat can invite more users directly from the Hangout window.
Conclusion
For all around ease of use, Facebook gets a definite edge when it comes to simplicity and Socialization. It’s obvious where to access the feature from user chats and user profiles alike, and you can get a video chat up and running with someone else in less than a minute.
If you want more bells and whistles, then Google’s video chat efforts in Google+ beat Facebook’s handily. Google’s offering users a system that is completely familiar if you’re used other Google products like Gmail and iGoogle, and a much more advanced group chat option with the hangouts feature.
So to answer the original question of which one to use, the answer depends on who you want to talk to. Ultimately video chatting is all about getting in touch with someone else in a way that’s technologically convenient for both of you. Right now the simple truth is that Facebook’s made that easier. It has more than 750 million users, any of whom with a Web cam can now talk to one another across the digital globe.
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