In one of the most unsurprising announcements of recent weeks, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook will be launching a host of new features, including a new video messaging service powered by Skype. At face value, this may appear to be a direct response to Google+ and the ‘Hangout’ video messaging service that they offer. However, at the moment, the two products really don’t show much overlap in terms of purpose.
‘Hangouts’ is a group video messaging service, and it really doesn’t handle one-on-one messaging particularly well. It is designed to encourage group chat by letting other members of a particular ‘Circle’ know that you want to take part in a video messaging meeting with them. The new Facebook Chat doesn’t even have a group messaging function (not yet anyway), and its singular purpose is currently to offer a video messaging service between two Facebook friends. However, this is probably because the service is powered by Skype, and group video messaging is only available on Skype directly via a premium package that requires a subscription – and charging for a Facebook service would be a suicidal move for the social network giants in the current climate.
While this has very little direct impact on search engine optimisation, or other forms of internet marketing, it is still interesting to see how Facebook are responding to the launch of Google+. While the prospect of a Mexican Standoff between two of the biggest brands in the world would be an intriguing proposition, I highly doubt that either company would favour such foolishness. While Google+ does seem to be gaining traction, people have pointed out flaws in the ‘Circles’ model that they are using:
Also, Facebook’s alliance with Microsoft and their products (which include Skype), seems to strengthen their grip on the social media market. Other features that were included were an ad hoc group chat feature that lets users create a group chat without first joining a group. There was also a new design layout that improves the appearance of Facebook when users are chatting with friends.
This is the first response that Facebook have made to Google+, and it seems to be very measured and well judged. The logic behind the new features is sound – they are building social apps on top of an already social infrastructure – and they cleverly played down the angle that this was a direct response to the search engine giant’s new social network. I’m sure this saga is going to run for a long time, so stick with us to get an ’s view of breaking news in the internet world.
