From CNET: Video chat has become a great way for people to communicate with friends and family, especially across international borders. Facebook now wants a piece of that action.
Facebook users can soon use the social network's Messenger app to talk face-to-face over Wi-Fi or cellular networks, simply by tapping on a video camera icon at the top. The service will work between Apple devices and those powered by Google's Android software.
Facebook thinks its Messenger video chat has an edge over competitors -- including FaceTime from Apple, Hangouts from Google and Skype from Microsoft -- because it lets users spontaneously switch from texting to video.
"Everything starts from texting," said Stan Chudnovsky, head of product for Facebook's messaging efforts.
Facebook wants to become more than a site where people share their vacation pictures or the latest cat video. One way it plans to do that is with text messaging, where Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has invested considerable resources. Last year, Facebook spent more than $19 billion to buy WhatsApp, a separate messaging app that has become popular in part because it helped people subvert expensive text-messaging costs on cellular phones. The service now has more than 800 million active users around the world.
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