Voice of Objectivity: Skype On Facebook Really Is “Awesome”

Voice of Objectivity is an ongoing column meant to temper the tendency of the Techcited to run away with the most exciting or controversial ideas in technology’s near future. The opinions presented here do not necessarily represent the views of Techcitement or this writer. Someone’s got to keep a cool head around here. I guess I’ll just have to pretend it’s me.

Image courtesy of CNN

Last week’s announcementthat Facebook would integrate Skype video chat left many commentators underwhelmed. Mark Zuckerberg had set the bar artificially high when he announced that “something awesome” would be released at Wednesday’s press conference. Then he managed to disappoint on-site reporters and some 50,000 live-stream viewers before he even got to the announcement, with a lecture on exponential growth that included phrases like “log normalized graph”. He topped it all off with a Skype partnership that brought nothing new in the way of unique or innovative technology to the table.

The launch of one-on-one video chat would not have been terribly exciting last week even without the high expectations. It is, after all, an old trick. Skype has had it available through their own client for ages, and Google voice and video chat has been providing Gmail users with a similar type of browser-based chat for nearly three years. This year, companies are far more likely to announce group video chat, whether you’re talking about upstarts like Oovoo or major players Skype themselves. Google+, a direct Facebook competitor that’s barely two weeks old, launched with Hangouts, which allows up to a 10-way video chat.

Photo by Arcius, Flickr.com

So, why would Zuckerberg raise the stakes so high on such a low-thrill announcement? Why run an event that left the impression he was attempting to be Steve Jobs, when his announcement didn’t really justify any more fanfare than a press release? The answer may surprise many of his naysayers: he was right, Skype video chat on Facebook is awesome.

True, it’s not as eye-catching as Hangouts, and the design isn’t particularly unique. But Facebook has one advantage that none of its competitors have, and that’s scale. With 750 million active users, Facebook has more connections available than any other chat option on earth, nearly four times as many as Gmail’s estimated 200 million monthly visitors or even the 650 million registered users of Skype, the world’s largest international voice carrier. You don’t need to know a user’s email address or account username, either. You can chat on Facebook with any of your friends, just by using their real name. If your grandparents can get online at all, they can figure it out.

The power of Facebook’s new Skype partnership doesn’t lie in advanced features or an exciting new interface. It lies in the simplicity of its use and the enormous reach that Facebook provides it. That may not deserve an overblown announcement or a major press conference, but it seems nearly certain to change where people go for video chat.