Facebook’s Group Chat & Skype Supported Video Calls Take on Google+
FaceBook’s promise of an ‘awesome’ announcement today didn’t leave Facebook fans disappointed. [1] Today Facebook rolled out its group chat feature and announced that a Skype enabled video chat feature will be available to everyone soon (though Facebook gives you a link if you want to use it now). Zuckerberg also confirmed that Facebook has passed 750 million users — though Facebook doesn’t see the point in counting anymore. The timing of this announcement comes on the heals of Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) release of Google+, which includes a Hangout feature that allows group video chat for up to 10 people. Facebook competes with Google, Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), AOL (NYSE:AOL) in the text and display advertising market as well as the search advertising market.
Although Google+ is still in beta phase, many users reckon that it can be a serious FaceBook competitor and Hangout is one of the most talked about unique features of Google+. [2] Microsoft with its $240 million investment in FaceBook in 2007 and with its purchase of Skype in May can be the link between Skype and FaceBook. [3]
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See details on Facebook’s own page.
We currently estimate Facebook’s intrinsic value at $45.1 billion. You can drag the trend line in the interactive chart above to see the potential impact on Facebook’s value
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