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Facebook announced its much talked about video-chat feature in partnership with Skype earlier today. Facebook also announced  a group chat feature that allows you add friends to a particuar chat. This feature is clearly competition for the Hangouts feature in Google+. The difference between them is public Hangouts can be created so you can have loads of people who have never met before discussing a topic. Facebook Video chat remains between you and your friends. We can’t really say much Google+ since we haven’t gotten an invite yet.:P. This short video from Facebook introduces the feature:

HOW TO GET IT

Click the ‘Get Started’ button at  http://facebook.com/videocalling

A camera-like icon will be immediately added to your chat.

Click the Camera icon to start video chat. You’ll be asked if you want to setup video calling. Click ‘Set Up’

A small pop-up comes in asking you to download a program ‘FacebookVideoCallSetup.exe’. Download that program and Open it. The program will connect to the internet and download a plugin(Took me about 15minutes to do this, No thanks to starcomms and their self-disconnect modems).

After the plugin installs, all you have to do is click the afore-mentioned Camera icon during chat to activate the video call. Here Dunni called me and I clicked ‘Answer video call’ to talk to him

And this is him, showing off his iPhone 4(:P)

To end a call, all you have to do is close the window by clicking the ‘X’. You can also minimize and enlarge to fullscreen.

Also, if someone calls you and you don’t pick their call, or you’re offline facebook allows them leave you a video message

Facebook’s video chat seems easy to use and not so difficult to set up. So head over to facebook, set it up and tell us what you think.

Binjo

Binjo is passionate about(some say he's obsessed with) technology and the web. . In his spare time, Binjo runs UP NEPA! Where he blogs on a wide range of issues. Circle Him on Google+

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