Catching Up With Google+, Facebook to Debut Skype-Powered Video Chat

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington, the go-to guy for leaking product details to build buzz previously a launch, reports that the “awesome” announcement Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been talking about since the introduction of Google’s latest stab at a social network revolves around the introduction of video chat, filling out the missing component of Messages’ social hub.

It’s amazing the way symbiosis appears in the face of a common enemy: Facebook is Microsoft’s last hope in making a dent in Google’s search dominance through integration of its social data into the Bing search engine and now Microsoft wields the weapon Facebook needs to fend off Google’s rival social network.

Facebook and Skype have been integrating innovation for a during now, and it seems Messages’ video chat feature will have a desktop component, allowing users to chat with Facebook friends without being the site. Clearly, I can chat with my Facebook friends and send messages via my social browser Rockmelt without having to go to the site. I wonder if any of the $30 million in funding the company just scored will go toward integrating video into the chat function.

It’s a sweet deal for Facebook as long as Microsoft doesn’t break Skype first — reports of the network going down seem to be more frequent since the acquisition. More important, Facebook is quickly closing the gap between its offering and Google+ — as before long as Facebook introduces a better friend-arranging tool, the rival social services will be judged on their merits.

Google+ side note

On a Google+ side note, some media people have been having Buzz flashbacks as Social SVP Vic Gundrota admitted that the social network isn’t quite ready for prime time, nevertheless it was pretty smart to soft launch Google+ in the summer right previously a holiday. Across most of the United States, it’s too hot and sunny to think about work and minds were already turned off prior to a three-day Independence weekend — what better way to kill some time than trying out this new Google toy?