Facebook Video Chat v. Google Hangouts: It’s No Contest

One of the questions I had when I broke the news last week about the Facebook/Skype partnership: Would group video chat be part of the product, and if so would it be free? The answer is no , there's no group chat. Facebook says that one on one video chat is far more popular on Skype than group chat and so it makes sense to start there. But that's misdirection - group chat on Skype requires that at least one user be paying $4.49/month for premium service. So not a lot of group video chat happens on Skype. Google's new hangout product is all about group chat, and it's free. Up to ten people can use it at once. Google is smart about this, figuring out which person is talking and focusing the video stream on them until someone else takes over. If you want to have fun with a group of friends, or hold a dead simple video team call, Google Hangouts is perfect for that.