S&P 500
7,322.40
+0.63%
Dow Jones
49,749.90
+0.87%
Nasdaq 100
28,416.80
+1.07%
Russell 2000
2,888.82
+1.66%
FTSE 100
10,430.20
+1.61%
Nikkei 225
62,037.50
+2.17%

Technology

Video Chat, An Old Technology, Makes It To Facebook

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

The press has given the joint venture between Facebook and Skype to deliver video chat a large amount of coverage. Facebook Video Calling does not offer anything new. Skype has had video links between customers since 2006, when the company licensed On2 Technology’s video compression software. On2 in now part of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). Skype has 170 million users. All they need is a cheap video camera to use the service.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) promotes its two-way video product which works on the iPhone and iPad. Tens of millions of people who have the Apple hardware can “see” one another with just a click.

AOL (NYSE: AOL) is supposed to launch a video chat product soon. Some versions of its AIM product, used by tens of millions of people, have video capacity. The same holds true for other IM providers such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).

The Facebook announcement shows how companies can make the old seem new again. Video phone calls were available with expensive phone sets in the 1970s. The products never caught on because too many people could not afford them. But, the technology was in place nonetheless.

The Facebook/Skype video chat feature may not do very well. It is the latest in a long line of very similar offerings. Facebook may have 750 million users. Among Skype, AOL, MSN and Apple there may be nearly that many people who can “talk” to one another in living color already.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Latest Podcast Episode

Breaking Down A Historic Run, A New Portfolio Buy, And A Recent Recommendation Already Up 217%

Play

48 min
Apple Podcasts Spotify

Continue Reading

Trey Thoelcke |

This Is Why Microsoft Bought Skype

Microsoft paid approximately $8.5 million in cash for Skype, which had many media pundits wondering why it would pay so…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Skype: Taking Junk Public

eBay (EBAY) announced that it would do an IPO of its Skype internet phone business. According to eBay’s CEO John…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

The Ten Huge Networks Hackers Will Target Next

The Sony PlayStation Network hack apparently exposed personal information, including credit card data, for 77 million people. It is a…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Skype Service Hits Benchmark Two Billion Minutes a Day

ThinkstockInternet telephone giant and pioneer Skype announced that members spend two billion minutes a day using its video chat service. The…
Whatever Happened to Skype?
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Whatever Happened to Skype?

Skype, the revolutionary free video call service, is still here, although it rarely gets discussed as a primary means to…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Facebook, Skype, And The End Of The Phone Company

There are rumors that Skype, the Voice over Internet Protocol service, and social network Facebook may join forces. Each has…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

The Cost Of Phone Calls Is Headed Toward Zero

Skype, which offers free voice calls from PC-to-PC and cheap calls from phones has about 400 million subscribers. More than…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Will Skype Lose Its Charm As It Starts To Charge For 3G Calls?

Skype, the pioneering VoIP company, says people have downloaded five million of its apps on Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhones. Skype…
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Microsoft: The World’s Newest Phone Company

It would have been hard to imagine just a year ago that Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) growth engine would be the…

Top Gaining Stocks

Waters
WAT • Vol: 2,131,048
Intel
INTC • Vol: 198,362,091
Akamai
AKAM • Vol: 8,677,900
Micron Technology
MU • Vol: 64,268,462
Qualcomm
QCOM • Vol: 34,272,223

Top Losing Stocks

Huntington Ingalls Industries
HII • Vol: 1,746,810
Pool
POOL • Vol: 2,311,870
Aptiv
APTV • Vol: 10,166,405
Leidos
LDOS • Vol: 2,252,442
PayPal
PYPL • Vol: 39,099,369