Facebook Responds to Google+

by MRamos on 06/07/11 at 2:46 pm

Mark Zucherberg announced Facebooks new product features early Wednesday morning (Pacific Standard Time), which might have been anticipated for some time now in response to Google+. Google recently introduced their new Google+ project, which is actually still in testing but has already sparked curiosity among audiences eagerly waiting to see what Google
will come up with.

Zucherberg introduced three new features for Facebook: Group Chat, New Design, and Video Calling. Hmm, sound familiar? The comparison between Google+ new features are inevitable.

Group Chat: Zucherberg claims that 50% of all Facebook users currently use Groups. The new idea of Group Chat is to provide members easy access to conversation with all members on the same webpage. To add more friends to chat, all you have to do is select “Add Friends to Chat.”

New design: New design for chat window. It takes account the browser size to display list of friends that are available and unavailable. A one-click access to the people you message the most will be visible as well.

Video Calling: The most important announcement of the morning. The rumor of Skype and Facebook joining forces was finally unveiled. Facebook will now have video calling powered by Skype. The new feature will not require different accounts or buttons, but will all be accessible through the click of a single button. The new feature was demonstrated and appears as easy as clicking and accepting video chats. For now, video chat is only accessible to one-on-one conversations. Mark did not make any comments about extending to
more viewers like Google+ Hangouts.

Facebook continues to dominate the social media networks, and it seems that Zucherberg is not willing to give this up, this time adding these new features to keep up with current trends. Zucherberg’s announcement, which was sent via Facebook invite and promoted over the last several weeks, captivated over 50,000 viewers eager to hear the news.

Facebook’s new features will definitely have Google developers thinking of ways to make Google+ different. So do you think Facebook will continue to be the popular giant that it is, or
will it jump on the same Myspace-wagon by having features that none of us care for? I guess we will just have to wait for Google+ to be unveiled to the rest of the population so that we may test it ourselves.