Voice discuss coming to Facebook
Look out, Facebook users : Here comes voice chat. Sometime in the following couple of weeks, the social network's tens of millions of users will begin to be ready to have top quality voice conversations, even as its third-party developers are able to start including voice in their applications.
The new technology is not being offered by Facebook itself, however. Instead, it's from Vivox, a Boston-based company that provides the integrated voice service for virtual worlds like 2nd Life and EVE Online, and which already has more than 15 million users around the world.
Each user , however , will have to download Vivox's plug-in. But once installed, the service works virtually seamlessly with Facebook, and is designed for all kinds of things from one-to-one chat to large group consultations.
Further, even non-Facebook users will be in a position to participate, as Vivox plans to offer free dial-in numbers that will allow anyone to call into an existing conversation, much as is possible today with call-in phone meetings.
maybe more importantly, according to Vivox founder Monty Sharma, the company is making its technology available to any third-party Facebook application developer, implying just about any app, from games to utilities, can have a voice element.
for now, it is not clear how many of Facebook's users will decide to adopt Vivox's technology, and for the time being, at least, Facebook is not involved in any way in promoting the new service. But while some people may decide that they do not want to use a tool that requires an add on, many others may very well find that it's worth the trouble in order to be able to simply start a conversation that rivals, or betters, phone call quality.
'I would ( use voice service on Facebook ),' Li said,'because I see it as a continuum of communications with the people i want to stay in touch with.'
'It is about time,' Pirillo said. 'I assure you this is going to gnaw into Skype.'
For Pirillo, the Vivox system will supply a valuable motivation for Facebook users to streamline their friends lists since it's likely that they won't wish to be getting voice discuss invites from people they've friended but might know only peripherally.
'When these tools come about,' Pirillo said,'it becomes less valuable ( to have too many friends ) and actually promotes a cleaner ecosystem.'
excellent for shops To Li, giving third party Facebook developers the ability to integrate voice discuss into their applications could mean a big victory for shops.
'They can just put in Facebook chat.
And to Pirillo, the capability for Facebook mates to have a voice chat during, say, a game of Scrabble, is a particularly'smart' innovation that means users can streamline the quantity of different tools they are running simultaneously.
Other options have included Equals' Party Line, which offers group chat for at least five folk, and, naturally, a work-around like Skype.
Vivox disagrees that its technology rises above anything more available today because of its scope and scalability. For one, the Vivox system has been proved on services like 2nd Life and EVE Online -- and is getting ready to be built into a sequence of online Electronic Arts games, starting with Command & Conquer four Tiberian Twilight -- and has been shown to support thousands of concurrent users on a single channel.
