Voice chat coming to Facebook
Look out, Facebook users : Here comes voice chat. Sometime in the next few weeks, the social network's tens of millions of users will start to be ready to have top quality voice conversations, even as its 3rd party developers may be able to start including voice in their applications.
Vivox plans to offer free dial-in numbers which will allow anybody to call into an existing conversation.
Instead, it's from Vivox, a Boston-based company that provides the integrated voice service for virtual worlds like second Life and EVE Online, and which already has more than 15 million users globally.
Each user , however , will have to download Vivox's plug-in. Further, even non-Facebook users will be in a position to participate, as Vivox plans to offer free dial-in numbers that will permit anybody to call into an existing conversation, much as is possible today with call-in phone meetings.
But while some folk may decide that they don't want to employ a tool that needs an add-on, many others may actually find that it's worth the trouble to be ready to easily start a talk that rivals, or even 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 asserted.
For Pirillo, the Vivox system will supply a valuable incentive for Facebook users to streamline their chums lists since it is possible that they won't need to be getting voice chat 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 basically promotes a cleaner ecosystem.'
superb for outlets To Li, giving third-party Facebook developers the ability to integrate voice chat into their applications may mean a large victory for shops. She pointed out that a corporation like Overstock.com could find it intensely valuable to put out a Facebook app with voice built-in--without having to build the voice system themselves--because it would give people a method to simply chat with their pals about products they see.
'Retailers do not need to put in chat themselves,' Li said. 'They can just put in Facebook chat. That's's where it begins to get really interesting.'
To be sure, Vivox's offering is not the first to make voice possible for Facebook users, though it could be the most seamless.
Vivox disagrees that its technology rises above anything else available today because of its scope and scalability. For one, the Vivox system has been proven on services like second Life and EVE Online -- and is preparing to be built into a chain of online electronic arts games, beginning with Command & Conquer four Tiberian Twilight -- and has been shown to support thousands of simultaneous users on a single channel.
