Voice discuss coming to Facebook
Look out, Facebook users : Here comes voice discuss. Sometime in the next few weeks, the social network's tens of millions of users will start to be ready to have fine quality voice conversations, even as its third-party developers are able to start including voice in their applications.
Vivox plans to supply free dial-in numbers which will allow anybody to call into an existing conversation.
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 second Life and EVE Online, and which already has more than 15,000,000 users globally.
The service, which is currently in closed beta, will allow Facebook users to have high-fidelity chats with anybody on their friends list. Each user , however , will have to download Vivox's plug-in. But once installed, the service works virtually elegantly with Facebook, and is structured for everything from one-to-one chat to large group discussions.
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 telephone meetings.
perhaps more importantly, according to Vivox founder Monty Sharma, the company is making its technology available to any 3rd party Facebook application developer, meaning that just about any app, from games to resources, can have a voice part.
for the moment, it isn't clear what percentage of Facebook's users will choose to adopt Vivox's technology, and for the moment, at least, Facebook is not involved in any way in promoting the new service. But while some folks may decide that they do not want to use a tool that needs an add on, many others may well find that it's worth the trouble in order to be ready to simply start a talk that rivals, or even betters, telephone call quality.
one person who might be an early adopter is Charlene Li, a well known social media advisor, and the co-writer of the book Groundswell.
'I would ( use voice service on Facebook ),' Li asserted,'because I see it as a continuum of communications with the people I need to stay in touch with.'
'It is about time,' Pirillo asserted. 'I assure you this is going to gnaw into Skype.'
For Pirillo, the Vivox system will supply a valuable inducement for Facebook users to streamline their buddies lists since it's likely that they won't need 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 outlets To Li, giving third party Facebook developers the power to integrate voice discuss into their applications could mean a big victory for shops. She clarified that a corporation like Overstock.com may find it intensely valuable to put out a Facebook app with voice built-in--without having to build the voice system themselves--because it might give people a method to efficiently discuss with their mates about products they see.
'Retailers do not need to put in chat themselves,' Li related. 'They can just put in Facebook discuss. That's's where it begins to get terribly interesting.'
And to Pirillo, the capability for Facebook friends to have a voice discuss during, say, a game of Scrabble, is a very'smart' creativity that implies users can streamline the amount of different tools they're running concurrently.
To be sure, Vivox's offering isn't the first to make voice possible for Facebook users, though it may well be the most seamless.
Other options have included Equals' Party Line, which offers group discuss for as much as five folks, and, of course, 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 second Life and EVE Online -- and is getting ready to be built into a chain of online Electronic Arts games, beginning with Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight -- and has been shown to support thousands of simultaneous users on a single channel.
