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Facebook tests video call button in profiles
If Google+ has its Hangouts, Facebook may want its members to engage in video chat, as it tests a "Call" button on top of people's Timeline profiles, a tech site said.
TechCrunch reported this was a year after Facebook offered video chat after partnerying with videoconferencing service Skype.
"If a friend is online on the desktop version of Facebook, those in the test see a 'Call' button next to that friends name on their profile, while previously a tiny videocamera icon in the text chat window was basically the only way to start a video chat," it said.
According to TechCrunch, Facebook may have realized it had to highlight the feature.
It said Facebook actually had a Call button on the old version of the profile, but it got buried in a gear settings drop-down menu.
But now, it said the feature will be much easier to find.
Otherwise, TechCrunch said people may tend to associate video chats with Google+'s Hangouts - or even former Facebook president Sean Parker's new Airtime.
Parker's Airtime debuted last week to "re-humanize" the Internet through the intimacy of real-time video chat.
"Maybe Facebook agrees that real-time video chat is much more vivid way to share, and it’s a shame so few people even realize it exists," TechCrunch said.
Meanwhile, TechCrunch said it has not seen any of the additional Facebook Skype features promised at the video chat feature’s launch in July 2011.
These include group video chat, Facebook-to-Skype-Client calling, or paid Facebook to standard phone number audio calling.
"Maybe now Facebook will step its game up, and consider adding those and copying the standout feature of Airtime and Hangouts," it said.
It added Google had already spruced up Hangouts with collaborative video playlists and easier sharing, allowing two people to watch a video such as a YouTube clip together at the same time. — TJD, GMA News
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