Facebook debuts video calling

Transcript
Facebook debuts video calling
>> We're doing this with Skype and it's--I think that this is kind of symbolic of the type of way that we're going to do these things for a number of reasons. The first is I was talking before about building social apps on top of this social infrastructure. That type thing is only possible because the social infrastructure already exists, right. I mean, the system already knows that we're connected and we already have a pipe open between us so new apps like video chat can just flow across that, right. I mean, it's not the case like with traditional Skype where both people have to have downloaded Skype beforehand. So we think that this is awesome because we're using the best technology that's out there for doing video chat with the best social infrastructure that's out there in order to create some really cool new scenarios. Over here, I've got Jerry, a friend of mine, on chat, and I can ask him, hey, you know, what's up. Got a minute, right. So you're text chatting away with Jerry, and let's assume that Jerry does have a minute. He's typing to me back. And you see that start a video call button. This is how we're going to roll it out so that every user can actually use it quite easily. So all I have to do is click call, and right now we negotiate the call connections between the two machines. You see the video window getting ready and launching up and then we connect right though to Jerry wherever he is right now. We see an image of ourselves and then his video loads so that I can see him. How are the launch numbers looking, Jerry?

>> They're looking really good. We've already launched to millions of users.

>> Awesome. So thanks a lot, guys. I know you guys are working hard. I just wanted to call.

>> Say hi to Phil. Laughter and applause

>> Great. Awesome. Thanks, guys. I know you guys are working hard and the guys at Skype are obviously worked hard also to make this happen. So I just wanted to say hi. I'm going to close our connection now but I'm sure I'll see you soon, Jerry. Take care. So right now you've seen the demo, and I know that you have a thousand questions going through your mind. You've probably even preparing what you're going to say about this thing. But I want you to pause for just a second and just remember what we did here and especially focus on how did that feel. Can you believe that your least technical friend can actually get online and connected with someone else? Someone who listened to the radio this morning and thought that he might be able to connect with his grandson; can he actually use this feature and get connected? Absolutely. No separate accounts. No separate websites to go to. The download is small and easy. One button click to any online friend on a social network that already has all your friends. This is by far the easiest way to get connected by video. If it was any easier than that one click it would be reading your mind, basically. Right. So I want to talk about a little bit about the effort we put in to make that possible for people. One of the classic hurdles to getting started on video calling, of course, is the download. And I want to show you what the downloads look like on the site. So you click call on your grandson's chat tab, right. And of course he has a parent using it with him. And then you click set-up. And as soon as you approve the applet, it literally goes in and automatically downloads within the browser and immediately calls and connects. And later when you try this today, this should happen for you in under 30 seconds on any broadband connection. And it really is that easy. Two clicks, I'm connected, and I am looking at my friend and talking with him. So this is about the world's largest and best social network. The world's leading provider of video and telephony. And now the world's easiest one-click way to get connected by video to the ones you care about. It's Facebook video calling and it's rolling out today.

==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces a new Skype-powered video-calling feature that will begin rolling out to Facebook users immediately.