Facebook Application Development

This was probably inevitable: Google today announced that it is replacing video chats in Gmail with Google+ Hangouts. The company first brought video chat to Gmail in 2008, but ever since the launch of Google+, it was only a matter of time before the company decided to replace its old video chat feature with Google+’s marquee group video chat tool. Hangouts, Google says, “utilize the power of Google’s network to deliver higher reliability and enhanced quality” and will allow Gmail users to also reach people not only when they are using Gmail, but also “if they are on Google+ in the browser or on their Android or iOS devices.”

In May, we wrote about Flikdate, an innovative mobile video dating service that feels like a mix between Chatroulette and Match.com. The app is now available in Apple’s App Store. Unlike most other video dating services, which focus on pre-recorded videos, Flikdate allows you to set up virtual mini-blind dates using video chats right on the phone. The app, which was created by an all-girls team, isn’t the first to try this, with Date.fm and others also playing in the market, but it has an innovative business model that really sets it apart from its competitors.

Desperate to increase video chat usage, Facebook is testing out a “Call” button  on top of people’s timeline profiles. I don’t think I’ve received a Facebook video chat since Facebook partnered with Skype to launch the feature a year ago, but now that might change. 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.

Facebook seems to have realized it needed to highlight the feature, otherwise when people want to smile and laugh with friends face to face their first thought might be the Google+ and its Hangouts, or the newly launched Airtime from former Facebook President Sean Parker.

Video chat is still something quite a few people don’t feel comfortable with. For U.S. teens, however, it is quickly becoming a pretty routine way of communicating with each other. According to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 37% of teens now regularly use Skype, Google Talk or iChat to talk to each other.

There are significant differences between how many boys and girls use video chat, though. Only a third of boys use video chat while 42% of girls said they have video chatted. Maybe unsurprisingly, those teens who use the Internet more frequently also use video chats more often than their peers who only go online a few times per week. The same is true for teens who text and use social media more often than their peers.

It turns out that there are more things being announced at Mobile World Congress than just hundreds of new cookie-cutter Android phones, and some of them are even pretty interesting. Some of those are iPhone accessories, with one in particular catching our eye. The AudiOffice dock from Invoxia not only looks absolutely gorgeous, but it [...]