Facebook's Three New Products

I don't see any products, there. I just see a couple of lame features. Skype and group chat. Skype already does Skype, so I'm not sure why I'd load up Facebook just so I could skype through a webpage, instead. My IM client has done group chat for years, so I'm not sure why I'd load up facebook just so I could chat with a group of those people, either.<p>This kind of falls in line with my confusion as to why people ruin their websites with all these components and hooks into Facebook. They claim that they need Facebook Likes and Logins and Discussions in their websites, because Facebook drives traffic. Even if they hate it, they have to succumb to it. You know, for generating traffic. My question remains - why do you want to try appealing to a group of people to whom Facebook is "the internet" and who do everything through Facebook? Those people aren't going to make a point of going to your website again, unless someone links them to it a second time down the road. It seems like a lot of resources (not to mention website screen real-estate) given up for very little desirable return.

Given their social networking dominance, their swimming pools filled with vc money, and the top engineers working for them, does anyone else feel like Facebook are underachievers?<p>Considering they had to have known about G+ for a while before it launched, you would think they would really hit something out of the park in terms of competitive features. These are all pretty lackluster, imho.

Also, I went with the setup, and not only did facebook not support linux, it doesn't detect I'm on a linux system and started to download a .EXE file!<p>Feeling some pressure from google + ?

While I can appreciate (in fact, I probably don't) the technical difficulty of delivering a chat/video service to a userbase of 750M; these simply aren't compelling innovations for most (especially younger) people. Of particular note, these features aren't sticky (the usability of these features is common to _many_ other services) nor do they raise particularly high barriers to entry for competitors (Google has already nailed these services at large scales, integrating them into G+ is probably trivial). What FB (or Google for that matter) needs to nail is social search based on the graph of what your friends are doing/reading/buying... this is one area where FB has a distinct early advantage (they have more mature social graphs). I'm convinced social search will be the single feature that displaces or entrenches FB, not chat.

Is it me or does Zuckerberg really excel at being boring? I guess I don't watch many CEOs announce new products but that was painfully boring and pedantic.

What? This is their "awesome" announcement? Is this some sort of a joke? Even techies aren't going to be interested in this, let alone normal users...

I think it's quiet interesting how quickly things change and how you see companies differently and google reinvented their image in such a short period of time.<p>If you asked me a year ago if I would say which was the cooler, younger, more innovative and most promising company - Google or Facebook - I would have said 4:0 Facebook for sure.<p>Now, I would say:<p>Cooler? I have a passion for design - so Google+ is by far winner here. In addition, you can say what you want, but with the invitation restriction they got what they wanted - buzzed.<p>Younger? When you compare the new design from Google to the Facebook design and consider the implementation of cutting edge web technology (advanced html5 etc.) - for sure it's google!<p>More innovative? Of course Facebook has a point for focusing the development of a framework in which other companies can build on - but on the other hand, that's by definition not much innovation by themselves - so google+!<p>Most promising? Only time can tell..<p>I don't know exactly why I see Google in a whole new light now.<p>Maybe it's because of their stunning design and UX (sorry for repeating, but it's gorgeous), maybe it's because of their underdog position with Google+ or maybe it's because Facebook with it's dry and subtle and boring design and it's cooperations with "uncool" players like microsoft is not taking risks anymore. They cannot risk their large userbase and got to stay mainstream. That could be the chance for Google+ to conquer, at least, the younger crowd.

Download and install a .jar file for Mac users? Yeah, my mom is gonna choose that over FaceTime ...

The video chat feature will ensure that my Facebook chat stays closed so random people don't pop up wanting to video chat.

Get started at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/videocalling" rel="nofollow">http://www.facebook.com/videocalling</a>

Meh. Nothing much to see here. This looks like Google Chat - video calling, group chat, seeing who you last spoke to.

For those drawing comparisons: Facebook has 500 million users. How many does Google+ have?

Despite all of the hype about video chat and circles versus lists, to me the big announcement looks like group chat - which seems kind of stupidly obvious. Thinking about it, Google may have missed the mark by throwing video into the equation - unlike is the case with video, when people don't have to get dressed to be part of a discussion based on text. It almost looks like Google heard that Facebook was working on group features and video and assumed that they would be integrated.

OK, the question I have here is about monetization. Who will get more money from this deal - Facebook or Microsoft/Skype and how? Skype has not been profitable for so many years (although they charge for phone calls and have ads), and I don't see this moving it closer to the goal. Also, if FB allows group video-chat for free why would I pay Skype the subscription fee - I will just call from Facebook.

Looks like video chat is the hot new battleground again. Facebook Skype vs. video GChat vs. Apple FaceTime/iChat/iMessage vs. Microsoft Skype(?)

Let's just stop predicting things and see what happens. I guess everyone had enough Groupon, Bitcoin and G+ vs FB stories.

<a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/philip-su/building-video-calling/10150229123673920" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/notes/philip-su/building-video-call...</a><p>"Although I was the only full-time engineer on the video calling project, I had help from Paul Shen, Rahul Iyer, and Vijaye Raji."

The comment stream is interesting, particulary because I've been seeing a lot of "google + hasn't made any impact outside tech circles" type comments around the place. People are looking at this just as Google would like them too.

What does this mean for all of the group chat companies that have launched recently?

Skype has just handed over their business just as AOL did with their search engine.

Well, so now we know why Google+ launched last week.<p>Doesn't look like they do group videochat?<p>Group chat is really, really important. But it's what we've always used Facebook for; it was just structured as "comment threads".

It's interesting.<p>The very first feature they show. Is the one that Skype implemented which a lot of people hated. Personally I think it's a great great feature. But it is a feature.

Does it mean that skype just got 750 million p2p node?

Finally, the monopoly is over. Long live competition!

Bringing Your Friends to Bing: Search Now More Social is one of the popular stories. I'm not sure if I trust that list of "popular stories"

Pretty unimpressive... Don't they have some of the greatest minds in the world working on this stuff?

What's the end game?<p>MS acquires fb?<p>Skype makes a killing off fb users for premium subscription and gives fb a cut?

My god, Mark really isn't that good at this CEO schtick is he.

quote from one commenter: "It sucks! Ask me to download an EXE , while I am in GNU/linux. It is shitty M$ stuff."