The Zoom explosion shows that video and voice communication is really just starting to catch on. But what will end up being the platform everyone agrees upon using?
"It has to go into video chat," said Dan Goodin, co-founder of Skype's video and voice division and the former CEO of Skype. "A Skype group will be like any group chat. You could do voice at 1 million people, but not voice at all?" For Facebook, said Peter Kafka, Skype's vice president for engineering and product: "We want to have video in the first couple of years."
The other big question is how the two major players will deal with video-on-demand. Skype, which has an app for iOS and Android, has said video streaming will be in "beta" on Android by the end of the year. The question, though, is whether this includes live-streaming for people who are not signed into Facebook. Skype does provide video calling, but only within the live channel — it doesn't go live with footage. (Facebook has said only in-app video calling will be live.)
Facebook and Google say their videos will include live-streaming and all the other features needed to bring Facebook video streaming to the masses. And as with Facebook's other video offerings on the Web, Facebook wants to make sure it's not an expensive app to access.
"It's going to be one of the most expensive video products out on the market," said Kafka. "We're going to build in video ads to monetize that. There will be a lot more than is out right now on the Facebook app."
There is a major barrier to Facebook video. Facebook's mobile application is limited by the number of users in the app's video chat channel. The company believes it can add live streaming of live video to the app soon. The other major player trying to add live to YouTube is Facebook's own video app in a browser, though it won't make it immediately available to download. Instead, the company will test it on Facebook by showing a live video of something at its Facebook page.
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Author: Barley Hejim
