Facebook is going to launch a voice chat system on their popular social media site. This latest development was reported as a number of users have seen a call button appear when viewing their friends profile page. Those who click on the call button say that a call is initiated although it can’t connect yet to the intended party.Previously Facebook has a partnership deal with Skype wherein Skype users can chat or call their Facebook friends using the Facebook tab in Skype 5.0.
Based on the screenshot on the Facebook page we can’t see any Skype branding which might mean that the company is developing their own voice application independently. Also Facebook recently posted a job which required someone to fill in the position of “Network Engineer- Voice”.
Facebook will materialize then then it would be a strong competitor against Google’s Gmail call system. Using Gmail, people can initiate voice chats with people in their contact lists who also have a Gmail account. You can also call any number worldwide and even make free calls to any number in the U.S. and Canada. With 600 million active users as of January of this year, the call feature of Facebook will not only threaten Gmail but phone companies as well.
via sitetrail