It took our now college age daughter to suggest using Facebook video chat instead of Skype. Up until now Skype has been my video chat go-to option. Two nights ago we video chatted on Facebook and it was impressive in many ways. It is simpler within the Facebook application since permissions are already taken care of. If you’ve not tried it – you should. I learned later that Facebook is using the Skype platform for the service and I cannot understand how the results could be so different.

The download was fast and easy – we were actually corresponding while entering the request for video chat, and the download took less than one minute. The next thing I saw was a real-time video of my daughter and the quality was the best I’ve experience when it comes to video chatting. It was as if we were looking at each other right in person.

There is also a group video chat function that works just as well. Important to remember is the fact that you need to be FB ‘friends’ in order to engage in FB video chat – so it’s not as if it will replace Skype or other video chat applications (like ovoo.com), but for my friends that I wish to video chat with, Facebook has become the new default choice.

Here’s a questions – why doesn’t LinkedIn have a video chat option? It may not be appropriate for most LinkedIn interactions but it seems like it would be a simple yet high value enhancement for that platform. Keep in mind that should you wish to not video chat, you as the operator always have the option to decline to video chat.

But for family and friends that are not nearby, video chatting is better than – well than not having video chat. Facebook has done a really good job here and I am very surprised as to how I was unaware of that feature up until now.

How about you? Have you used video chatting? Do you like it? Is Skype your normal choice? Have you tried FB video chat? And if not what else might be you be using?