SocialEyes Taps Facebook Social Graph for Video Chatting: Tech News and Analysis « [GigaOM]

More SocialEyes details

The service, which will live as its own site and as a Facebook application, allows users to carry on multiple chats throughout the day and lets people tap Facebook’s social graph for conversations. Users can pop in and out of individual chats or combine them together in group sessions called scrums. Users can also join or start their own private groups among friends or participate in public groups based around hobbies and interests. When users aren’t able to communicate in real-time via video chat or instant messaging, they can send video messages to friends. A record of a user’s communications is captured in a feed tab. Launched last year, SocialEyes has raised $5.1 million in an $600,000 angel round and a Series A led by Ignition Partners.

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The biggest name to watch is Facebook, which is likely to jump into the video chat space at some point. It recently upgraded its messaging system, and the next obvious step would be video chat, which could undercut services like SocialEyes and other apps built on Facebook. Video chatting can be intensely personal, but so far, its reach is limited by smaller networks and slower consumer adoption. Skype has shown some of the most success with video chat: about 40 percent of its calls are now video calls. But a native Facebook video conferencing feature could make the whole process of communicating through video more mainstream. Startups like SocialEyes are showing how video chat can be that much more social. Now we’ll see if Facebook is taking notes.

Check the full article for additional details, e.g., on other social video players

SocialEyes Taps Facebook Social Graph for Video Chatting: Tech News and Analysis «