As Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is increasingly used in video conferencing, there are some tools that appear among the most promising for the sector.
Here are five of them that promise to play an important role for video chats or video conferences.
1. Skype (News - Alert) is perhaps the best known of the video conferencing tools, with group video calls can include up to 10 people. The company was recently taken over by Microsoft (News - Alert).
2. Google Voice provides video calling. Voice and video chat in Gmail works in supported browsers. Gmail users can have face-to-face chat over video. When you use video chat in Gmail, participants use Google+ Hangouts: Google+ users can video chat from Gmail with up to nine other people and the full functionality of Google+ Hangouts. Google Voice allows for VoIP connections through Gmail or Google Talk. There is no easy method to communicate with users of other VoIP services, according to Google Product Forum postings. Also, Aswath Rao tweeted that Google Voice has an SIP URI and “calls can be made to it.” The URI is +1GV#@sip.voice.google.com
3. Tinychat. Up to 12 people can join a video chat at the same time. The basic service is free. There are thousands of chat rooms and dedicated virtual chat rooms are offered.
4. ooVoo lets up to six participants take part in a video chat. It has clients for PCs, Macs and mobile devices. There is also video calling over 3G wireless networks.
5. FaceTime (News - Alert). Apple’s video chat application is available for both iPhones and Macs. It can be used on any iOS operating system device with a forward-facing camera. “With iOS 7, Apple (News - Alert) will introduce FaceTime Audio, a first-party voice over IP extension of the company's video calling service that could disrupt the mobile industry by bringing free long distance and international calling to iPhone users around the world,” according to a recent report from AppleInsider.
Looking ahead, WebRTC (real-time communications) is a growing force. It is now supported by Firefox and Chrome. Users can add WebRTC chat to their websites using an embeddable code from Mozilla (News - Alert). One possible scenario is that is Facebook will integrate “WebRTC voice and video calling into their Facebook app on mobile devices,” according to TMC CTO Tom Keating.
He predicts that it would be used more than Skype.
“When you make a voice/video call to (a) friend or business associate in Facebook, this call activity can show up in your Facebook friends' Newsfeed. This can potentially allow for better intra-company communication. For instance, sales reps can see that a customer service rep just talked with one of their important clients and then inquire if everything was resolved,” Keating added in a blog post. “WebRTC has huge potential and I believe will encourage Facebook to eventually cut their ties to Skype in favor of their own home-grown solution.”
Edited by Ashley Caputo