- A month after launching a platform for integrating 3rd-party apps with Messenger, Facebook (FB +0.8%) is updating its iOS/Android Messenger apps to support video calling over mobile and Wi-Fi connections. The U.S. and 17 other markets are initially covered; more will be added later.
- Facebook's PC Messenger client (built into Facebook's site) has supported video calls since 2011, following a deal with Skype; Facebook later built its own video call infrastructure. Today's update makes the feature available to the 600M+ monthly active users of Messenger's mobile apps.
- One current shortcoming: Messenger app users can't place video calls to PC Facebook users. An exec says Facebook will soon fix the issue, and also plans to add group chat and video stabilization support. The long list of mobile apps/platforms currently supporting video calls includes Skype, Apple's FaceTime, Google's Hangouts, Tango, imo, WeChat, Line, and Viber.
- Both voice and video serve as natural extensions of Messenger's core chat features. Mark Zuckerberg stated in March Messenger now accounts for 10% of global VoIP phone calls. WhatsApp, which recently added VoIP call support to its mobile apps, doesn't yet support video calls.