Facebook Silently Released WebRTC Video Calling

A few days ago, Ubergizmo published an article entitled "Facebook Video Calls On Chromebook Don’t Require Plugins Anymore". Well, according to Gartner, Chromebook Sales have reached 5.2 Million Units in 2014, expected to nearly Triple by 2017, but... here is the real news:

Facebook Silently Released WebRTC Video Calling!

If you own a Chromebook, there is no version of Skype that you can use, no software that you can download and install, Chrome is the OS. A lot of solutions out there can help you make instant video calls on a Chromebook like Appear.in, Jitsy, Rabbit... but only Bistri allows you to see all your Facebook friends, chat, make video calls and video conferences with them, even if Facebook is blocked where you are connected.

As Chromebooks gaining popularity in school district, WebRTC based solutions are perfect workarounds, but it also means that from now on, you can make video calls right on Facebook with no plugin, no installation, from any WebRTC compatible browser (Chrome, Firefox, Opera), on any device except iOS ones (but I bet that it will change soon).

According to the documentation, this feature has been released a month ago, but why Facebook haven't officially communicate? probably because it's only a technical migration, nothing really new here for the user. Since 2011, Facebook has a deal with Skype to offer this feature, but you needed to have Skype installed on the computer, plus a 100 Mo plugin. That was not a one-click solution, and impossible to make it work on a ChromeOS device.

Yes, WebRTC let any good team reinvent Skype from scratch. I tried myself with Bistri, and others are emerging like Wire but today, I feel like this dream is over. Even if you work like crazy and raise millions to build a real alternative product that really runs everywhere, Skype is a verb.
So my question is...

Facebook, the Next Skype Killer?

Snapchat quietly paid $30 Million to acquire AddLive and add the video calling feature. Google Hangouts use WebRTC since late June 14', see the announcement from the WebRTC Team in San Francisco. But the only way to beat Skype today is to have hundreds of millions of users, and add the video/audio calling features using WebRTC. If you are this lucky guy, you should probably choose a WebRTC API Platform first, before to try to build you own. These are a few ressources to help:

• WebRTC Ecosystem Report
• Choosing a WebRTC API Platform
• WebRTC Market Status & Forecasts
• WebRTCindex
• WebRTC Developer Tool Vendor Directory
• Solution for Non-WebRTC Browsers
• WebRTCfest