The Facebook video-calling plug-in installation just takes two clicks and does not require you to download and install Skype in your machine (incidentally, Skype is what powers the call). The new chat design includes a sidebar that lists the people you message the most. You can also create instant group chats by just adding more users to the conversation. Another interesting feature is – you can leave a video message (something that Gmail or Yahoo! Does not let you do yet). Currently, the service is available in more than 70 languages across the world. But it cannot connect to G-Talk or iChat for that matter. Zuckerberg did not rule out the possibility that there may be a multi-user video chat coming up in the near future. If you call friends who don’t have web cams, they will be able to see and hear you but you will only be able to hear them.

Currently, the browsers supported are Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and Safari (read, all major browsers). However, video calling for Linux is not supported (Sorry, Linus Torvalds). We did a test run of the video call, and found the call quality crisp and the video clear. The chat interface was still its old self, peppered with green dots and grey half-moons; so maybe we can expect some tweaks on that.

Incidentally, Philip Su, an engineer on the video calling team, made the first video call to his parents back in Maryland. We do not know if the words ‘Mary had a little lamb’ entered the conversation.