Let’s face it: there’s nothing new about video calls being available in WhatsApp to some guy somewhere. Ok, it means Whatsapp is testing this feature and, supposedly, we’ll all have this in our mobile phones, sooner or later.
Hey, which feature, you’re asking? If you missed the news, first spotted by Android Police, some users of the Android beta version of the app reported being able to video call. And this is just a follow-up of another story – about a current testing of WhatsApp video calls on Windows Phone.
Hot stuff, you say?
No.
Skype has been around for centuries – well, maybe not literary, but thirteen years in tech are centuries. We all got video calls already.
And this is not even the first time we hear of WhatsApp allowing video calls.
But this is exactly the hot news.
Why Whatsapp is entering a market with a dominant player?
Because there’s no actual dominant player in the market.
Despite reaching mainstream adoption, Skype still fails at getting the same traction it has on desktop on mobile devices. Honestly: how often do you use video call via Skype on your smartphone? Not that much, eh?
Quoting a post by Y Combinator dated 2014, “Skype changed the world, yet it’s only gotten worse with every passing year. Despite broadband penetration, we still have lackluster tools for even the most basic of telecommunication. We deserve a simpler, more elegant solution for a more civilized age.”
And this age, it’s all about videos. And as the Facebook’s quest to eat the web keeps going, videos, being increasingly shared over text, are more and more in Zuck’s radar.
According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “we’re entering this new golden age of video. I wouldn’t be surprised if you fast-forward five years and most of the content that people see on Facebook and are sharing on a day-to-day basis is video.”
So, if the dice is cast for desktops, on mobile the game is open.
And in the mobile market, WhatsApp does the lion’s share. On February 1 the Mountain View-based company topped 1 billion users and it’s by far the most popular mobile messagging app in the world, according to Statista.
Most notably, Skype covers the fifth position.
Of course, as WhatsApp enters the mobile video call market is going to face a lot of competition. Not just from Skype: also from Apple’s FaceTime and the new creature of Google: Duo.
For sure we’re gonna need popcorn to watch the (death)match.
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