5 Apps That Let You Video Chat With Facebook Friends

Since I moved to New York City however, video chat is another thing I’ve been experimenting with. In the past, instant messaging and email have always been enough for me to keep in touch with my friends, but video chatting is nice for when you’ve been away and you just want to see a familiar face. Ideally, it would be nice to experience the best of both worlds, which would be video chatting on Facebook. In this article, I’ll show you the Facebook chat software apps you need to install in order to do just that.

1. Tinychat

Tinychat is a good place for us to start. You may have heard of, or even used, Tinychat the regular way, as a standalone video chat client, but did you know that they had a Facebook chat application?
Probably not, but the Tinychat app does have over 2 million users on Facebook as of this writing. With this app, you can have up to 12 participants in your video chats, facilitating a group meeting of sorts. All you have to do to use it is head to Tinychat’s Facebook page and follow the easy steps to connect and invite your friends.

2. vChatter

The vChatter Facebook application offers another easy way to invite and connect with friends and other random users of the service. You can search for your friends off on the right of the client, as well as see who is currently available. Or if you’re feeling adventurous, you can start a random chat and meet new people.

3. ChatVibes

The idea behind ChatVibes, which is exactly what I was looking for, was to create a way to add video calls to your Facebook chat. All you have to do to integrate ChatVibes with your Facebook Chat is download the installer file, run it, select which browser you use (Chrome, IE, or Firefox), and the app will open up your browser to the appropriate page for you to grab the toolbar/extension.
Once it’s installed, you’ll be able to see a little video icon next to your friends who have ChatVibes installed. Click on it to start video chatting.

4. FriendCameo

Want to talk to 3 friends at the same time? That’s the difference between FriendCameo and the other apps on this list. FriendCameo is a fun video chat app that lets you use video effects and “funny photobooths”. I like the way it’s set up and inviting/calling friends is a breeze.

5. BandooChat

BandooChat isn’t as stylish as some of the other applications on this list, but it gets the job done, and a lot of people use it. BandooChat keeps your friend list on the right side of the chat application and it will give you little popups when new friends become available for a chat invite.
You’ll see yourself on the bottom left of the application, with the person you’re chatting with on top. You can also use BandooChat to talk it up with random people.

Conclusion

I think Skype is on the verge of giving us a much more awesome way of video chatting with our Facebook friends, but until they actually get fully integrated into Facebook, these Facebook chat applications should be more than enough for you. Let us know which one is your favorite in the comments!
Image Credit: Supri Suharjoto