Skype’s long-awaited video voicemail feature is finally here.

Skype will begin rolling out video messaging today to its iOS, Android, and Mac apps in the United States, United Kingdom, and a few other countries, a company representative confirmed to VentureBeat this morning. Changes to the chat service’s terms of service in December hinted that video messaging was coming soon.

Skype users will be able to send video messages up to three minutes long. Unfortunately, there’s no word on when video messaging will hit Windows.

A representative of the Microsoft-owned company said: “We’re pleased that there’s interest for Video Messaging to come to Skype for Windows and Skype for Windows 8. We’ll let you know when we expand the service to the platform.”

Video messaging is an important addition for Skype, since it allows for asynchronous video calling. Even if someone isn’t available to pick up a video chat, you can still leave a video message. It’s somewhat shocking that it’s taken Skype so long to roll out the feature, especially given that the company was founded a decade ago. The widespread availability of cloud storage and faster Internet speeds likely made video messaging easier to implement today.

Tango, a competing video chat app that started off on mobile devices, offered video messaging over a year ago.

Additionally, Skype has revealed it will begin transitioning Windows Live Messenger users over to its service beginning April 8 (the move was originally slated for March). Microsoft announced in November that it would be joining the two chat services.

Given Skype’s more than 280 million users and purchase price of $8.5 billion, it’s no surprise that Microsoft is focusing on the service as its core messaging platform going forward.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

After launching voice calls for Canadian iPhone users earlier this month, Facebook today began rolling out the feature for those in the U.S.

To send and receive voice calls, you’ll need to install Facebook’s standalone Messenger app for the iPhone. Then select a person to chat with, choose the “i” button in the top right of the screen, and select “Free voice call.” Unfortunately, Android users only have the capability to send voice messages, which also previously launched in Canada.

For Facebook users, voice calls are an added layer of convenience. Now you can get in touch with friends even if you don’t know their phone numbers, or if you’re somewhere with spotty cellular reception (but a steady Internet connection).

While a strangely quiet upgrade for Facebook, the move is no less significant. It pits the company squarely against popular Internet calling apps like Rebtel, Viber, and Skype. In the end, the less reason users have to leave the company’s apps, the better for Facebook.

While it’s somewhat awkward to use now since it requires a separate app, you can expect the voice calling feature to make its way into Facebook’s primary mobile app eventually.  We’ve already seen Facebook bring over features first found on its Messenger app. And once Facebook is confident in the voice calling feature, expect it to be prominently displayed, instead of hidden in an obscure menu.

Via The Verge

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Video chat startup Tango just can’t stop innovating. After recently launching the first Windows Phone video chat app, Tango is now gearing up to offer video messages, making it one of the first such services to offer a video equivalent to voicemail.

There’s a potentially huge use for video messaging beyond mere video voicemail, and Tango — with 30 million users after launching only a year ago — is in a good position to create the video messaging equivalent of Twitter or Tumblr.

“We want to see if we can become the place where people can keep important visual moments,”  CTO and co-founder Eric Setton told VentureBeat in an interview yesterday.

While Skype, Apple’s Facetime and Google+ hangouts all offer popular video chat services, none of them include video voicemail. (Update: Qik, which is owned by Skype, does offer video voicemails.) The company’s insane two-week development cycle helps too, forming the heart of the company’s growth and ability to quickly add new features.

The company is also announcing Tango Surprises, a collection of fun animations that can spice up video calls. Both features will be available in upcoming versions of Tango’s free iOS and Android apps. (The company planned to have the iOS app available today, but Apple’s review process forced the release to Tuesday.) They’re the first steps towards monetization for Tango, which has until now offered its cross-platform video chat completely free.

The video messages feature was something Tango has wanted to do for a while, and it’s particularly useful because people aren’t always available for video chats, which has likely been a hindrance to services like Tango and Apple’s FaceTime.

Video messaging works just as you’d expect: If a friend doesn’t pick up when you try to make a Tango video call, you’re presented with the option of leaving a video message. After recording the message (limited to 30 seconds at the moment), you just hit a button to finalize the process and your friend will instantly get an alert on their device.

You can record messages over 3G or Wi-Fi, and since Tango is recording the video directly on its servers, you won’t have to wait forever to get the video upload. If you have enough bandwidth to start a Tango video message, it’ll be sent to your friends as soon as you complete the call.

Just like with Tango’s video calls, the messages can be sent between users on iOS and Android. Windows Phone and Windows PC users can’t record messages just yet, but you’ll still be able to play back messages on those platforms. Tango’s Android app also has the ability to only send a video message (by holding your finger down on a contact’s name), something that isn’t yet supported on the iOS side.

Setton tells me that the company had to adopt a hybrid cloud model for its infrastructure, allowing it to add on additional cloud storage and computing resources to its existing hardware. The company has previously only relied on cloud services (Amazon’s, in particular) for testing purposes, but it needed to do so more heavily to launch such a potentially demanding feature.

Less revolutionary, but still fun, is Tango’s new Surprises feature, which gives users animations to include in video calls like cute hearts, a monkey, and a ninja. The company first tried its hand at in-call animations last Valentines Day, when it offered the ability for users to send hearts to each other. 35 percent of calls made last Valentines Day used the feature, which told the company that users were clearly interested in similar fun additions.

Right now Tango Surprises looks like a whimsical implementation of augmented reality, a term used to describe computer graphics over a real-world video feed. If popular, the feature could become even more advanced with the addition of facial tracking and branded products, Setton said.

Tango has come up with simplified pricing for both features. You’ll have access to your five most recent video messages for free, but you’ll have to spend an additional 99 cents for five more messages, or $1.98 for 10 more. As for Tango Surprises, every Tango user will receive one random animation for free, and you can buy the entire set of animations for an additional $1.99.

Tango now has 90 employees, with most in its Palo Alto, California offices. The company also has around a dozen employees in China, who can keep working when their Palo Alto brethren are asleep.

So far, Tango has raised a total of $47 million in two rounds of funding.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

YouMail, a startup that provides next-generation voicemail services like visual voicemail, voice-to-text transcription, and custom greetings, announced today that it has reached a new milestone with 15 million unique monthly callers.

That number represents “five percent of the U.S population’s phone system,” the company says. The average YouMail user in the U.S. gets 50 or more calls that they can’t answer — a sign that users also trust the service to accurately deliver their messages. Altogether, YouMail users log more than 45 to 50 million hours of missed calls every month.

In addition to iPhone-like visual voicemail, YouMail users can also share voicemails with others, as well as choose to block specific callers. Premium services include human transcription for accurate voice-to-text, as well as “pro” accounts which offer more features than the standard YouMail acccount. The company offers free iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry apps, as well as a $399 app for Palm webOS phones. YouMail’s service works across all major carriers, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint.

A service like YouMail is only bound to grow as users become more demanding of their voicemail features. Services like Google Voice already offer free call redirecting, transcription, and call recording, but not all of those features are available without getting a new phone number from Google.

Founded in 2007, YouMail is based in Aliso Viejo, Calif. The company previously landed $4.5 million in funding from VantagePoint Venture Partners, and it tells us it recently added $400,000 to a newer round. We’re awaiting details on the source of the new funds.

If your business involves listening to presentations, meetings, lectures or conferences, you probably on a few occasions wished you could just record them to listen and share at a later time. Looking to bring voice recording and sharing to all those suffering through endless, droning calls, VoiceBase today announced its launch at DEMO Fall 2010.

VoiceBase allows users to record voice conversations using an iPhone or Android device. Once a user is done with a recording, it’s automatically uploaded to VoiceBase.com and transcribed by machines and humans. Need to share the voice conversation with others? During the recording, users can designate others to receive the completed transcription.

One of the more interesting uses for the VoiceBase is the ability to search through recordings. Similar to a Google search, the user can search for any term and have a list of those conversations available, along with markers where the mention was found in the recording. Comments can be left at any marker. When recordings are shared with others, they can see and comment themselves.

While the company claims there is no direct competitors, several familiar names are playing in the space, including  Google Voice, which transcribes recorded calls or voicemails up to three minutes in length. Other companies, like Nuance, offer an iPhone application that transcribes a few minutes of voice. Neither is very usable for lengthy conversations.

The Novato, Calif.-based company, founded earlier this year,  recently landed a $700,000 first round of funding from two private European investors, the Band of Angels organization, and some private investors in the Bay Area.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/980795693