Facebook Applications for the Educational Setting

     It has been interesting, how Facebook and Google have been trying to one up each other. However as a consumer I welcome the competition. For example, Google recently introduced its Google Plus Social Website to compete with Facebook. But as you know Facebook is the king of the hill of all social networks. For example, Facebook has an excellent relationship with Microsoft. This is glaringly evident because Microsoft owns 1.6 shares of Facebook and they probably will be buying up more shares in the future. Microsoft just bought out Skype and entered into an alliance with Facebook. I am sure that Facebook is overjoyed because they know that Microsoft will treat them as a partner and not dig deep into thier pockets for the new Skype partnership they have. The Skype Application was rolled out in June on Facebook and has the potential of eliminating text dominated platforms on Facebook.  In other words the written word will no longer be the king of the jungle on Facebook. Not sure though how much current Skype users will feel about it though since costs of the service are sure to go up.  But for Facebook users its great, they will be able to Video Call, text, or conference call, (up to nine persons),any of thier friends who have Skype. For educators this is a very cheap way to establish group collaborations, consultations, and conferences around the world. They will be able to esatablish social and other experiments in a in time display. This will dramatically decrease costs and time to complete assignments and will definetly expand thier ability to establish relationships with students other educators, parents, and other stakehholders. Imagine the fundraising and grantwriting opportunities via E-mail and Video Chatting in time. Sychronizing both video chatting and e-mail at the same time while fundraising, grantwriting, or consulting, this is a win-win for educators. Facebook already has 20 million subscribers in the United States, I can see that with this new Skype Application they are about to get a lot more.  The Skype application is a privarte communication much like the chat line application that Facebook already has. Those who use the Skype application will have to have to be upgraded to at least Skype 5.0. Facebook users with the Skype application only have to click the video calling feature at top of thier chat window in order to start communicating over the video. However, even if you are a Mac user this is not so good because the Skype feature is only applicable to Windows.