I have one of my best friend who went to Australia to work last year. His wife is still in Malaysia and most of the time they communicate through phone or in cybercafe for video chat. When I am lucky to catch him online, normally I only get to talk to him for a while because most of the time he’ll be talking to his wife. We’re all using Windows Live Messenger and there is no way to do multi video conferencing using Video Call.

As for Skype, the popular video call software also doesn’t support multiple video conferencing. There used to be a plugin called vskype or festoon which allows skype to do multiple video conferencing but the official website is no longer available. Maybe the project is dead? Next is SightSpeed. It is able to do 4 way video conferencing with the PLUS version at a price of 9.95 per month.

While I was surfing the internet just now, I stumbled on an instant messenger called ooVoo that is able to support multiple (up to 6) video conferencing. Not only that, now you can call anyone in USA and Canada for FREE!


ooVoo is the next evolution in online communication – a remarkably easy way to have a face-to-face video conversation with friends, family or colleagues, no matter where they are in the world. ooVoo is remarkably easy to use: easy to download, easy to install, and best of all, it’s FREE!

ooVoo features:

Free Phone Calls – FREE calls from ooVoo to a landline or mobile phone in the USA or Canada

Video Call – Start a face-to-face conversation and include up to six people

Video Message – Tired of typing emails? Give your fingers a break and send a video message to one friend or a group

Find Friends – Import contacts from the most popular email programs: Office Outlook, Gmail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo mail, AOLmail and more

Record Video Call – Create instant memories by recording your ooVoo video calls

Video Effects – Do you want to grow a virtual mustache or become a Superman – all while on a video call? Now you can

Chat – Text chat with up to six friends at a time!

Send Files – With ooVoo it’s easy to share files with your friends!

Sidebar View – Enable sidebar view to clearly view documents or other tasks on your screen

It’s easy to use. Just download, install and create a new ooVoo account from the program. To add a friend to your contact list, you can either enter their ooVoo ID, display name or e-mail address. Currently there’s only Windows version of ooVoo. Mac version is coming soon.

I know Skype is very popular but ooVoo BETA looks promising. If you didn’t notice, Skype is mostly in white color and ooVoo is mostly in black. What I like about ooVoo is the main interface looks very similar to Windows Live Messenger which makes you feel like you already know how to use it. There is also a very useful record video call feature built in to ooVoo which Skype doesn’t have. Currently ooVoo offers FREE phone calls to the USA and Canada which will be available through March 1, 2008. I’ve just tried calling my webhost, WebhostingBuzz, and it got through!

[ Download ooVoo for Windows ]

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