Laura Locke at PCworld.com asks. 'Have you noticed?'
Read more here.Facebook, the world's favorite social networking tool, has been jockeying for position lately. So have Skype and Twitter. These giants lost their lead after an unprecedented run-up from newcomer Tango, a new free mobile-to-mobile video calling service. Hours after launching on September 30, Tango became the #1 free social networking app-knocking off Twitter, Skype and Facebook in the App Store in nine countries including the United States, Hong Kong, France, Taiwan, Spain and South Korea.
And Tango announced this week its 1 millionth download from the App Store and Android Marketplace. (At the moment, it's slipped to the #2 spot, after Facebook.)
Without any cheerleading by Apple or any existing brand awareness or installed user base to speak of, Tango's explosive rise is a feat of virality that every app developer dreams of. "It's unheard of," says Patrick Mork of GetJar, the world's largest independent app store. Clearly, there is pent-up demand for free, two-way video calls that work reliably across platforms (Android and iOS) over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi. Yahoo is moving in fast, too, with its newest version of Yahoo Messenger, announced Monday, which does video chats on iOs devices over 3G and Wi-Fi and allows users to place video calls to and from desktops: it's already #4 in the App Store's "Top Free" social networking category, just behind Tango (#2) and Skype (#3).
With Tango, besides being able to talk for free (via a data connection) and see friends in real-time on both Android handsets and iPhones, there's ease of use. One-click functionality for audio and video. Plus, . Invite friends with an email or text. A really cool feature is the option to switch between audio and video during mid-call, so you're not compelled to show your mug the entire conversation.
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