Social Media Vendor ooVoo Opens Up the Wireless Airwaves for Multistreamed Social Video

Don't get us wrong, but just because ooVoo is a palindrome doesn't mean that it is an awesome name. It may very well be the silliest brand name we've ever come across. And yet, the New York City-based company - which is focused on the social video chat market, has managed to capture 54 million registered users for its services. On August 21, the company announced its newest capabilities: free iOS and Android apps that let subscribers easily include more friends in all their fun, wherever and whenever they wish.

These new mobile apps allow ooVoo to offer users four simultaneous video streams at once on mobile devices (as well as on Macs and PCs), and the ability to host a total of up to 12 participants on one call. There is a Facebook app as well. The price for putting all of this wireless data bandwidth to use? Free. Can ooVoo truly establish itself as the go-to place for free group video-chat? Perhaps we can come closer to answqering that question by taking a closer look at the new ooVoo mobile apps will allow users to do:

·         Host four simultaneous high quality video streams at once on screen at no cost on iOS or Android mobile devices.

·         Gain deep integration into the native Android address book using the Google Social API.

·         Take advantage of ooVoo’s Android widget that shows online friends, missed calls and enables one-touch chat session starts plus calls straight from their phone or tablet home screen.

·         The first optimized, multi-party communications experience for new, high-speed LTE mobile networks.

·         Stay always available -- the new ooVoo mobile app provides subscribers with push notifications, making them always on and always reachable.

·         Text chat with anyone during a video call on both iOS and Android.

·         Get improvements to the user experience that make ooVoo easier and fun to use.

It will certainly be interesting to see how quickly mobile users adopt ooVoo. It can certainly be classified as a no brainer on whether or not to download - if the app works as advertised there may soon be an entire new breed of video addicts using up large amounts of wireless data to see themselves actually doing essentially not a whole lot but staring into a phone camera. Still…Facetime has its devotees, so ooVoo certainly stands a chance of gaining market share.

Of course there isn't anything really free about the basic service. There are the usual collections of ads one must live with. If ads don't make you a happy camper there is the ooVoo premium version - for either a yearly fee of $29.99 (with the first two months free) or $2.99 per month a user can avoid the ads and gain access to screen sharing. The company also offers an international calling service that includes audio-only calls in those cases where users aren't using a smart mobile device or a webcam. The company charges a low per minute fee for the service.

So far the company looks to be a pure consumer (and we would guess very youthful consumer) play. There may in fact be a small business model ooVoo can play with at some point, but the issue of security quickly pops up. Revenue options for ooVoo are limited - it isn't clear to us yet if ooVoo will be a happy company living off the kinds of revenue it currently generates or if we will see a more ambitious game plan for greater revenues and larger scope overall.

Want to learn more about today’s powerful mobile Internet ecosystem? Don't miss the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct. 2-5 2012, in Austin, TX.  Stay in touch with everything happening at Mobility Tech Conference & Expo. Follow us on Twitter.