Facebook Charging Rumor Goes Viral As Video Chat Announced

Facebook made its "awesome" announcement today: it's partnering with Skype to offer video chat, just days after the launch of Google+.

The Skype-Facebook partnership had been rumored for some time, and the video chat feature has already gone live (you can try it here).

But the partnership seems to have resurfaced fears about Facebook charging for that or other services. In the past, some have questioned how a Skype-Facebook partnership would make money.

The rumor that charging could be in Facebook's plans has gone viral. The typical status update goes like this:

"It's offical~ Signal at 12:20 it even passed on tv. Facebook will start charging this summer. If you copy this on your wall, your icon will turn blue & facebook will be free for you. Please pass this message, if not your account will be deleted. P.S. this is serious the icon turns blue. So please"

No word from Facebook yet, but for now it's just a rumor (but it's going strong). There are no signs Facebook will begin charging for its service, currently 100% free. But some caution the move could even happen in 2012 and 2013.

It's not the first time fears of Facebook charging have emerged. In January 2010, similar rumors went viral, which Facebook dismissed. At the time, a spokesman said: "We have no plans to charge users for Facebook's basic services. Facebook is a free service for its 350 million users."

Other rumors have spread through the service quickly as well, due to its easy-to-share and viral nature, including that Facebook was shutting down altogether in March 2011.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Facebook tells The Huffington Post, "Facebook is free and always will be."

Comments

[General Public]

11:49 PM on 07/11/2011

Who cares? I have a Facebook account and never use Facebook because it's so boring. If Facebook ever started charging money, I would continue to not use it, and the only difference for me would be that I would delete my account. But since they won't be charging money, I'll just be inactive and not do anything about my Facebook account (I've been on Facebook since a few months after it started so I got bored with it years ago). Back when I used Facebook, I added new friends all the time, but I got bored with it after I had over 3000 friends. I didn't even know who most of them were anymore... I'd already added everyone I'd ever met who had a Facebook account, and the people I added (for instance, everyone with the same last name as me, everyone named Bob Dobbs or Connie Dobbs, everyone whose name and profile are a South Park character, etc.) were just for fun mostly. Eventually Facebook started giving me warnings that I was sending out too many friend requests, so I just stopped using it and never logon anymore, but I still have over 3000 friends there.

[Guitar Man]

09:18 PM on 07/10/2011

Such a shame that the Huffington Post is endulging in gossip, very disappointing!

[jaycg9]

07:44 PM on 07/09/2011

Inevitabilities in life:
1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Rumors, quickly dispelled, that Facebook will begin charging
4. People complaining for about two weeks every time Facebook changes anything.

[marierocks]

04:32 PM on 07/09/2011

Well, Facebook really never has been "free." Your privacy is the price: Facebook is a business and they make money by giving your information away to businesses and third parties, just like Google. Diaspora is a smart choice.

[KiboeDog]

09:17 PM on 07/26/2011

the features on diaspora are being copied and implemented by google+, js.

[atheis4]

02:16 PM on 07/09/2011

Oh you mean like G+? Love G+... Whats Facebook?

[KiboeDog]

09:18 PM on 07/26/2011

as soon as g+ goes public, i see a bunch of people moving there.

[Patricia Hinchliff]

01:32 PM on 07/09/2011

OH NO MR Bill .. GATES that is

[JoeDoorman]

09:49 AM on 07/09/2011

Zucks is Big Brother... he has the demeanour.

We should be running from this "prince", FB is a trap that is only now being built.

[follygirl]

09:42 PM on 07/08/2011

FB is fun but I won't pay for it. Those people have made quite enough money already.

[EricBishop]

05:40 PM on 07/08/2011

There is zero chance of them charging. Doing so would play perfectly into Google's hands and facebook's fall would be even more precipitous than myspace's.

[KiboeDog]

09:19 PM on 07/26/2011

for the 7 people that still use myspace :P

[Maureen Stemberg]

03:59 PM on 07/08/2011

I don't think for a second *charging* for FaceBook...Will ever happen. ESP. since google is up and running. No one is going to pay for FBook.

[Jeremy Bourgeois]

02:39 PM on 07/08/2011

facebook is free....skype video/voice is free...why would they charge? both applications are free as it is.

[KiboeDog]

09:20 PM on 07/26/2011

yes but skype started charging for party video calls.

[KiboeDog]

09:20 PM on 07/26/2011

a one-time charge, that is.

[Cimms]

02:31 PM on 07/08/2011

I hope FB does start charging. It will give me a reason to leave the community without pissing off my friends.

[1frank]

12:21 PM on 07/08/2011

Do you really need facebook ?

[Results May Vary]

12:43 PM on 07/08/2011

It really doesn't hurt anything to use Facebook, it's not heroin. It's also an easy way to keep in touch with old friends and family when you can't talk to each and every one of them every day.

[phantom power]

02:02 PM on 07/08/2011

so was myspace...

[KiboeDog]

09:22 PM on 07/26/2011

why do i need to talk to people that i used to know from highschool who live in florida now every day? it used to be you met them once every 5 years...or every decade at the reunion, facebook has turned into the daily highschool reunion, and i'm not a fan.

[Ty Summers]

09:22 AM on 07/08/2011

ha no they arent going to charge. zuckerberg is a smart guy and hes seen whats happened to myspace. he knows hes in a good position and doesnt want to change that. if he does get money greedy the first thing he will do, which wont matter performance wise, is make the company public

[KarateKid]

08:22 AM on 07/08/2011

Facebook and Twitter both ought to charge. It might remove the frivolous users. I don't do either so no big deal to me.