SleepyEgg

Facebook held a special media event on Wednesday to introduce "awesome" new Facebook features. It turns out the company unveiled improvements to Facebook Chat, including a new group chatting feature and, in partnership with Skype, the ability to make video calls. While the improvements are welcome—numerous other services such as AIM, iChat, Windows Live, and Yahoo have had similar features for some time—they are also far from the promised "awesome."

The staff in the Ars Orbiting HQ took the new features for a spin, and shortcomings were immediately obvious. While the service is based on Skype's technology, you can't make video calls with other Skype users. Video chats are only two-way, so no chatting among groups like in Google+'s new "hangout" feature. And text chat is stuck in the browser while video chats launch in a separate window that remains on top of all other windows, making it difficult to access other work while chatting.

However, Facebook's massive user base could make the new features useful, especially for those that don't heavily rely on other, more entrenched services like AIM or Skype. Here are some of the thoughts bandied about our in-orbit water cooler this afternoon.