How to Video Chat With a Friend

Video chatting is a great way to keep in touch with friends.

Using your computer, the Internet and a webcam, you can video chat and have a face-to-face conversation with a friend sitting in another room or halfway across the world. Some businesses even conduct conferences calls using online video chat. High-speed Internet enables these interactions to occur in real-time. The technology required to perform this operation continues to become cheaper as of the time of publication, making it a realistic pursuit for many people. You can use an online chat service or a downloadable program to video chat with a friend.

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Instructions

- 1
  
  Ensure that both parties who desire to chat have a computer, a webcam and an Internet connection. Many computers come with built-in webcams, but external webcams are affordable and easy to connect. If you need to buy an external webcam, follow the installation instructions to connect it to your computer.
- 2
  
  Determine what software you would like to use to chat. There are many resources available to chat for free. Apple computers come standard with iChat, which has video chatting capabilities. Gmail is free and also has video chat features. Skype is a very popular program available for free download for this purpose. Other sites designed for video chatting include Oovoo and Stickam.
- 3
  
  Download and install the chat program you want to use, if you want to use a computer-based program. If you want to use a website based chat program, navigate to that website.
- 4
  
  Log in to the desired program. Ensure that your friend does the same. Follow the directions that pertain to the program to connect to your friend. In most programs, click on your friend's name and then you should look for a small video icon. Click the video icon to start a video chat. Some sites allow three or more friends to conference together, but most will require you to pay for an upgraded account to do so.