Tokbox Launches AIR Desktop Video Chat Software

Tokbox, a web-based service for video, voice, IM chat, video mail, just came out with the latest in a steady stream of AIR apps being launched of late. This desktop verison of the software looks remarkably like the web client, albeit in a smaller window. It does add an icon to the pack in your system tray in Windows, which means you’ll be available for online video chatting without having to be logged in to the Web site. Sound and picture quality were quite good in my brief, preliminary testing, as far as these IP things go. Don’t forget you can also send a video mail or add video to Facebook chat with Tokbox.

Basing it in AIR gives the client some degree of cross-platform support, right now there are AIR runtimes for Windows and Mac–the Linux AIR runtime is still in alpha, so it’s way to early to rely on. Why this is better than Skype, which simply has good Windows, Mac, and Linux versions, I’m not completely sure. It seems to me that TokBox being accessible using just a web browser was its advantage over installed-software-only video chat services like Skype, Oovoo, or SightSpeed. I guess AIR gave them a way to program once for multiple platforms.