Rabbit

Extracted 20DEC2012 from http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/20/rabbit-video-chat/

In Q1 2013 the design-focused startup will launch its desktop client where people create persistent group chat rooms, talk with friends or strangers, and watch any kind of media together. Rabbit’s always-on style could bring us together when we’d miss each other on other video chat apps...

Stephanie Morgan, a 10-year video game  designer from Hands-On Mobile and ngmoco explains her and her fellow co-founders “Started with 11 different questions about emotional connection” and asked “What would you do if you were designing video chat from scratch?”

Multiple separate conversations can go on side-by-side in a room, and you can bounce from one to another just like mingling at a party...

Similar to Hangouts, whoever is currently talking gets switched into the primary screen. But Rabbit wins by placing that window directly beneath your webcam in the top center of the screen. This way it feels like you’re making eye contact.

Since Rabbit runs as a desktop application, it gets deep OS-level access to what else you’re doing on your computer. That means you can instantly show your conversation partners a photo, video, spreadsheet, or any other app or file. Alternatively you may pipe in video from services like YouTube or Hulu.