Time to Gabble

If you have a penchant for social networking and have already signed up for Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter, then you are certain to be excited by the news that Gabble has now opened its doors to the public.

Originally developed by researchers at HP Labs, Gabble has been launched as a beta product by HP's Personal Systems Group (PSG). The Gabble service allows individuals to create private video conversations between their friends, family members or colleagues.

Gabble works with any computer or mobile device that can access the internet. To start a Gabble conversation, you just log on to the Gabble website to record a video using your webcam or by emailing or MMS-ing it from your mobile phone and posting it to your conversation.

Only the people in your group can see your posts and respond with their own videos in return.

That inbuilt privacy is crucial, says HP Labs researcher April Slayden Mitchell. 'Unlike a lot of other web video services, we’re private by default,' she said. 'And we allow you to have different groups of friends instead of just one.'