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A new social video service called Spreecast launched into public beta today, promising users a more social, portable version of the functionality offered by Google+ Hangouts.

Think of Spreecast like a multi-person video chat service mashed up with a traditional, text-based live chat feature. It allows up to four people to appear on camera at one time and invites an unlimited number of viewers, all of whom can make comment and ask questions of the participants. Alternatively, sessions can be held privately.

When Apple debuted the iPhone 4 with a front-facing camera it toted along a killer app that had been unavailable on mobile devices until then - FaceTime. Now users could do video chat from mobile devices and Apple was the only player in the game with that capability.

Everybody else has been playing catch up. Skype quickly moved to add video chat, one of its staple products, and then added Qik Video Connect earlier this year. Now, Yahoo has gotten into the game with its new Yahoo Messenger app for iOS. The new Yahoo Messenger for iOS has been optimized for iPad and can do video and voice calls, text chat, presence, send SMS and share photos in real-time. Importantly, iPad 2 users can video chat to talk with PCs. As a communications app, it is a strong entry from forgotten source of innovation.

RIM's newly launched tablet computer, the BlackBerry PlayBook, is getting video chat, the company announced this morning at its BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida. The app, which works over Wi-Fi only for now, lets users callt heir contacts from their Video Chat contact list, or by entering in the BBID email address of the person they want to call.

DEMO, the conference where companies get six minutes on stage to present their product, kicked off this morning with VentureBeat's Matt Marshall talking social. "It's all about social," said Marshall, explaining that social media companies like Facebook have grown at an unprecedented pace. It took half a century for IBM to hit $1 billion, whereas it only took Facebook a handful of years, he said.

With that in mind, let's take a look at three companies that presented this morning at DEMO and hope to latch on to the ever-expanding social web.

Tango, a cross-platform mobile video chat application, had a notable launch at the end of September 2010. Thanks to a high-profile review in the Wall St. Journal, the application was downloaded a million times within the first 10 days of its release. But did the downloads trail off as the hype died down?

No, they did not. Now, approximately 6 weeks later, Tango is reporting it has crossed the 3 million download mark and is available in 127 countries around the world. People want mobile video chat, it seems. But Tango isn't going to stop at mobile - the company is planning to bring Tango to all your screens - desktop, tablet, mobile and TV.

Yahoo let the cat out of the bag earlier this week, when one of its executives told Reuters that it would begin offering video chat via Yahoo Messenger to both the iPhone and Android smartphones.

The move would bring Yahoo, which already has 81 million Yahoo Messenger users, again to the forefront of chat services and would pose a serious challenge to Apple's own FaceTime.

Skype announced today that the latest beta version of Skype 5.0 would up the ante in terms of group video chat, as well as introduce a more stable and sleeker experience for its Windows users.

When the company first introduced group chat in May, it limited the number of participants to five, but now it has doubled that number to 10.

For many years, unified chat clients like Digsby or Adium have provided users with a single app with which to manage several chat protocols at once. Whether your friends are on AIM, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, or Facebook Chat, chances are there's an app that will aggregate your various buddy lists into one tidy window. Skype, however, has remained on its own outside of these clients, but thanks to the forthcoming SkypeKit SDK, the popular voice and video chat app will soon be integrated into other applications.

Last night Microsoft unveiled Kinect, the company's foray into motion activated controls for the XBOX 360 gaming console that was previously known as Project Natal. Users can play games and navigate menus and web apps by waving their hands or by using their voice, but the camera in Kinect can also be used for social communication. Announced this morning at Microsoft's keynote at E3, Xbox Live users will also be able to video chat from their TVs with friends and family using Windows Live Messenger.

Future, we are here. With today's launch of the Sprint HTC EVO 4G, the hotly anticipated smartphone running Google's Android OS, video chatting moves off the desktop and into the palm of your hand.

Using the popular Qik mobile application, EVO owners will be able to chat with other EVO owners and, eventually, with any smartphone user whose phone sports a forward-facing camera.

Are we on the precipice of a whole new form of communication? Or is mobile video chat going to be just for fun?