Tango’s iPhone/Android video chat app takes off with 1M downloads

Tango, makers of a cross-platform mobile video chat application for iPhone and Android phones, announced today that its app has been downloaded 1 million times in its first 10 days of release.

The company reports that Tango debuted as the number one social networking app on the App Store in nine countries, including the U.S., Taiwan, South Korea, Spain, and France. It has ranked in the top 10 Android communications apps since its release on September 30.

Why all the fuss? Tango’s app enables simple video chat across iPhone and Android with a user experience reminiscent of Apple’s FaceTime feature on the iPhone 4. Competitors like Fring have had cross-platform video chat for some time, but Tango wins out with its ease of use and high quality video. The service can also make calls over 3G and 4G cellular networks, making it more useful overall than Apple’s WiFi-only FaceTime.

In a video chat interview, Tango’s executives mentioned that the service is using peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to handle the video calls. That means the service is highly scalable and doesn’t rely entirely on the speed of the company’s servers. Tango has six patents pending surrounding its video chat technology, three of which are related specifically to its P2P technology implementation.

Not only is it easy to make calls with Tango, it’s also very easy to find your friends on the service. The application combs through your iPhone or Android Address book, and when it finds that one of your contacts is already using Tango, they’re added to your list of contacts within the app. The setup process for the app is also much simpler than services like Fring.

Based in Palo Alto, Calif., Tango has raised $5 million in funding from individual investors including Bill Hambrecht, Michael Birch, Bill Tai, and Daniel Scheinman.

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