SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK via TokBox  — TokBox, the San Francisco-based group video chat company, has shuttered its consumer product and is putting its efforts around an API for publishers seeking to incorporate group video conferencing into their Web pages.  The new product is called OpenTok.

Unlike Skype Video, which offers group video conferencing but requires an application, TokBox runs on Flash and works on all browsers and on the Android.  Unlike the new group Skype product, the TokBox API is free.

Today it announced 30 publishers who are using the platform which allows up to 20 video participants on a page.  They include PokerView, eBuddy, LiveGO and others.

As part of the offering, it will allow publishers the ability to record conferences for later use.  This will be introduced in a couple of months, we are told.

The company raised $12 million in funding from Sequoia and others last fall.  More on this story from Leena Rao at TechCrunch.

We spoke with Ian Small via TokBox yesterday via TokBox, with me in New York and Small in San Francisco.  

For more about free video conferencing programs, check out this recent story from PC World.

Andy Plesser