Skype and Facebook are very close to each other.
Skype powers Facebook video chat and you can use FB in the Skype client. Also Skype is owned by Microsoft, arguably Facebook's biggest ally.
At first I wasn't sure how Skype played into FB's strategy but I guess it makes sense. Skype would come with a plethora of talent, which facebook is known to spend money for. Also, the Skype technology would allow FB to fill out the video communication side of things that they have yet to tap.
All your friends are on Facebook, so you don't have to search/find them on Skype. N-to-N video communication is now much easier. Default will be to use FB rather than the Skype client, especially once they add voice calls, conference calls, and group video chat.
Considering Facebook news feed having a strong presence in the latest version of Skype, one might assume this is a 2-way partnership and yes we will see Skype inside Facebook.
Don't think anyone has done this (embedding or integrating Skype video chat) before? Technically it has not been possible, I believe?
Might be one more step towards Skype headless client / SDK, which has been talked about for years, but never materialised.
My family and I have had more success with Facebook Messenger's video chat than with Skype: the people we want to talk to (grandparents, aunts, etc) are already on Facebook, and the only trouble is that you have to determine whether to accept on your phone or your computer.
Skype has lately announced “It’s Time for Skype” promotional campaign by coming out with “Skype Humoticons”app which has been announced specifically for Facebook.
Skype is obviously concerned but I wonder if this is also part of a longterm "Google Me" strategy against Facebook.
Facebook already has email and chat, so one logical next step would be video chat and then calls. People already list phone numbers in their profiles and when I look at FB contacts through their mobile interface, Calling is always an option.
This is, of course, just speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if both turn out to be true
Isn't the Skype plugin for Facebook video-chats made in Java, too? Sounds to me like Facebook should be one of the very first companies to want to adopt WebRTC. Not only will they become independent of Skype for video-calls, but they can offer it for everyone inside the browser, too, instead of getting them to install plugins. Hopefully they intend to make it federated though, rather than keeping it Facebook-only.
Facebook still requires downloading a plugin to use video chat, so it has the same barrier to entry. I don't see being able to video chat from within my facebook.com window instead of in my Skype.app window as being a huge advantage.
Case in point: I told my younger sister about Facebook's announcement today, and she didn't really care since she already had Skype to video chat with her friends. Then I told her about Google+'s Hangout feature and her eyes lit up.
Video chatting is no longer a killer feature, but group video chatting is as long as Skype maintains premium pricing for group chats.
reply