Users can now make Facebook-to-Facebook calls within Skype. This new feature is available for Mac users with Skype 5.4 Beta and Windows users with Skype 5.7 Beta. If users chat one-on-one, they’ll be able to share screens.
This new announcement is the inverse of the initial Facebook deal with Skype back in July, which let Facebook users make Skype-powered video calls within Facebook.
Is this the best of both worlds, or is this just another Facebook-Microsoft move?
The initial Skype announcement raised some eyebrows, leading to further speculation about Facebook and Microsoft’s purported partnering against search giant Google. Microsoft had already acquired Skype. According to reports from Microsoft-Watch.com, Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook had already “been working with Skype on the project for the past six months, well before the acquisition announcement.”
Of course, the Microsoft/Facebook partnership was already pretty tight.
Bing debuted social search with Facebook integration in May, allowing Bing to grab “likes” from friends. Facebook began using Bing-powered maps. Users can translate Facebook pages into any language using Bing’s translator.
Microsoft has a stake in Facebook and, more importantly, the social web. Will this new Skype integration bring them one step closer to crushing Google?
And perhaps more importantly, do consumers even want video calling?
