It wasn’t but a week ago when we shared thoughts on why Facebook should acquire Skype. Now, Kara Swisher brings news of a major partnership between the two companies that will see “integration of SMS, voice chat and Facebook Connect.” No acquisition, but as close as we’re likely to see between these two Internet giants.
The move will allow users to SMS, call and video call Facebook friends from Skype and is reportedly to arrive with Skype’s newest version, 5.0, to be released in a few weeks.
Both from a user and business perspective, this makes complete sense. It gives Skype complete access to the world’s largest social network and with any luck should make communicating with those close to you easy as pie. Despite being able to (sorta) video chat within Facebook already, with over 443 million members and an active daily user base of over 42.2 million – no in-browser video chat/VOIP client comes close to Skype.
Above all, it’s yet another step towards Facebook’s ambition to become “the” social layer on anything and everything.
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