Report: Facebook and Skype Will Partner and Release In Browser Video Chat Next Week

Yesterday, we pointed out that Mark Zuckerberg told Reuters that Facebook plans to launch something “awesome” next week.

What could it be? The speculation has been going strong (as it always does).

TechCrunch is now reporting that next week (Wednesday, July 6th) Facebook will introduce in browser video chat next week.

Facebook will partner with Skype to offer this feature.

From Michael Arrington’s Story:

The product has been built on Skype and will include a desktop component. It’s not clear to me whether that means it will just work if a user has Skype already installed on the computer, or if additional software will need to be downloaded even if the user already uses Skype. But it’s clear that there’s very deep integration between the products, and from the user’s perspective, the product will be an in browser experience.

Facebook and Skype have already been working together, including integration of various Facebook features into the Skype service.

The remainder of the article talks about how this could be a big win for Skype since Facebook has more than 750 million users vs. Skype’s 170 million. Arrington also notes that this will bring Facebook and Microsoft closer. Microsoft owns a portion of Facebook and recently acquired Skype.

Read the Complete Article

See Also: “Facebook Now Has 750 Million Users” (via TechCrunch)

Note: After reading many reviews and discussion about Google+ a few but not many accounted for the fact that Facebook would also be adding new features and continue to make their product appealing to their SUPER MASSIVE (and still growing) user base.  Robert Scoble makes this point in a story he posted today.

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