(Image source: Venture Beat)
BY MARC STEIDLER
ANCHOR LAUREN ZIMA
You’re watching multisource tech video news analysis from Newsy.
It’s a match made in social networking heaven -- Facebook and Skype announced the next step in its partnership Thursday. KGO has more.
“Skype and Facebook have expanded their partnership today by allowing users of Skype software to place and receive video calls to their Facebook friends for free. Skype released a beta test version of the new software that includes that feature today for Macs and PCs. This comes after the two giants struck a deal in July.”
Skype says on its blog -- the partnership is part of a mission to connect over one billion people. The post also explains how easy it is to use the new feature.
“I just downloaded the latest version of Skype -- and hit the button to connect to Facebook -- and bam, my friends are there.”
A writer for CNet says this was the next logical move for the tech companies.
“Since you can already see your Facebook Wall, update your status, and make comments from within the Skype interface, it only makes sense to be able to initiate Facebook video calls from there as well.”
And a blogger for Venture Beat adds -- the move should benefit both parties.
“Facebook gains a feature that makes it more competitive with Google+ and Gmail. Skype, on the other hand, gains exposure...which, in turn, should translate into new Skype users.”
But Wired’s Beth Carter says whether or not the partnership works best for Skype depends on if users change their habits.
“In the end, whether this feature is actually useful will depend on what you generally use the two different chat platforms for … Skype is used less spontaneously than Facebook for chatting/calling ... If Skype is looking for a little more of that Facebook/AIM quality, this is a good move.”
The latest move in the tech partnership could serve as another example of Microsoft’s involvement in both companies. The software company owns Skype and has a 5% stake in Facebook.
Transcript by Newsy.
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