Skype desktop app now makes Facebook video calls
Skype deepened its partnership with Facebook today by adding Facebook video calling to both its Mac and Windows applications. — With the just announced Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac and Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows, you can initiate …
Context & Ripple Effects
Skype’s desktop clients had already moved beyond standalone calling through Facebook integration in Skype 5.0 for Windows, and the companies expanded that social tie again in June 2011. Facebook had also been experimenting with voice calling, making communications a shared strategic surface rather than a one-off feature integration.
The new Mac and Windows betas turn that relationship into a direct video-calling path from Facebook contacts. It arrives while Facebook is under public scrutiny over privacy and platform security, raising the importance of how tightly social identity and communications services are connected.
First-order effects
- Skype’s Mac and Windows users can initiate video calls with Facebook contacts from the desktop application, extending Skype’s service into Facebook’s social graph.
- Facebook gains a desktop video-calling option delivered through Skype rather than a separately described Facebook video product.
Second-order effects
- Skype’s value to Facebook rises from contact discovery toward active communications, giving the partnership a stronger reason to retain desktop users inside the combined experience.
- Facebook’s voice-calling experiments are more directly measured against an integrated Skype experience, sharpening the build-versus-partner choice for social communications features.
Third-order effects
- If social platforms continue to expose calling through specialist clients, control of the user relationship may be shared between the social graph owner and the communications provider rather than held by either alone.
The trend: Social networks are evolving from contact directories into communications layers by embedding voice and video services from dedicated calling platforms.