Facebook + Skype: Match Made in Social Technology Heaven?

How it works in a nutshell

Similar to the “Message” and “Poke” buttons (I still don’t get the “Poke” idea but I digress), there’s a new button called “Call”. When clicked, it launches a popup window asking if the other party is interested in accepting your call.

Why is this making news?

According to TechCrunch,

Facebook emphasized the fact that users will not have to create new Skype accounts to make calls, and that this will allow users to call their friends and family with a very minimal amount of setup (the flow for installing the applet only took a few seconds).

Of course, this comes just a week after the launch of Google+, which includes a video chat feature called ‘Hangouts’. Facebook’s video chat doesn’t support group chats yet, but when asked if Facebook will be rolling out group video calling, Zuckerberg said not to rule anything out. He added that one-to-one calling makes up the vast majority of video calling.

Skype CEO Tony Bates took the stage to make a few comments. One important thing he noted: Skype is talking with Facebook about having some paid products available through the web format.

What about privacy?

It’s no secret that Facebook has been embroiled in user privacy issues for years so one of the concerns remains if Facebook will be monitoring and recording all calls made through its Skype integrated feature. And how would users control if they want to be contacted or not?

While questions are still being hashed out, only time (and connection quality) will tell if Facebook and Skype getting in bed together will create an unmatched social networking tool.