This might seem a small, trivial feature to bring to Skype but I find it really quite exciting. Currently this feature is only available in the beta version of the Skype desktop clients but I imagine that soon it will be available in the proper version of the desktop client. At that point surely it only make sense that all Skype clients would offer this functionality. This will allow users of Skype to use their iPhone or Android device to video call not only people on another device but also their friends on Facebook, even if those friends don’t have a Skype account. Now that to me is exciting.

But there’s more, we know that Microsoft plans to incorporate Skype into most of its products and with this new announcement it gets more interesting. Bearing in mind that it is now possible to video call people on Facebook who don’t have a Skype account it makes sense to me that it will be possible for people to video call their friends who have a Windows Live ID (WL ID) even if they don’t have a Skype account. Using a Skype client I imagine that soon people will be able to link their WL ID to their Skype account (like they can do with Facebook in the new beta) and then video call their friends using an Xbox 360 with Kinect, or on Windows Phone or within Hotmail.

At this point Skype becomes less of a product and more of a service. This is why I am excited as it would mean that people don’t have to have signed up with Skype to be able to use it’s video calling functionality and its exactly what Microsoft needs to be doing with Skype.

This service model for Skype would pave the way for people with a WL ID to be able to instigate video calls from whatever device, client or service where they are signed in to call any of their WL, Skype or Facebook friends even if those friends didn’t have an WL ID account.

Before this announcement from Microsoft Skype was used in two ways:

- Skype-to-Skype

- Facebook-to-Facebook

Following this announcement it is now possible to use Skype as:

- Skype-to-Facebook

I imagine though that soon Skype could be used in more ways:

- Skype-to-Windows Live

- Windows Live-to-Skype

- Windows Live-to-Facebook

I don’t imagine it will be possible to make video calls within Facebook to Skype or Windows Live clients for sometime, although that would be excellent.

You’ll notice that if my last prediction is correct then it will be possible for people who don’t use Skype to actually be utilising Skype to make video calls. This would be exciting; this idea would also show how Skype compliments Microsoft’s other products rather than competing with them.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you pleased with Microsoft’s Skype announcement from this week?

View the news via Reuters or read the full press release from the EC.

Skype is expected to be integrated into many of Microsoft’s current products, mostly those aimed at the consumer such as a replacement for the video calling feature of Windows Live Messenger. It’s also expected to arrive on the Xbox 360 via Kinect and on Windows Phone, it’s likely to only be an app to begin with but could be integrated to both platforms at a later date. There are even some expectations that Skype could be used in conjunction with Microsoft’s business focused, unified communication product, Lync. Microsoft has so far been reluctant to talk about its plans for Skype in too much detail but there have been several hints dropped over the past few months.

Facebook and Skype announced a partnership over the summer that allows people to video call their friends on the social network through their browser. It’s likely that Microsoft will work closely with Facebook to expand the features that users will have access too in the browser version of Skype. If Skype is integrated into Windows Live Messenger then users of Facebook could call users of Messenger and even physical phones all from within the browser.

Exciting times ahead for the future of Skype at Microsoft, I am very keen to see what Microsoft does with the service.

Update: Microsoft has just issued its response about the news that comes from Brad Smith, General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Microsoft Corporation:

We’re pleased that the European Commission has approved Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype. This is an important milestone, as we’ve now received clearance from both the United States and the European Union. We look forward to completing soon the final steps needed to close the acquisition, bringing together the employees of Microsoft and Skype, and creating new opportunities for people to communicate and collaborate around the world.

The tool is currently only appearing for users who have their language set to Korean, Japanese, Russian, Taiwanese, and Chinese. Reports from people who have used the tools say that in its current form it can be quite unreliable, often not providing a translation. However, it is possible for users to submit their own translations for status and comments to then be voted upon by other users to ensure that it is correct. These community translations along with machine and admin ones could provide a very strong and accurate translation system for Facebook

Equally, this could be a major win for Microsoft as the vast amount of content that people will want to translate will make Bing Translator one of, if not, the best translator on the internet. Facebook recently announced that it had over 800 million users, if only a fraction of the users use Bing Translator to refine Bing’s translations it would hugely improve the accuracy of the translator.

This new feature just goes on to reinforce the close relationship that Microsoft, specifically Bing, has with Facebook. It will be interesting to see what other features the two companies can work on together.

This follows news from a couple of weeks ago where Microsoft started using the new square logo for Windows Phone instead of the round logo. I reported the fact that Microsoft would be using this new Metro logo months ago and its good to see appearing in more and more places.

I wonder how long it will be until we see the new logo on windowsphone.com; I wonder if it will be from September 1st, apparently the day when Windows Phone OEMs can publically talk about their new phones.

So far I have only seen this on one person’s Facebook status, have you seen updates on Facebook use the new logo or any other uses of the square logo around the net?

Update: The logo can be seen in the Applications Settings for the Windows Phone app thanks to @MasoudDehghani for the info.

This news has got me thinking though of the future. Business Insider already have an article detailing the future plans of the partnership between Facebook and Skype. Liveside has already asked what this news means for Messenger and wonder what Microsoft will have planned for the IM service.

One thing that should not be overlooked is the fact that Facebook is partnering with another internet service, aside from Microsoft I don’t believe Facebook have done this before. In most cases it wouldn’t have made sense for Facebook to partner with another service but I think they could have done for some of their features (Places could have been a partnership with Foursquare). This is a great endorsement for Skype as it means some very positive things for the company, 1, Facebook believe it to be a better video service than it could have made; 2, Skype will get quite a few more users and becomes more social and accessible and 3, it’s name and brand will get more exposure, it should gain popularity from partnering with Facebook.

Facebook + Skype is a strong partnership with two heavy weights of the social and communication world.

I imagine it wont be too long before its possible to call a friend via Facebook when they are on a mobile phone, either through a Facebook mobile app or through a Skype mobile app. Obliviously Microsoft have big plans for Skype, this partnership with Facebook makes it more apparent why Microsoft brought the video service, so I imagine there are plans to allow users to use their PC, Windows Phone and Xbox to call each other and now they will be able to include Facebook as a means of video calling. That is three screens and the cloud, just not a Microsoft cloud.

This partnership brings together 3 large user groups in a more meaningful way than Windows Live’s Facebook integration had done before. I imagine that when Microsoft purchases Skype, Skype’s users will be transferred, at some point, to Windows Live. Skype has about 700 million registered users and Windows Live has over 500 million, that’s a lot of people when combined, even assuming that most of the users are on both Skype and Windows Live. With Facebook now allowing people to use Skype and I expect some way in the future for Facebook to call Skype users directly that means that this collection of users will also include the 750 million Facebook users. I think the total number of people using Windows Live, Skype and Facebook will be in excess of 1 billion.

Perhaps the only upsetting part of the Facebook + Skype deal is that Skype is only being used for video, that is it. Yes, there are likely plans allow Facebook users to call physical phones too I don’t see Skype text IM service ever coming to Facebook. Facebook only want the video and calling features and that is what they have got, interestingly that is also all Microsoft really want. I think that Microsoft and Facebook will be keen to position to Skype as a calling service and give no coverage to the IM aspect of Skype, it already competes with Messenger and Facebook Chat.

I think once purchased by Microsoft Skype will lose it’s IM feature and in fact I don’t know if Skype will have a separate client for PC. I imagine it will be integrated into everything as an addition feature rather than its own product.

Windows Live + Skype

I think that Skype will be brought to Windows Live allowing people to call their friends within Windows Live using Skype, this will be possible in both the Messenger client and also in the browser in Hotmail. I think that Messenger will continue to exist as the text IM service that complements the video chat functionality.

Video calls will take place between users of Messenger and Hotmail and those of Facebook. It’s already possible for users of Facebook and Messenger to easily chat via IM and I see Skype being the video extension of this integration. There will be still be need for individual Skype apps but I think it will be positioned as a feature.

Windows Phone + Skype

It’s not hard to imagine Skype being integrated into Windows Phone that will allow users of Microsoft products and Facebook to instantly video call each other. The fact that it could be possible for people to directly call a user of Windows Phone from Facebook is a pretty good feature and will build upon the mobile OS’s Facebook integration; this could well become it’s biggest unique selling point for many people.

As I’ve already said, I imagine that Messenger will be used to perform IMs so I don’t expect it to be possible for users to IM via Skype on their phone.

Xbox + Skype

Not much to say here other than if Microsoft were to make games for Facebook that integrated in some way to those on an Xbox Skype could well be a useful way to communicate with gamers around the world.

Windows 8 + Skype

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Skype was integrated into Windows 8, perhaps as “Chatter”. Again this wont be a product but as a way to call someone.

I am really looking forward to when Microsoft are allowed to purchase Skype to see what can come of the acquisition. I expect to see Skype to become all about calling people rather and to be a feature of many Microsoft products, not its own broad communication product. This can already be seen with the Facebook partnership where Skype is providing the infrastructure for the video calling and not much else.

What are your thoughts on the Facebook + Skype partnership? What do you think of my thoughts for the future of Skype and how it will work with Microsoft and Facebook?

I think this is a pretty good demonstration of how well Microsoft’s communication services can work together and how well they integrate with Facebook.

First up you’ll need to sign into Facebook from Bing, multiple services are now used to sign into Bing as denoted by the white arrow, before it was only Windows Live available. (I changed my location to US and then it detected I was still in the UK anyway)

After here you will be taken to the well known Facebook Connect page that you need to allow.

That should be it in terms of set up, after this anytime you search you might see your friends’ faces alongside the links. I did a few searches and found that the “likes” are indeed shown at different places within results and sometimes not at all. This is how I expected the feature to work following the announcement.

Here the “liked” results were need the top of the results which for a film I guess makes sense.

However when searching for Windows Phone 7 the “liked” results were much further down.

The “liked” pages appear in a section like “videos”, “visual search”, “news” etc however they don’t have a hub on Bing like those vertical searches do.

I have to say that using this only for the few searches I have done its certainly an interesting experience seeing what my friends have liked and I am sure it will be useful when searching properly. I hope Bing’s vertical searches get the Facebook integration soon, currently they appear as normal to me. I also hope that Microsoft and Facebook work quickly to bring out some more innovative ideas for this partnership.

You can find out more about the Facebook integration with Bing here.

When I did a search today I saw it for the first time, does anyone know how long its been there or have I just been blind for the past few weeks/months?

There is a Facebook advert that also features a video. The video could well be used as a TV advert for the new device too.

Expect to see a lot of more of the new Xbox 360 as Microsoft seem to be staging quite the advertising offensive with this device at the moment, thankfully I really like the new the design of the console. I am interested to see how Microsoft will be advertising Kinect, yesterday’s apparent video is nothing to go by as it was a road safety video made “Xboxy” by a fan.

TechFlash have a good overview of when the feature was announced and what it can do with a video with a video of how the Social page works.

Liveside are reporting that the beta page is available but only only in the US, I however have access to it in the UK but all the trending topics are from the US and there appears to be no way of changing where they are from.