Future enhancement of its video-calling service

Skype will bring PSTN voice calling to Facebook as part of a future enhancement of its video-calling service, Skype executives confirmed Wednesday.

According to Philip Su, an engineer for Facebook who worked on the development team, users who frequently message one another will occasionally receive a prompt to try out the video calling feature.

Su as well said that the features for the straightway version of the Facebook-Skype integration haven't been defined but. Nevertheless, Scott Miller, director of global business development for Skype, told PCMag.com on Wednesday that the company plans to add PSTN calling to phones, a capability that Google integrated with Gmail at the end of last year.

For now, the Skype-Facebook integration is relatively simple, compared to the features that Skype's PC client offers. Facebook's new video calling feature allows users to click on a video icon within Facebook's chat window. If a user doesn't have the Skype app already enabled, he or she can download it within 30 seconds and be up and running, executives said.

The guiding mantra for the Facebook-Skype integration

And that's the guiding mantra for the Facebook-Skype integration, executives said: ease of use. That means that the many features Skype's Windows and Mac customers offer may not make it into Facebook. "Our first concern is the user experience," Miller said.

Skype 5.3 for Windows includes HD video calls, group video calls with up to five participants, and a new audio codec called SILK. And that's not all: Skype as well allows screen sharing, phone-card like calling with Skype to Go, Wi-Fi access in airports and other public places, even lessons in anything from a new language to relationships through Skype Prime.

Mobile apps enable calling from PC-to-phone as then as PC-to-PC and smartphone-to-smartphone. Skype 5.3 even makes video calls between iPhones and Android phones possible.

That means that group video calling may be some time off. Zuckerberg and Bates said that the primary video interaction was one-to-one communication, a position Miller echoed. For all that, one analyst said Facebook needs to offer the features that Gmail does.

Advantage because Hangouts is a lot more robust

"Google has an advantage because Hangouts is a lot more robust," said Susan Etlinger, an industry analyst for the Altimeter Group. And, she said, Google as well has an advantage because of the robust number of apps that interact with Gmail, which has evolved into its own messaging client with video and text chat, as then as PSTN calling to phones.

Vivox, the company behind the other VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) app for Facebook, Bobsled, said that it has a roadmap to video chat, nevertheless could offer no timetable. "Vivox is excited to work with our partners to bring integrated video chat, where applicable, to various digital communities- social networks, online games, virtual worlds, etc- in the nearly future. We believe a full spectrum of communication options is needed to actually give the users a 'voice', regardless [of] the communication method of choice; Vivox will always strive to provide the most seamless natural approach possible," it said in a statement.

The question

The question, Etlinger said, is whether Skype will strike similar deals with other services, to expand its own reach and help drive revenue. Google, in its turn, plans to make the underlying technology in accordance with Hangouts open and interoperable, Google real-time communications tech Justin Uberti wrote on his personal blog over the weekend.

Tony Bates, the chief executive of Skype, told reporters Wednesday that the company plans to add paid services at a future date, which most assumed to be SkypeOut, where users can call landline phones and mobile phones for a low cost.