Skype and Facebook play 'Let's make a Deal'

Skype has gotten together with social networking giant Facebook in order to make it easier for you to hook up with your Facebook buds on using its Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) apps.

The main rumors around Facebook

Although the main rumors around Facebook and smartphones have been about Facebook launching a handset of its own, that is no reason that the company cannot grab another partner in the phone service business. In this case, it’s Skype and Facebook that have teamed up with each other to make it easier to call and video-chat with their friends and family using Skype products. It should be a marriage made in heaven, according to the BBC. Rick Osterloh, Skype’s head of consumer products, says “The essence of the Skype experience is communicating with the people you care about.”

Ben Popper of business technology blog BNET.com also thinks that the marriage is a good one. “For Skype they are getting built right into the conversation. For Facebook, which has the bulk of its users in the US, this is good in terms of expansion because a chunk of Skype users are in Europe and the rest of the world. The deal makes this space a lot more interesting and indicates a different direction of where communications could go. Right now phones are owned by the cellular networks. This partnership is big enough and deep enough, it could point towards a different kind of telco [telecommunications company] in the future.”