Per Kara, according to her sources close to the situation, Facebook and Skype are poised to announce a significant and wide-ranging partnership that will include integration of SMS, voice chat and Facebook Connect.

According to the post, Facebook’s goal, (according to sources) is to mesh communications and community more tightly together and add more tools to allow users to do so. And FB was not going to create an internet telephone service anyway.

With more than 120 million people using Skype at least once a month and 560 million registered users, the 500 million Facebook users would now be able to use it more seamlessly within Skype.

That will include allowing users to SMS and call Facebook friends from Skype, which will now deploy Facebook Connect. It all will be available in Skype’s newest version, 5.0, which emerges from beta in a few weeks. This is a big win for the Luxembourg-based Skype, who is supposedly readying a public offering.
Skype, while dominating the online calling arena is being proactive and realizes that it needs to be present where users are now moving, such as FB. And for Facebook, this is also helpful to its international push, making it more appealing globally since Skype is much more popular outside the U.S. It would make sense for both Skype and FB to integrate the partnership into their popular mobile apps too.

I use Skype more and more often now, particularly since we are actively pursuing business in China, Asia and beyond. It’s really a very useful tool and only getting better. I was at the OMMA conference yesterday in New York and David Kenny spoke about HD video chat being the next BIG thing. Skype is poised and ready to jump on that opportunity.

I was a bit concerned about Oovoo.com moving in on Skype’s territory but Oovoo.com has done little to make any real headway. This likely partnership between Skype and FB puts Skype far out in front and is a game changer as far as I am concerned.

But I keep asking myself – why didn’t I think of that?

Admittedly, I don’t often use a webcam for communication but am thinking of making that more of a regular activity.   www.Oovoo.com is a less well known platform with some very interesting features not found on Skype.   In truth I first came upon it when I noticed my 16 year old daughter having a six-way on line video conference communication with her friends.   Forget for a moment that they see each other at school all day and why they’d want to watch each other on screen is a bit beyond my understanding but that’s the Cro-Magnon Dad in me.  Oovoo offers what is essentially a web conference to six different participants at a time.   More people can be included but then it converts to a pay model.

Oovoo.com also is a free platform, although like Skype one can upgrade to a pay model in order to receive more features and functionality.   Where Skype tries to take the offer down the path of offering web to land line phone calls (for a price), Oovoo is headed more in the direction of free real-time web conferencing.   www.citrix.com (gotomypc.com and gotomeeting.com are their properties) and www.Webex.com beware as well. 

The marketing implications of how Oovoo could be used are significant.   For example forums can be put together in real time for things like real estate where residents and potential buyers could view and discuss in real time what it’s like to live in a particular place – schools, services, neighborhoods.    Rather than obtain all their intelligence from a real estate agent.   And the opportunity to hold product focus groups are quite a bit different when viewed AND heard.  

At home, or mobile web conferencing for many people is vastly underutilized but I believe that trend is changing and changing fast.  True we don’t always want whomever to see what we look like when talking on the phone and I have one associate who prides himself on being shot from the chest-up in his nice shirt while wearing a pair of basketball shorts that nobody sees.   Unless of course, he’s asked to stand up. 

Check out Oovoo.com and let me know what you think.   They are #2 but like Avis I believe they are trying harder.