Rumors have been circulating that Skype Limited is working with Facebook to develop an in-browser video-chat platform based off of Skype.
The rumors follow an announcement on June 29 by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg that the company plans on unveiling something “awesome” next week, according to a report from Reuters.
Technology media publication TechCrunch, claims that “a source with knowledge of the partnership” says that Facebook plans to release the integrated video chat feature next week.
The move would be logical, considering that Google just recently unveiled a new social network with built-in browser-based video chat and teleconferencing features. Facebook could potentially draw away all of Google’s pool of new users before it has a chance to take off.
Facebook and Skype both currently have the largest user pools of their respective services; Facebook having over 750 million social networking users and Skype having around 170 million active video and voice chat users.
Merging their services will not only take away the advantage of the primary catch feature for Google’s new social network, Google+, but will also dissuade many of their own users from switching to Google. After all, what will Google have that Facebook doesn’t once this feature is in place before Google+ is even publicly released?
Google will have seamless multiservice integration, that’s what. A quick visit to their website will show what Google described in its official blog on June 28 as “a new and improved Google experience”. A new gray toolbar now sits atop the page. At its head are the same options that were already there two weeks ago, however, once Google+ is officially released to the general public, a new tab will sit at the front of that bar: +You.
This +You link will take a user to their homepage on Google+ and will retain its place in the same bar with the same options on that page also, meaning another option, ‘web’, will take you straight back to the main Google search page just as easily.
These options, along with gmail, image search, maps, shopping, and all fashion of services will all be accessible from a single platform on Google’s main webpage. Its convenient accessibility, in a world where ever increasing convenience is a driving force behind a large portion of newly developed services and technologies, will give it an edge to kick off with.
Google already has a user base of over 1 billion unique visitors, according to data released by comScore, an Internet company specializing in Internet measurement and digital marketing intelligence.
There is no doubt that Google maintains a significant amount of loyalty from its users, apparent by the incredible growth the company has undergone in the past 13 years.
Facebook can still contend on even terms however, considering that none of Google’s 1 billion users can be said for certain to prefer Google+ over Facebook, which has an established and fully embedded social networking base that is still inching ever closer to that coveted billion-user mark.
If the rumors of the Facebook/Skype deal are true, it would only mean that new fronts are already being added in preparation for waging this fresh war between two colossal internet titans. This will certainly be a battle closely watched.
