The Skype and Facebook platforms are becoming more tightly integrated. Today, Skype’s Rick Osterloh announced the launch of Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac and Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows, which allow users to make Facebook-to-Facebook calls from within Skype.
This latest announcement builds on successful Skype-Facebook integration initiatives announced earlier this year. Skype launched Facebook instant messaging (IM) on its service, and video chat on Facebook’s this summer.
“Our approach to social is about personal connections with people,” Osterloh wrote on Skype’s Big Blog. “We are on a mission to connect over one billion people and our continued partnership with Facebook brings us one step closer to this goal.”
Users who want to take advantage of Facebook-to-Facebook video calling on Skype need to connect their Facebook and Skype accounts. You then select a Facebook friend and click the video call button. The receiving party just needs to pick up the call.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO5GbYHv7HM[/youtube]
Skype’s also made for a “smoother” video calling experience for both the latest Mac and Windows Beta versions by including video rendering with a Premium subscription, as well as providing group screen sharing for Windows users with a Premium subscription. Users chatting one-to-one will also be able to screen share with live video streaming. Group screen sharing is already available for Mac users.
