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March 05, 2011, 12:04 AM EST
By Ashlee Vance, Brad Stone, and Douglas MacMillan
March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc., the world’s biggest social-networking company, is holding talks with Skype Technologies SA about offering Web video calls to its 500 million users, two people familiar with the discussions said.
Video calling between friends on Facebook was first discussed by the two companies last year, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. The feature wasn’t offered in an October update to Skype, which did include voice calling between Facebook friends.
As Web users adopt new ways of communicating, such as video and mobile messaging, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has added features to give members more ways to keep in touch. Bringing video calls to its social network would ramp up competition with Apple Inc., which introduced the feature on its iPhone in June, and with Google Inc., which offered Web calling through Gmail in August.
Video calls accounted for more than 41 percent of all Web calling between Skype users in the second half of last year, the company said in January. Luxembourg-based Skype registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August to sell its shares to the public.
“Last year, we announced the integration of Facebook in Skype, so people can keep up to date with their Facebook friends through News Feed in Skype and even call and SMS their Facebook friends on any phone from Skype,” Facebook said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “With regards to any further integration, we don’t comment on rumor and speculation and have nothing to announce at this time.”
Jennifer Caukin, a spokeswoman for Skype, declined to comment.
--With assistance from Brian Womack in San Francisco. Editors: Lisa Wolfson, Nick Turner
To contact the reporters on this story: Douglas MacMillan in San Francisco, at dmacmillan3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc., the world’s biggest social-networking company, is holding talks with Skype Technologies SA about offering Web video calls to its 500 million users, two people familiar with the discussions said.
Video calling between friends on Facebook was first discussed by the two companies last year, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private. The feature wasn’t offered in an October update to Skype, which did include voice calling between Facebook friends.
As Web users adopt new ways of communicating, such as video and mobile messaging, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook has added features to give members more ways to keep in touch. Bringing video calls to its social network would ramp up competition with Apple Inc., which introduced the feature on its iPhone in June, and with Google Inc., which offered Web calling through Gmail in August.
Video calls accounted for more than 41 percent of all Web calling between Skype users in the second half of last year, the company said in January. Luxembourg-based Skype registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August to sell its shares to the public.
“Last year, we announced the integration of Facebook in Skype, so people can keep up to date with their Facebook friends through News Feed in Skype and even call and SMS their Facebook friends on any phone from Skype,” Facebook said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “With regards to any further integration, we don’t comment on rumor and speculation and have nothing to announce at this time.”
Jennifer Caukin, a spokeswoman for Skype, declined to comment.
--With assistance from Brian Womack in San Francisco. Editors: Lisa Wolfson, Nick Turner
To contact the reporters on this story: Douglas MacMillan in San Francisco, at dmacmillan3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net
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