How Facebook and Skype are Changing Social Media

Facebook has the global directory, and Skype will make the calls.

The companies are natural partners. That's what they are betting on anyway.

Facebook has 750 million confirmed users, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Skype has the world's largest network for online voice and video calling services, so they are teaming up to put the two programs together, allowing Facebook users to dial directly from within their Facebook browser, avoiding having to download and activity separate Skype operating software to make calls.

The partnership strategy announced Wednesday will one day in the near future allow Facebook users to dial who they want merely by clicking on the name and photo of the social network's users -- meaning numbers may go by the wayside sooner than those in the telecommunications industry think.

Immediately, Facebook users can make free video phone calls to friends in the social network, simplifying the video calling process for potentially hundreds of millions of users who have not yet taken advantage of Skype's free video phone calling service. Facebook's phone calling option is easy to use, its free, and users don't have to launch Skype's software program.

It's not even called Skype but Skype is the company behind Facebook's new application, that Zuckerberg thinks will send Facebook further from other social media competitors it has left behind over the past several years.

To dial a regular phone number from inside Facebook users will have to pay, albeit only a few pennies for a minute of service. That spells profit potential for both Facebook and Skype, and it is a direct threat at wireless communications companies including AT&T and Verizon since realistically, when as the service progresses, all calling consumers desire could be done through Facebook.

But very soon Facebook users will be able to make voice or video calls to anyone on their Facebook friend list or perhaps anyone at all who's an active member of Facebook by simply clicking on their name. The application would work the same way Facebook's messaging feature works. Now, members of Facebook can send text messages to one another in an email format for no charge. Soon, they'll be able to do the very same thing with voice and video calling -- one click dials up the connection.

Skype as an individual application as consumers have come to know will likely go by the wayside for most, as they'll just implement the voice and video service seamlessly through Facebook.

About to be acquired by Microsoft, Skype has emerged as the world's largest free voice and video service but the company has been searching for its signature industry mark -- and the Facebook partnership may be just that. The partnership holds the potential of giving new definition to social media, as Facebook may now emerge as an all-in-one tool, with friend lists, professional and personal information, phone calling and video conferencing and calls all in one.