Facebook To Integrate Video Chat Powered By Skype

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced during an event on Wednesday that Facebook would be integrating Skype video calling on the world’s largest social network.

Zuckerberg said that Facebook would be adding group chat, a new chat design and video calling on the social network starting Wednesday.

The Facebook founder also confirmed during the event that Facebook has reached over 750 million users. 

However, Zuckerberg said the focus should shift from how many people are on the site to how much information is being shared on the site. 

He said that 4 billion public things are being shared on Facebook every day, which is a figure that does not include personal messages shared between people.

Zuckerberg said there are "billions of messages going through our chat system a day."

Users will be able to access the video chat feature through either a friend’s Facebook profile, or a chat tab. 

Zuckerberg confirmed that the integration of Skype into Facebook would remain Skype’s standard peer-to-peer connectivity.

"The core video calling functionality is built by Skype, and the reason it has so much wide-spread adoption is because they have a way to do low-bandwidth video calling," he said during the event.

Tony Bates, CEO of Skype who was also at the event, told reporters that Skype averages nearly 300 million minutes a month on video chats. 

He said this partnership started off with understanding what social networking means.  He said there are many ways Skype has been trying to get people connected and "there is no greater way to get inside the web than through Facebook."

"For us this makes a lot of business sense as well," Bates said during the announcement. "We look forward to bringing video calling powered by Skype on Facebook to every one of you out there"

Zuckerberg also said during the event that Facebook believes independent entrepreneurs who focus on one specific thing will always do better than a company trying to do millions.  He said that the social network plans on building apps based on that.

"We are using the best technology out there for video chat," he said during the event.

Zuckerberg also said that he believes in the next three to five years that all the apps being used on the social networking site will be dramatically different than they are now.

"What types of apps are going to have to exists three or five years from now?," he said at the "Something Awesome" event Wednesday.

Bates touched on the situation concerning Microsoft Corp. buying out Skype at the event as well.

"We are not owned by Microsoft, we haven’t closed yet, but we are in the process," Bates said.

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