How Facebook and Skype are Changing Social Media

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

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

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.

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.