Real Time Communications Bits

According to different intenet sources there are an ongoing deal between Facebook and Skype to integrate both platforms allowing Facebook users to establish voice and video communications using Skype capabilities. Kara Swisher reports that the deal involves integration of Facebook Connect, SMS and Voice Chat: You can call and SMS Facebook friends from Skype Skype is building Facebook Connect into its system. You can videochat with Facebook friends. It will be part of Skype 5.0 beta, likely to be released in a few weeks. Via http://gigaom.com/2010/09/29/should-facebook-buy-skype/

From my personal experience Skype is getting more and more presence as a non-official corporate tool providing advance communication capabilities.  According to the official reports 35 percent of Skype users utilize it for business purposes [1]. In my opinion the three more important features making Skype so attractive in those environments over other VoIP/Messaging tools are the following ones: Unblockable communications : Some corporate networks try to restrict employees traffic making impossible to use other VoIP tools.  Skype is able to overcome that limitation encapsulating all the traffic under HTTP/HTTPS connections while maintaing a good enough voice quality. Conferencing support : Skype was a pioneer offering voice conferencing support without additional equipment in the network.  That innovative solution allows free and easy to use conferencing support, being a feature commonly used in corporate environments to maintain the audio meetings with your colleagues...