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Facebook's "awesome" new product, set to be announced Wednesday, looks like it's going to be Skype video chats that work in your browser, reports TechCrunch. Details are still hazy—will it just work on its own or will users need to download software?—however, "it’s clear that there’s very deep integration between the products, and from the user’s perspective, the product will be an in browser experience," writes TechCrunch.
Facebook and Skype have been talking about partnerships since at least September, but it looks like the $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype by Microsoft two months ago finally gave the parties the push they needed. Microsoft has been deeply involved in Facebook for years, investing $240 million in 2007 and integrating the Bing search engine with Facebook, but this deal would go a long way toward Microsoft's longstanding goal of getting in people's browsers. With 750 million users, Facebook would be a big step up for Skype, which has "just" 170 million.
