Facebook VoIP?

There are speculations that Facebook will be launching its own VoIP services. Users say that they have seen call icons1 on its screen but the icons didn’t connect. A news article2 pointed out that Skype integrated Facebook into its upgrade and various references to the popular VoIP popped in Facebook code. Further, Facebook has a job posting for “Network Egineer – Voice” which was recently removed. Despite these observations, Facebook remains silent on the issue.

If Facebook is really planning to join the VoIP arena it would be competing head-to-head with Skype and Gmail talk. In this field, Facebook would be in an advantage because of its already existing huge user base. As any usual business tactic, expanding its services to include VoIP has a very promising potential for Facebook. It will surely rock the worlds of Skype and Gmail.

The inclusion of VoIP in the existing services offered by Facebook in addition to messaging, status posting, photo and video sharing, and text chat is a great way to make any Facebook account one’s superaccount. Talk about synergy at its finest. Although this move will be detrimental to the business of local telecommunications company, measured in the decline of profits from traditional voice calls, its benefits will surely redound to the end consumers.

1 Image from http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110127/tc_digitaltrends/willfacebookbattleskypegooglevoicewithvoipcalling

2 http://news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20110127/tc_digitaltrends/willfacebookbattleskypegooglevoicewithvoipcalling

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