MySpace, Skype to partner for voice function on IM client

MySpace and Skype are set to announce on Wednesday that the eBay-owned telephony client will be providing voice chat services for the News Corp.-owned social network's instant messaging client, MySpaceIM. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

Through this deal, MySpace users will be able to link their profiles to Skype accounts, and will be able to place voice chat calls through the MySpaceIM client or the Skype client to both Skype and MySpace members--but if your MySpace profile is set to "private," you will be exempt from calls from people who aren't on your friends list. The service will be available in the 20 countries where MySpace has "localized communities."

A joint release for the two companies emphasized the sheer number of users that this will encompass: "With more than 110 million monthly active MySpace users and 220 million Skype registered users around the world, this partnership connects two of the most popular communications platforms on the Internet to create the world's largest online, voice-connected community."

But at the same time, only 25 million out of MySpace's 110 million active users have downloaded the MySpaceIM client. And neither company is at the top of its game. MySpace still leads the social-networking field in membership and traffic, but has lost its place in the spotlight to fast-growing rival Facebook. And Skype hasn't exactly turned out to be a real winner for eBay, with some critics saying that the two are mismatched.

Presumably, this will be the "MySpace announcement" that is rumored to take place Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. It was originally thought that this announcement would unveil a developer platform for MySpace akin to Facebook's, but credible sources quickly began to hint to multiple news outlets, including CNET News.com, that this would not be the case--a source for gossip blog Valleywag, in fact, indicated that the announcement would deal with the MySpaceIM client.

[Riquez-001]

good example of a bad idea

The LAST thing we need is another closed IM service.

Everyone already has enough problems with AIM/MSN/YIM/
Jabber/Skype/.Mac not working together.
Not working cross platform, video works but audio doesn't, I can
hear you, but I can't see you - can you see me?

What's needed is for all the IM protocols to sit in a room & work
out how they can co-operate.

[ikads]

Good News

Good news. Love to hear that

[Claire Gaeta]

Voice on My Space?

What are these people thinking?

With all the "Virtual Slam Books", and 29,000+ sexual offenders, pictures of underage girls posing nearly nude, and a host of other problems, we are now giving free license to cyber-bullies and sexual offenders everywhere to verbally threaten and abuse children.

It seems to me this money could be spent on developing better ways to cope with all the existing problems rather than creating another one.