Commentary

Microsoft Dips Toe In Social Media With Skype Integration

Once the mightiest tech companies of them all, Microsoft has been largely left behind when it comes to new consumer-facing platforms like social media and search. However, despite some flops, it’s not done with social media yet: this week Microsoft is easing gingerly back into the pool with an integration adding social sharing to its Skype video chat service.

PC World reports that Microsoft will add a sharing button to Skype that will allow users to post interesting content for other users to see, presumably as a preamble or part of a video conversation. Users just have to click on the Skype icon, choose which friends they want to share content with, and Skype will then send the content in a Skype message.

Significantly, Microsoft will give the Skype sharing button high-profile placement alongside Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons on all MSN content, as well as enabling third parties to add their own Skype sharing buttons. As PC World points out, these moves seem intended to position Skype as its own social utility, deserving the same kind of ubiquity and easy access as the social bigs.

Microsoft certainly doesn’t do anything in a big rush: the computing giant bought the video and voice chat service for $8.5 billion back in 2011, and at the time many analysts wondered if there was a specific plan behind the acquisition.

Critics said it was a rearguard action, merely intended to keep Skype out of the hands of competitors like Google and Facebook, and in retrospect that seems the most likely explanation. Following the acquisition, Microsoft substituted Skype for Windows Live Messenger but then mostly left Skype alone.

Now Microsoft appears to be trying to make Skype a more central part of its overall strategy, in part by integrating it more closely with its cloud computing business. Earlier this year Microsoft introduced Skype for Business, and in September it revamped the Skype mobile apps to make them easier to use, reflecting growing competition from the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, which added video calling this year.

Next story loading loading..