Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

In a move to get more people to try its sleek email app Outlook.com, Microsoft has smartly added Google to its list of chat services, joining Facebook and Skype chat.

Microsoft recently announced that Outlook.com now has more than 400 million active accounts following the migration of all Hotmail users over to Outlook.com. The rebranding and redesign that occurred from Hotmail to Outlook.com was necessary because Hotmail had struggled to find new users after Gmail started gobbling them up. Those moves clearly paid off.

Now, to bring even people over to Outlook.com, Microsoft is adding Google Talk functionality.

“As a part of making Outlook.com personal, we believe people choose to use many different services and our role is to help them connect to the people who matter most, wherever they are,” Douglas Pearce, the group program manager for connected services, wrote in a blog post today.

To add Google contacts, open up the Messaging pane in Outlook.com and there will be a dialog prompt to “Add people to chat with Google contacts.” Once you have access, you’re all set. If you ever want to change the connection settings, you can do so at you Live profile page.

Users of Microsoft cloud storage service SkyDrive will also get the benefit of Google chat. This could especially come in handy if you want to work on a document and chat with colleagues at the same time.

“If you’re working together on a document with a Google friend, you can be chatting with them at the same time without leaving SkyDrive,” Pearce wrote. “You can even share a link to the document and edit it together in real time.”

Google functionality in Outlook.com and SkyDrive chat will roll out to all users during the next few days. Take a look at chat in SkyDrive below.

Photos via Microsoft

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The popular mobile messaging company Kik isn’t sweating Facebook Home.

Kik announced today that it has reached a new milestone of 50 million registered users, up from 30 million in November, with more than 200,000 people joining every day.

The big draw? Simple HTML5 apps, called Cards, which Kik added to its iPhone and Android apps last November. Since you don’t have to leave Kik’s app to use the Cards, they’re a sly way for the company to keep its app in front of your face for extended periods.

“This is where you see why we went with Cards. It’s an integrated web app experience, rather than a native platform, because it gives us full control,” said Ted Livingston, Kik’s founder and chief executive, in an interview with VentureBeat. “With Cards, the goal is to have more and more of your apps inside of Kik.”

The company can also update Cards without waiting for app store approval as well as easily deploy new Cards across its apps on multiple platforms, since they’re built in HTML5. Kik says that its users have installed more than 25 million Cards so far.

Kik initially launched with apps for viewing YouTube videos, searching for photos, and sketching together with your friends, but now it has a Card for viewing Reddit as well as a game called Squared that’s become surprisingly popular. Squared, which was written in a single weekend by a Kik employee for fun, saw over 1 million downloads in four weeks, and it has racked up the equivalent of more than 60 years of gameplay so far.

Kik’s approach with its in-app platform is sort of like an inverted version of what Facebook is trying to do with Home, an Android application that lets Facebook take over your phone’s interface.

Kik’s big advantage is that it can actually deploy its platform to the iPhone — while there’s pretty much no chance in hell Apple will allow something like Facebook Home on the iPhone. That cross-platform compatibility was far more important to the company than completely taking over someone’s phone, Livingston told me.

He found at least one thing to like about Facebook Home. “Chatheads is definitely interesting — awful name, but pretty compelling experience,” Livingston said.

With new versions of Kik’s apps launching today, the company has added its own HTML5-powered in-app push notifications, which lets you preview messages and updates to your Cards, without navigating away from your current screen. The company notes that it’s one of the first to pull off push notifications with HTML5 (one of the biggest problems with pure HTML5 development, which competitor Chorus.im is also dealing with).

Kik’s biggest cross-platform competitor is Whatsapp, which just recently squashed a rumor about a $1 billion Google acquisition. Livingston noted that “it would be fantastic for us” if Google bought Whatsapp, because there’s a good chance the search giant would just shut down the app and try to assimilate its users and technology.

He also doesn’t worry too much about Whatsapp as a competitor (which is said to have more than 100 million users):

They’re much bigger today, but they have much weaker network effects. They’re not a product company … half their users are on crappy feature phones. They’re waking up to this idea that it was all about the messenger, but now it’s about the platform around the messenger. … They’re in no position to compete at the platform level.

Based in Waterloo, Ontario, Kik raised $8 million last year from RRE Ventures, Spark Capital, and Union Square Ventures.

Virtual worlds are supposedly passé. Most people passed them by and moved on to social networks like Facebook. But social entertainment site IMVU is going strong as it celebrates its ninth anniversary, and it is soon making its move to mobile devices.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company still has more than 3.3 million monthly active participants, and it is on a $55 million revenue run rate. That’s small, considering it has 111 million registered members, and Facebook has risen to more than 1 billion. But it is plenty enough for a good, profitable business and a tight-knit community of fans.

IMVU no longer bills itself as a virtual world. It’s now an online social-entertainment destination.  That’s marketing. But the site was always more like a collection of virtual places where people created custom 3D avatars to chat and interact in their own virtual rooms. The core audience is 65 percent female, and  the average age is 25. About 50 percent are in the U.S.

“We monetized through highly retained, long-term users,” said Brett Durrett (pictured), chief executive of IMVU, in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat.

Durrett said that IMVU will extend its experience beyond the desktop with two new mobile apps for both Android devices and the iPad. That will let IMVU customers stay in touch with their friends on the go.

IMVU 2Go for Android will be available as an app in the Google Play store in late April, and IMVU for iPad will launch in the second quarter.

The service has thrived because it boasts the world’s largest virtual-goods collection. Individuals have created more than 15 million virtual goods — many of them fashion products to adorn avatars — and 16,000 new ones become available daily. The catalog, almost entirely customer made, is an example of the power of crowdsourcing. The IMVU Shop has contributions from more than 500,000 people known as Creators. Some of those Creators generate more than $100,000 a year through the sale of virtual goods. About 600,000 fans come back every day.

IMVU started in 2004, and it has 150 employees. It began as an online chat client and evolved into an online social-entertainment site. Former CEO Cary Rosenzweig tried to cash in on the rise of social gaming with the launch of Flash games on the site. But that effort wasn’t a smashing success, and IMVU under Durrett removed many of those titles.

“The games were not contributing much,” Durrett said. “They didn’t fit the core identity of the site, which is about creativity and self-expression.”

It seemed like the site was perfect for teenage girls, but more than 50 percent of members are over 18.

The company knows it can’t coast on the success of its Web consumer base, which it serves with more than 50 updates a day. It has to get an audience in mobile where people are shifting their attention to.

“We are late to the game on tablet and mobile, but it is a great opportunity,” Durrett said.

IMVU has raised $30 million to date from venture investors Menlo Ventures, Allegis Capital, Bridgescale Partners, and Best Buy Capital. Durrett said the business will celebrate its ninth anniversary with a big company party.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

How do you stand out from the plethora of messaging apps out there? For Chorus.im, it’s by aiming for something more than just a messaging app.

The company has developed a free HTML5-based messenger that works across every modern mobile device as well as any PC platform. Basically, it enables practically anyone to jump into a text chat — it’s not limited to specific platforms like iMessage and BlackBerry Messenger, and it doesn’t cut out desktop platforms like most other messaging apps.

Chorus.im is clearly laying down its loyalty in the never-ending HTML 5 vs. native app debate. Building a truly cross-platform messaging platform would be much more complicated with native mobile apps, and it would also mean it would have to build an entirely different experience for desktop users.

“We’re big believers in the potential of HTML5 in the long-term. We firmly believe that it will eventually become the primary channel to distribute and consume mobile apps,” said Chorus.im founder and chief executive Steve Tran.

Somewhat ironically, Chorus.im is actually launching mobile apps for iOS and Android today. HTML5 doesn’t yet offer push messaging capabilities, which is critical for a messaging platform. Still, Chorus.im’s core technology is entirely built on HTML5 — I jumped into a live chat with Tran on my desktop without signing into anything. Once HTML5 adds push messaging, it will no longer need to offer standalone mobile apps.

You can start group chats on Chorus.im simply by emailing or texting people on your contact list. The service also stores your offline messages and chat history (not surprising, since it runs entirely in the cloud).

So why another chat service? You can use Chorus.im as a sort of disposable texting service, like if you’re communicating with a Craigslist buyer and trying to keep your personal number private. It’s also a helpful way to start a chat with less tech savvy folks — they simply need to click a link in their e-mail to join in, no log-in required.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based Chorus.im has raised $500,000 in angel funding, and it’s soon going to be in the market for a venture round.

Smartphone user photo via Takayuki/Shutterstock

Skype’s long-awaited video voicemail feature is finally here.

Skype will begin rolling out video messaging today to its iOS, Android, and Mac apps in the United States, United Kingdom, and a few other countries, a company representative confirmed to VentureBeat this morning. Changes to the chat service’s terms of service in December hinted that video messaging was coming soon.

Skype users will be able to send video messages up to three minutes long. Unfortunately, there’s no word on when video messaging will hit Windows.

A representative of the Microsoft-owned company said: “We’re pleased that there’s interest for Video Messaging to come to Skype for Windows and Skype for Windows 8. We’ll let you know when we expand the service to the platform.”

Video messaging is an important addition for Skype, since it allows for asynchronous video calling. Even if someone isn’t available to pick up a video chat, you can still leave a video message. It’s somewhat shocking that it’s taken Skype so long to roll out the feature, especially given that the company was founded a decade ago. The widespread availability of cloud storage and faster Internet speeds likely made video messaging easier to implement today.

Tango, a competing video chat app that started off on mobile devices, offered video messaging over a year ago.

Additionally, Skype has revealed it will begin transitioning Windows Live Messenger users over to its service beginning April 8 (the move was originally slated for March). Microsoft announced in November that it would be joining the two chat services.

Given Skype’s more than 280 million users and purchase price of $8.5 billion, it’s no surprise that Microsoft is focusing on the service as its core messaging platform going forward.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Updated 2pm Pacific: Whatsapp denied the rumors. We’ve updated this post to include its denial.

Whatsapp is refuting rumors that it’s in negotiations for a Facebook buyout. In a statement sent to VentureBeat, the company’s business head Neeraj Arora said, “The TechCrunch article is a rumor and not factually accurate. We have no further information to share at the moment.”

That’s in response to rumors earlier today that Facebook is in negotiations to acquire Whatsapp, a cross-platform messaging service that currently ranks as the No. 2 paid iOS app. The rumors first appeared on TechCrunch.

Multiple sources have told AllThingsD that an acquisition isn’t happening, even though both Google and Facebook have been interested in Whatsapp in the past.

Unlike most social apps, Whatsapp costs 99 cents on iOS — even though it’s free on other platforms like Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry. The company announced a year ago that it’s serving 1 billion messages a day, a figure that’s likely significantly higher today.

It’s extremely popular in Europe and Asia as a free alternative to SMS messaging.

There’s no word on how much Facebook might have been willing to spend on Whatsapp, or how far along negotiations got between the two companies, if at all. When reached for comment, a Facebook spokesperson said the company doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation, naturally.

The rumors weren’t totally ludicrous. Facebook purchased the group messaging app Beluga last year, which it transformed into Facebook’s standalone Messenger app. But, just like with the $1 billion Instagram purchase, Facebook might have been eyeing Whatsapp more for its massive user base instead of its technology. TechCrunch notes that Whatsapp may have more than 100 million daily active users (probably because it supports feature-phone platforms like Symbian and Nokia S40).

Photo: Johan Larson/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Facebook yesterday updated its standalone Messenger app on iOS to fully support the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, while also adding some useful features for chat addicts.

In addition to general speed improvements, the Messenger app now lets you swipe left to instantly get access to your favorite Facebook chat buddies, as well as to see who’s online. The design of Messenger’s conversations has also been updated with chat bubbles — giving the app a look more reminiscent of IM applications and Apple’s iMessage.

The updates make it clearer who this app is for: hardcore Facebook messaging users. It’s now an even more useful way for Facebook users to chat with their friends without dealing with all of the features in the company’s bigger app.

Facebook last month completely revamped its iOS app with a slew of speed improvements. The social network also recently updated its Android app with an intriguing messaging feature: the ability to combine texts and Facebook messages in a single interface. Unfortunately, that feature will never be possible within iOS, given Apple’s strict restrictions with its software.

Three months ago, Napster founders Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning unveiled Airtime, a web-based video chat service explicitly billed as a service to find and connect to new friends, in a glitch-filled PR disaster of a launch. It was supposed to be a better ChatRoulette, the fad video-chatting service that hit four million monthly visitors shortly after launching but ultimately fell victim to the one-eyed monster.

So far, it seems that the rocky beginning successfully presaged the future, as usage of the Facebook-connected app has made massive moves in the wrong direction, while competitor ChatRandom’s traffic is soaring.

Currently, according to AppData, AirTime has only 500 daily active users, and only 10,000 users have accessed the app in the last month — a 50 percent drop from the previous month. Plus, only just over 18,000 people have liked the app on Facebook.

Source: AppData

AirTime audience drop

Conversely, ChatRandom, which explicitly bills itself as a “ChatRoulette Alternative” offering “Free Webcam Chat with Strangers,” is killing it, according to the site’s co-founder, Allen Fox.

He says the site is getting 250,000 visitors a day and over 8,000,000 users a month. (A quick peek at Compete.com stats says he’s not completely talking out of his hat.)

ChatRandom was founded earlier than Airtime, in mid 2011, but with much less money and much less fanfare. Why is that site seeing successful user growth while Airtime, with its star founders, tens of millions in cash, and celebrity endorsements is failing?

Fox cites just one reason, but I see at least two.

The first, and the claimed reason, is anonymity. ChatRandom allows people to pull up the site, hit a button, and immediately start chatting. Airtime, on the other hand, wants you to log in via Facebook, tying your live video chat very definitively to your identity.

That is the key differentiator, according to Fox.

“Users on video chat sites are meeting people they have never met before, and that fundamentally drives the demand for privacy and anonymity,” Fox said in a statement, adding that ” … it’s clear that most chat users prefer anonymous private chat versus a more revealing option linked to social media.”

I don’t completely buy it. Yes, the anonymity is important, and it’s an important part of ChatRandom’s success. But it’s not the only factor. Another important factor — put simply: ChatRandom is essentially a porn site.

ChatRandom’s “chat with girls”

In three minutes playing with the site, I encountered the famous ChatRoulette “penis problem.” And when I couldn’t find anyone else to actually chat with – very few users seemed to be available for a site with 250,000 visitors a day — I clicked the “Chat with Girls” button.

Shocker of shockers, there’s an over-18 verification step, scantily-clad ladies of the nighttime variety, and an invitation to chat with “the hottest girls” for free.

Hmmm … I may be naive, but somehow I don’t think these are just random strangers, unless the population’s average hotness number has just gone WAY up.

Porn is huge on the web; this is no shock. And for Airtime, trying to compete against anonymous adult encounters was always going to be tough. So I’m not surprised that ChatRandom, essentially a slightly more sophisticated and more monetized version of ChatRoulette, is seemingly succeeding.

But I am surprised that Parker and Fanning aren’t putting up a better show in creating and developing their own audience for random stranger chat. Somehow, the product needs to be more compelling to attract more users.

Even if Mark Zuckerberg did try it out.

photo credit: Stewf via photo pin cc

“Our goal is not to connect you to random people – I don’t think that has worked in the past.” Instead, CEO Ralph Harik said in an interview with VentureBeat that the problem of social discovery is finding relevant people. ”What we really want to do is connect you to people who might have an impact in your life.”

Imo started corporate life in 2008 as the digital one ring of the instant messaging world: a single service that connected many others: AIM, Jabber, MSN, Google Talk and more. From that base the company has iterated and is now releasing features that enable friend discovery as well as friend connection. But not to random people.

Rather, Imo is building a set of algorithms to determine who might be great to connect to. That includes location, interests, friends in common, and previous interactions. In addition, Imo allows you to preview a person that you’re thinking about connecting to, letting you see their interests, employers, contacts, and more. A social service adding human discretion to machine logic seems, well, logical.

One thing I noticed about the interest graph that Imo is using: it’s built within the service itself, rather than taken from a list of Facebook likes.

That’s different than many insta-social services that simply use Facebook as a proxy for profile creation and interest graph generation, and it’s a significant difference. Why? Facebook believes that I’m interested in MendABath BC and Threeboy Design, among other things. In fact, I barely know what they are … I clicked a Like button as a favor to a friend. So the Facebook interest graph is not always the most accurate representation of what we do or don’t like.

Also among the new announcements: Imo is releasing tools that make communication seamless between fixed and mobile devices, including a slick feature that determines if you haven’t seen instant messages sent to your laptop, and then intelligently re-routes them to your phone. And, currently enabled on Android and coming on iPhone, Imo also offers voice calls using data over 3G or Wi-Finetworks.

Imo.im is based in Palo Alto, California, and raised an initial round of capital from Georges Harik, the CEO’s brother and former Google employee. (Full disclosure: Georges Harik was an initial seed investor in VentureBeat.)

Interestingly, Georges Harik was a Distinguished Engineer  at Google, and Director of Googlettes — which is not a lame geek band. They were the team behind Gmail, Google Talk, Picasa, Orkut, and other Google product initiatives.

Photo credit: ShutterStock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Just after Apple announced iMessage app in iOS 5, it appears that Google has its own Android messaging client in the works, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The paper didn’t have any additional details on Google’s messaging app, but just like iMesssage, it’s reportedly being positioned as an answer to Research in Motion’s popular BlackBerry Messenger app.

Google’s new messaging app could fall under the Google Talk name, but it will need to do much more than that service, which is based on the Jabber IM protocol. IM is less convenient for mobile devices since it requires a steady data connection to remain logged in. To function as a texting replacement, Google needs to make sure its messaging app can accurately tell users when messages are sent, delivered and read.

For consumers, these new apps will offer faster and cheaper integrated ways to message friends. But the outlook is less rosy for carriers, who will likely see their lucrative text messaging revenue take a major dip. The messaging apps will move texting-like activity into cellular data networks and out of carrier’s aging SMS networks.

Consumers currently pay anywhere from 20 cents per text to $20 a month for unlimited texting on SMS networks. Most of that money is pure profit for the carriers: a dollar of SMS charges can produce around 80 cents of profit, while carriers only see around 35 cents of profit from a dollar of data or voice fees, analysts at UBS tell the WSJ.

The new messaging apps will further diminish the growth of texting. AT&T’s year-to-year texting growth was 21 percent in the first quarter, down from 41 percent last year, according to UBS.

Consumers will still need to rely on traditional texts to message friends on less advanced phones, but those devices won’t be sticking around for much longer in their current form. Eventually, even dumbphones will move to smarter platforms like Android and take advantage of ubiquitous data networks.

I won’t shed many tears for the carriers in this situation. They’ve been making a killing by overcharging consumers for texting, and it was simply a matter of time, especially with the rapid success of RIM’s Blackberry Messenger service, before more efficient messaging solutions appeared on data networks. We’ve already seen third-party messaging apps like Kik take off over the last year, but having integrated messaging in iOS and Android will signal the death of SMS once and for all.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. We’re also accepting entries for our mobile startup competition at the show. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link. Sponsors can message us at sponsors@venturebeat.com.

TechCrunch, a subsidiary of the company, was not included as an original recipient. But that didn’t stop the publication from obtaining and publishing a copy of the e-mail, announcing what was previously meant to be tested only internally by its parent company.

The service, which originates from its AOL Instant Messaging (AIM) division, offers a unique twist on web-based video chat: Instead of chatting to strangers as with Chatroullete, or setting up accounts as with Skype or Google Talk, users simply start a video-chat and share the link with potential participants. As they visit the link, participants are automatically added to the video chat.

Having tested the service, it seems to offer a neat and simple solution to what can be a frustrating experience — setting up a group video chat. While Apple’s FaceTime also looks to avoid similar complexities of maintaining an account and adding recipients, its limitations to Apple-based products and tie-ups to the iPhone’s contact list can be daunting. AV’s approach is simpler in execution and more accessible to general computer users who might not be carrying Apple products or phones and tablets in general.

In the e-mail, Shellen, who is AOL’s head of AIM products, stated that AV is “the first of several substantial new AIM launches and the first to represent our shift in focus to better web software.”

From the company whose instant messenger is still one of the most widely used but hasn’t changed in many years, it’s a worthy step forward. And to its subsidiary, and our competitor TechCrunch, we extend a hat-tip and a fist-bump.

Workface, which provides an online service that helps companies interact with their customers with text- and video-chat services, is launching today at the DEMO Spring 2011 conference.

Workface gives employees at a company additional ways to interact with their customers. The software adds a toolbar to websites that shows how many sales associates are available and lets customers interact with them directly by chatting with them or viewing profiles. The software also gives companies some analytical tools to figure out which strategies for interacting with customers are working.

The company also has mobile-chat applications that lets employees chat with potential customers through a mobile device. The application is available for Apple devices and phones running on BlackBerry and Android mobile operating systems. Sales associates can also start video chats from their mobile devices if they have a front-facing camera, similar to Apple’s consumer-oriented FaceTime application.

Customer support for the service is hands-off as well, since the service is run on remote servers — or cloud-based servers. The software costs $25 per user per month, and any technical woes are handled by Workface. So companies interested in the software don’t have to hire additional IT professionals to handle any software woes that crop up.

Workface has raised $1.9 million to date from the founders, angel investors and Arthur Ventures. The Minneapolis, Minn.-based company was founded in 2007 and has 5 full-time employees, as well as some contract workers. The company is led by Leif Larson, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin’s business school. He was formerly the CEO of Kiosk.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Facebook can’t remind us enough that its new messaging service, announced today, isn’t an email killer. Instead, it’s an all-encompassing messaging system that works across Facebook chat, email, and text messages.

Now that we’ve seen the product, it’s clearly not the threat to email we previously thought. But the new messaging service could pose a problem for the hot mobile chat startup Kik, which we’ve covered extensively.

I’ve fallen head over heels for Kik over the past few weeks because it’s built specifically for mobile chat. I’ve always found standard texting technology to be too slow, and even on the iPhone you can feel the creakiness of the aging SMS protocol. Mobile instant messaging is faster, but relies on steady mobile Internet connections. It’s not unusual for me to lose a Google chat or AIM message because of iPhone reception issues.

Kik sits somewhere in between instant messaging and texting — it’s fast, but not reliant on a steady Internet connection. It’s no surprise that Kik’s creator used to work on RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger, a product that many BlackBerry users have grown addicted to because it’s much better than texting. Kik one-ups BlackBerry Messenger by being available on multiple platforms — including the iPhone and Android. (RIM just blocked the service on BlackBerry. Threatened much?)

The service has quickly become my preferred mobile chat method. And with 2.25 million registered users a couple of weeks after launch, it’s clear that Kik is taking off. But after Facebook’s new messaging announcement today, I’m now beginning to wonder if Kik’s days are numbered — or at the very least, if its growth will plateau.

Facebook’s revamped messaging interface lets us carry a conversation from multiple computers, to our phones, seamlessly. The company is betting that convenience will be compelling to its users — which is why Facebook is working so hard to make sure it integrates with existing modes of communication like email and texting. It won’t replace any other communication methods yet, but Facebook is definitely training its users to rely on its messaging service for all of their communication needs.

Facebook’s new messaging service will offer the same sort of instant mobile chat as Kik, but users will also have the option to receive texts or emails if they prefer. Facebook is aiming to get rid of the “BRB” (be right back) message we’ve grown used to leaving when we exit an IM conversation. Now we’ll never have to leave the conversation.

Kik doesn’t offer any sort of desktop component yet, and it also doesn’t integrate with email. It’s purely dedicated to mobile chat. While I still adore Kik for what it offers, the company will certainly need to add more compelling features if it wants to fight off Facebook’s new messaging play.

The partnership will allow Facebook users to easily log into Skype using Facebook Connect and will give users the ability to text message, voice chat, and even video chat with their Facebook friends from within Skype. It’s expected to appear in Skype’s upcoming 5.0 version, which will emerge from beta testing in the next few weeks.

The deal is a win for both companies: Facebook gets access to a robust voice and video calling platform, and Skype will see a massive surge in new users from Facebook’s 500 million users. Skype has 124 million people using its software once a month and 550 million registered users of its own. There will certainly be a great deal of overlap between existing Skype and Facebook users, but the integration will also lead many users to try out Skype who never saw a reason to in the past.

There are still many questions about what this partnership means: Will Skype eventually bring in-browser voice and video chat to Facebook’s site? That’s definitely one advantage that a service like Gmail’s voice and video chat has. And what does the partnership mean for Skype and Facebook mobile apps?

As AllThingsDigital’s Kara Swisher mentions, the arrangement will help Facebook with its international presence since Skype is more popular among international users.

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The site lets you search for YouTube videos or upload photos from your hard drive and see them on live web cam with friends. You can see how your friends react the way you might if were sitting next to each other on the couch or in a movie theater.

“Traveling around the world, I wished I could have something that would let me chat with my family while showing them photos and video,” said chief executive Rony Zarom.

With the public launch, the New York company is allowing higher resolution photos and video and a full screen mode. Zarom said Watchitoo could pursue a number of revenue models: It could have a consumer-facing approach where users buy premium offerings like higher resolution video streaming or music. It could white-label the site or build custom versions of it for other content providers that want a Watchitoo-like environment for their media.

Watchitoo could also be an inexpensive video conferencing alternative. The site has other built-in features for collaboration that let you send sticky notes and reminders to other friends or conduct webinars. Watchitoo is a hybrid — it’s competing with more conventional content-sharing via e-mail, RSS or Twitter. On another level, it’s comparable to Skype, Meebo or Paltalk, yet centered on content.

Like Paltalk, which is profitable and recently bought back shares from investors, the white-label or corporate route might prove more lucrative for Watchitoo compared to the more difficult approach of convincing users to buy music or make it a daily destination site.

Zarom funded the company himself through Decima Ventures after scoring with his previous startup, Exalink, which sold to Comverse for $480 million in 2000.

While other startups offer ways of managing the buyer-seller relationship online, LiveMarkets keeps the chat live on the page, right on top of the banner ad, text, or other part of the site. It’s the latest significant innovation in an online advertising market that is booming.

Using LiveMarkets, the advertiser agrees with the publisher about where the chat box will show. The chat service is useful, because it’s much faster than a phone call or an email if a prospective customer wants to talk to a real human before deciding to buy a product .

Below is an example of how it looks (more at bottom).

Advertisers can manage their incoming chats via an administrative interface. People on an advertiser’ sales team can manage more than one chat at a time, with new chats getting directed to the salesperson with the fewest concurrent chats. While LiveMarkets has yet to post the cost of the service, it says it plans to charge advertisers and publishers on a per-chat (CPC) or per-impression (CPM) basis.

Co-founder Justin Kirby brings experience with chat, having worked with Jabber open-source instant messaging technology (which powers Google Talk and other IM services). He originally applied the experience at a previous startup, Qunu, a “mashup of search and instant messaging” for user-generated questions and answers. That site is still live, but Kirby and his cofounders have moved on to do LiveMarkets; they’ve modified the software code from Qunu in the last two and a half months, and have filed a provisional patent on the technology.

The Rocklin, Calif. company of four is self-funded, and launched yesterday at Ad:Tech San Francisco, a major advertising conference. Its frugal nature showed. While the booths of most other companies were glitzy, LiveMarkets couldn’t afford an Internet connection, so they brought their own server; their small banner was strung together with twine; even the room’s carpet didn’t reach their corner, and cardboard boxes were piled behind them. Despite the ignominy of it all, they managed to get approached — by four venture capital firms, six advertising networks, numerous ad agencies, plus two requests for a “white label” version, according to co-founder Baden Gilmore.

The idea seems intuitively useful, there are questions how broadly it will catch on. How often do consumers actually want to talk to a salesperson? It seems most useful for complex purchases, for example to talk with a computer manufacturer, or for help with service (indeed, many sites are already doing such chats from their home pages). However, many forms of online advertising, such as banner ads, have notoriously poor click-through rates. Will people both notice and care about a chat option? Gilmore believes that the one-on-one intelligence and connection will be more effective in closing sales than static banner ads.

One problem: If LiveMarket is a success, it faces the prospect of having its features copied by Google, Yahoo and the other online advertising giants.

The company’s Web site points to a blog post from marketing guru Seth Godin: “Modems are no match for human interaction and trust. Not carefully tracked online ratings, but the sound of a voice, the tone of authority, the receipt of a favor. It matters more than it ever did.”

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[Author Eric Eldon thought he was going to become a professional journalist when he graduated from college two years ago. Instead, he is co-founder of Writewith, a company that makes online word processing work for groups. You can reach him at eric@writewith.com.]