As we stated in an article last month, rumors were circulating the internet of a Facebook and Skype partnership that could not be confirmed or denied at the time. Now we know that this is true, we see even more potential for Skype to hasten it’s domination of the VOIP market, making us bin those landlines forever. And now with the added functionality of Facebook, the possibilities to keep in touch with our friends, colleagues and family seem even easier.

First off, Skype have decided to slightly modify the homepage, making the experience feel a whole lot better and clearer. There are tutorials and a much more simple interface to make video calling, messaging, and file transfer seemless, with a much better contact search screen that now comes with images and mood messages.

Although the video conferencing does seem interesting, no doubt that the main focus of the application for most will be the integration of Facebook. You can access this by using a tab along the top of the application that will take you straight to your news feed where you can update your status and start using Skype to call your buddies.

Are you impressed with the Skype / Facebook integration? You can download Skype 5.0 for Windows by clicking this link.

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Previous beta versions of Skype 5.0 brought 5-way video chat, however this new beta allows 10-way video calling, which will no doubt be a popular edition for people who use Skype for video conferencing.

There is a new automated call recovery feature, apart from that there are no other major changes worth mentioning. As you would expect there are stability improvements and a refined user interface.

If you understand the stability and security issues you may experience when using beta version of applications you can download Skype 5.0 for Windows here.

Have you used the Skype 5.0 beta? If so, what changes do you like?

Source: Engadget