Facebook: Skype Video Chat this week?

Facebook’s “awesome” announcement next week has been spoiled. The social network will reportedly be unveiling a Skype-powered video chat platform.

Facebook’s Seattle team was behind the new feature, according toTechCrunch. Skype and Facebook already have a serious partnership that integrated Facebook social data directly into the Skype client. Now it looks like Skype will be coming to Facebook.

This isn’t even the first time we’ve heard about Skype-powered video chat on Facebook. Rumors surfaced last year about such a product, but it never materialized.

The report is sparse on details about how it will work. Will it require a software download? Will it support group video chats? Undoubtedly it will be a major addition to the Facebook platform. Google+, the search giant’s answer to Facebook, launched with a group video chat feature, Google+ Hangouts. Google is seeing a lot of traction with the feature, but if Facebook can release a video chat product next week, Google+ Hangouts may not seem as revolutionary.

Mashable confirmed that Facebook will indeed launch a video chat service next week, powered by Skype. But what will it look like, and how will it work?

Mashable haven’t seen screenshots of Skype-powered video chat on Facebook (yet), but they have some thoughts on how we think it will look. So they asked their crack team of design-savvy alpacas to create a mockup of video chat on Facebook. Mashable think they’ve got a good idea of what video chat on Facebook will look like.

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