Skype announced today that they have been working with LG and Panasonic to embed Skype in Internet-connected widescreen HDTVs.

"We know that Skype users are increasingly interested in conducting video calls away from their computers," said Skype CEO Josh Silverman in a press release. "With Skype, consumers [...] will now be able to participate in rich, real-time video conversations from the comfort of their couch."

According to Skype, up to 5 million Skype-enabled TVs will be delivered during 2010, but the TV alone will not do it. In addition to a high-speed connection, users will need to purchase a specially designed web cam, which Skype spokesperson Jennifer Caukin told us would run about $150. Caukin said the web cam is designed to pick up audio from a greater distance, so Skype TV users will be able to remain seated instead of huddling around a microphone. It will also provide high-definition video capabilities.

Skype will be embedded on LG's NetCast series and Panasonic's VIERA CAST series of HDTVs.

According to spokesperson Peter Parkes, problems with the Skype network's "supernodes" are responsible - something it may take several more hours to fix.

This explanation certainly supports the cascading failures we reported earlier today, with Skype connections dropping from 21 million to around 1 million (by our accounts here at ReadWriteWeb as, like many remote workers, we scrambled for another communication tool).

Parkes says that it may take hours for new supernodes to be readied, and even longer for other Skype features such as group video calling to be restored.

Skype 5.3 for Mac also makes a few improvements to the app's user interface, specially around how contacts are displayed. Although the previous version worked fine with OS X Lion, this version improves upon that support. It's also backwards compatible with the previous two versions of OS X, Snow Leopard and Leopard.

This update comes one week after Skype released, removed, then re-released their official app for the iPad, which has a UI similar to the desktop client.

You can download Skype 5.3 for Mac here and read the release notes here.

There has been mounting speculation that Skype would soon be a feature on Windows Phone since Microsoft announced plans to acquire Skype last year. The company had initially promised the introduction of Skype-equipped Windows phones by the end of last year, and last week the Telegraph reported that Microsoft Rick Osterloh said at the Consumer Electrionics Show in Las Vegas that the feature will be available "soon."

But on Monday, a Microsoft spokesman refused to pin down the specifics of the product launch.

Meanwhile, Skype spokesperson Chaim Hass said the Guardian report was nothing new.

"This is nothing different than what was announced by MSFT last October," Hass said. "At this time, we have no specific timing to share."

Despite acquiring Skype from eBay for $8.5 billion last year, Microsoft's Windows Phone is the only major mobile operating system that does not have a fully-functional Skype client. While Microsoft could introduce a version of Skype for Windows Phone as early as next month, a extensive roll out is not expected until later this year when Microsoft updates the entire operating system.

The culprit: a bug in a Windows version of the Skype client (version 5.0.0152). On December 22, a cluster of support servers became offline, and as a result, the buggy Windows clients crashed.

Skype engineers were able to restore the network by introducing thousands of new, dedicated supernodes to the network. The supernodes were stabilized by Friday, says Skype, with service slowly returning to normal.

Skype says that it will work to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, particularly by making sure that users auto-update buggy software. Skype has also announced its plans to provide paying users with vouchers to compensate for the outage.

Skype first arrived on the Android platform last March on a number of Verizon phones. We asked Peter Parkes, communications lead at Skype, why U.S. users would be unable to make calls over 3G and he said it had to do with the Verizon partnership.

"We have an optimised solution for Android through our partnership with Verizon Wireless - this app allows non-Verzion Wireless customers to use Skype on their Android phones," said Parkes. "There's an extensive network of WiFi hotspots and WiFi providers across the US, so people in the US should have plenty of opportunities to use Skype."

The Android version of Skype runs on devices with Android OS 2.1 and later and is available for download.

The beta version of Skype 5.4 for Mac, which was made available for download today, lets you connect your Facebook account and add everyone on your friends list to your contacts in Skype. From there, you can IM Facebook friends right from the "Contacts" page and, if your friends are using Facebook with Skype too, you can video chat with them.

The "Home" screen on the Skype desktop client for Mac now features a reformatted version of your Facebook news feed, including the ability to like and comment on statuses. You can also post your own status updates, just as you can from the Facebook website.

Another change worth noting is the addition of advertising to the "Home" screen. The advertising program, which Skype announced in March, serves as a means of bringing in additional revenue from the product without interrupting the experience of users. People often balk at the addition of advertising to products they use frequently, but honestly, it could be worse. Imagine if Skype added a column to the right side of the chat window and displayed auto-refreshing, context-relevant skyscraper banner ads throughout the course of your conversations.

What do you think of this integration? Do you like the idea of using Skype to communicate with Facebook friends? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Silverman also noted that Skype ads "will be done in a tasteful way." Sadly, it is not clear what these ads will look like (assuming Skype will go ahead with this plan). Given that Skype is an audio and video service, these ads could include audio ads that play while you are waiting for your call to connect or small Youtube-like pop-up ads in your video calls. Currently, Skype only runs banner ads for its own products in its Windows client.

Skype currently has over 560 million registered users and more than 20 million of these are logged in at any given time. The company has trained all of these users to expect free and unimpeded calls to other Skype users, so adding ads will surely create a bit of a stir among Skype's users.

New Skype Features

Skype also announced a number of new subscription services and features during the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last week. These new services include highly discounted calls to over 170 countries for a monthly fee starting at $1.09 a month, as well as a group video chat for up to five users that will launch as a free service. Skype plans to charge a subscription fee for this feature later this year.

Skype's Antoine Bertout argues that this move to shut down Extras was inevitable as "not enough people were using them to justify our continued support of the Extras programme." We have to wonder, though, if killing off a good part of its third-party developer ecosystem is really the right thing to do. After all, applications like Pamela, Skylook, or Pretty May added important functions to Skype and made the software more useful for a larger group of users.

Of course, this is not necessarily the end of the road for third-party developers who really want to write applications for Skype. The company, however, will not actively promote these apps and they won't be certified. For developers, this means that they are now on their own and can't expect any more help from the company.

Skype itself is clearly making these decisions in order to trim unnecessary expenses from its books as its new owners are looking for ways to make the company operate more efficiently. It could also be that Skype plans to enable some of the services that the third-party Extras plugins currently offer in its own core client.

With the public API still being open, we are not ready to declare the death of the Skype ecosystem just yet, but developers will surely be wary of Skype and might just shy away from developing for a platform whose future looks uncertain.

This new announcement is the inverse of the initial Facebook deal with Skype back in July, which let Facebook users make Skype-powered video calls within Facebook.

Is this the best of both worlds, or is this just another Facebook-Microsoft move?

Of course, the Microsoft/Facebook partnership was already pretty tight.

Bing debuted social search with Facebook integration in May, allowing Bing to grab "likes" from friends. Facebook began using Bing-powered maps. Users can translate Facebook pages into any language using Bing's translator.

Microsoft has a stake in Facebook and, more importantly, the social web. Will this new Skype integration bring them one step closer to crushing Google?

And perhaps more importantly, do consumers even want video calling?

The fact that eBay and Skype make strange bedfellows does not mean Skype doesn't have a business model. On the contrary, the business generated revenues of $551 million in 2008, which is a 44% increase year-over-year and represents a 21% profit margin for them. The press releases also states a projected revenue of $1 billion in 2011, twice as much as in 2008.

With promising sales, high adoption rates and an openness to new platforms such as their iPhone app, its not hard to think that Skype will have a booming IPO, and will remove the albatross status from eBay, which can return to its core strengths of online payments and e-commerce.

The new Skype app works on iPhone 4 and 3GS and the iPod Touch with iOS 4.0 or above. You can also receive video calls on 3rd generation iPod Touch devices and on the iPad. Video-calling was already available on Skype desktop clients.

As the response to Skype's recent outage demonstrated, the service has become an important communication tool - for both professional and personal reasons. Skype says there are approximately 25 million concurrent users logged into Skype at any given time.

And video-calling makes up more and more of that usage - approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes for the first six months of 2010, according to Neil Stevens, Skype's general manager of consumer business. "By bringing video to mainstream users at their home or work via their desktops, on the go with their mobiles, or into their living room via their TV, Skype has made it possible for millions of people to share their video moments wherever they are."

"Wherever they are" is increasingly mobile, and improvements to Skype's iPhone app are welcome news. No word, however, on when video-calling will come to Android.

When the company first introduced group chat in May, it limited the number of participants to five, but now it has doubled that number to 10.

Note that everyone in a group video call now needs to be running this version, so if your friends, family or colleagues are using Beta 1, they'll have to upgrade before you can include them in group video calls.

In addition to the increased video chat features, the second beta of Skype 5.0 brings a "refreshed user interface" along with a Skype Home "where you can follow your contacts' mood messages, set your profile picture and mood message, receive account notifications and learn more about using Skype."

While the company says it has fixed some stability issues, it notes that this is still a beta version so some bugs are to be expected. The second beta version of Skype 5.0 is available for download now.

Users will also be responsible for airtime minutes if using a mobile phone, and local operator charges when dialing from a landline, notes Skype via blog post. Skype's standard connection fee applies as well.

Many people assume that Skype is only a Web-based or mobile service - that you have to install and launch an app on your desktop or smartphone in order to use it. With Skype to Go, however, you can make long distance calls from any phone - even a rotary phone with one of those twisty cords!

With the newly revamped service, you can create up to nine direct dial numbers for friends, family or other contacts and is available in many of Skype's biggest markets, including the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and parts of Europe.

On a side note, Skype also announced its service is now available on the new HP Palm Pre 2 from Verizon Wireless in the U.S. No word yet on when international Pre 2 users will have access to the same feature.

The company has just announced the change, insisting that, "the Skype experience is our first priority." The move to bring advertising to the Skype environment comes as the telephony company makes its move for a planned IPO this year. While Skype has an estimated 177 million active users, only around 8.1 million are paying subscribers. The addition of advertising will give the company another revenue stream.

Currently, the advertising is set to only appear in the Home tab in Skype for Windows, although the company says it might experiment with ads in other areas and with other clients eventually. The ads won't interrupt your VOIP experience - no "annoying pop-up ads or flashy banner ads in middle of conversations," insists Skype. Skype says the ads will only appear occasionally, and the initial plan is to show one ad from one brand per day. Ads are rolling out in the U.S., U.K., and German markets first.

The advertising may use non-personally identifiable demographic data - your location, gender and age - in order to target ads and deliver relevant content. But you will be able to opt out of allowing Skype to share this data with advertisers.

Skype has become immensely popular, in no small part because it's offered its services for free. As Skype moves towards its initial public offering, ads appear to be one path to monetize those users.