Skype's first Beta of its third generation console has seen the company make significant evolution of the client software with changes to the user interface, the introduction of more social networking features and space for third party developers to hook in to provide extra features and services.
The new client software brings together a number of features developed over the past 18 months and brings them all within easy reach of the user. Click-to-call toolbars for FireFox and Internet Explorer are now included in the package and the company has expanded its Chat features to allow for multi-user chat sessions.
In some ways the changes are clearly dictated by its new corporate owners at eBay which need to make shopping an integral part of the tool to leverage the user base it paid so dearly for.
The public chats feature allows for moderated chats (anybody can moderate their own chat) for up to 100 users as with the previously available audio Skypcasting. It's now easy to find Skypecasts, though, as the client software now has a list of active one's right their in the console. All the controls for Skypcast participation have also been bought within the confines of the console making it a much neater solution.