Ads on Skype now available

Have you ever considered advertising your business over Skype? The popular video and audio calling service recently announced its release of Conversion Ads - display ads that will appear within the calling window of users who do not have Skype Credit or subscriptions, according to the company's blog.

While on the surface this may be viewed as a disservice to those without credit, the company believes it will instead "generate fun interactivity" between a user's circle of friends and family about the brands they care about, making Skype a more "engaging and useful place to have your conversations each and every day."

Skype notes that it does plan to use non-personally identifiable demographic information about users - such as location, gender and age - to target ads that are of greater interest and relevance.

As for the ads themselves, they will remain silent and will only run after Skype has completed regular detailed quality checks of a user's connection. The call quality will not be affected.

Right now, the ads will only display on 1:1 Skype-to-Skype audio calls made with Skype for Windows, although additional versions are likely to be rolled out in the future.

The ad unit will appear next to the picture of the person a user is calling, and will be non-expanding. Ads will be available to marketers for purchase in 55 markets where Skype is available, and users can choose to be exempt from commercial intrusions during calls  if they have Skype credit or a subscription.

The Los Angeles Times adds that Skype was recently purchased by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, and this is one of the first steps Microsoft has taken to monetize the product.