We are really pleased to announce the release of Skype 3.0 beta for Windows today. This new release has a real community focus with Public Chats and Skypecasts.

Public chats are text chats that anyone can create, host and join where Skype users can meet new people and chat about anything they fancy. Join our Skypecasts Public chat to see what it’s all about.

Public chat & Skypecasts complement each other and can work really well together. Public chats are constant text based chats and Skypecasts are scheduled voice calls allowing instant discussion. Find out more about how to use Skypecasts and Public chats.

With Skype 3.0 beta not only can browse Skypecasts starting and on now directly from the Live tab. When you decide to join or host one, the Skypecast itself will run within a separate tab where you have all the host or participant controls to ask for mic, see who the host is and do all those other things you need to do in a Skypecast. Which will make your life much easier.

Plus we’re also moving Skypecasts into beta from its previous preview state at the same time. This brings Skypecasts to another level and is a great starting point to develop more new and exciting features for communities in the next few months.

We would like to thank all of you for your help and your support.