Facebook has scheduled a Wednesday news conference to announce the launch of what it termed "something awesome."
The leading theory is that the company will unveil a video-chat feature powered by Skype.
Facebook didn't provide any details in an e-mail inviting media members to the event, to be held at its Palo Alto, California, headquarters. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised last week it would be "something awesome."
Zuckerberg was touring Facebook's engineering site in Seattle and wouldn't give many details, only saying that the announcement would be about something developed there.
The social networking giant has a close relationship with Microsoft, which acquired Skype in May. Recent versions of Skype's desktop software tie into Facebook's services.
It's hard to imagine the timing of today's Facebook announcement is random.
Since it was launched last week, Google has been getting all the online buzz in the social-media world for its new networking platform, Google+.
Punch for punch, Google+ reproduces some of Facebook's most popular tools but adds one distinctive function: video chat.
Google refers to the video service as Hangouts. Several friends can join a room, and the live feeds from their webcams appear as separate blocks along the bottom of the window. The main video box shows the person who's speaking the loudest at any given time.
Most popular Google+ user? It's Facebook's Zuckerberg
Google may be digital light years away from rivaling Facebook's nearly 600 million users worldwide. But after Buzz, Wave and other failed efforts, Google+ looks like the search engine's most serious leap yet into the social-networking world.
And that could mean, as competing smartphone makers discovered with Google's potent Android system, that Facebook has a real rival on its hands.
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