Last spring, Microsoft opened up its wallet and spent $8.5 billion to acquire Skype in an all-cash deal.  Since that time they have tweaked the voice over IP (VOIP) service with a few new features and functionality.   Over the last few months Microsoft has tried different ad units as they look to monetize the big acquisition and they now have something ready for the advertising community as you’ll see from the snap shot below:

According to a posting on Microsoft’s blog:

You’ll notice the Conversation Ads are presented on a clean, uncluttered canvas allowing your story to nicely complement the consumer interaction.  The 300 x 250 unit appears during one-to-one audio calls in the Skype Windows client*, and – as might be obvious – they’ll be silent so the ad doesn’t interrupt the consumer experience.  Like most of our Microsoft ad experiences, this opportunity is truly global with over 55 markets currently available for purchase…and more coming soon.

The big question now is, will advertisers turn to Skype as a platform for reaching consumers?