Skype on Wednesday introduced new software with new features, such as click-to-call to facilitate e-commerce, as well as group chats.

Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom said features in Skype 3.0 - launched in public beta - would decrease the company dependence on communications revenue with "new services which are more targeted to e-commerce," Reuters quotes him as saying. Skype will allow shoppers to place a call by clicking on a phone numbers listed on web pages - feature that Skype parent eBay has sought since it acquired the firm last year.

"Our long-term goal is to have much more balance between e-commerce and telecommunications revenues," Zennstrom told Reuters.

Another feature allows users to set up text-based chats with up to 100 web users, whether they use Skype or not; it mirrors Skype's group audio feature, called Skypecast. The public chat feature can be embedded into blogs to encourage conversation.