Recently, Blizzard has been telling WoW players to merge their WoW accounts into Battle.net. By November 11 all WoW players are 'required' to merge their WoW accounts with into Battle.net accounts.

From the front page of http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml

A few months ago, we unveiled the Battle.net account, our new way for players to log in to World of Warcraft and future Blizzard games, sign up for upcoming beta tests, shop the online Blizzard Store, and more with just one username and password. This was just the first step in the rollout of the brand-new Battle.net; in the future, players will be able to use Battle.net to participate in cross-realm chat in World of Warcraft, create real-life friends lists, communicate across different games, and a whole lot more.

In preparation for the launch of these new features, on November 11, 2009, all current World of Warcraft players will be required to merge their World of Warcraft accounts with a Battle.net account in order to log in to the game. As our way to say "thanks" for taking a moment to go through the process, existing World of Warcraft accounts that upgrade to Battle.net (including those that have already switched over) will receive a brand-new penguin in-game pet -- check for him in your in-game mailbox later this week. Starting on November 11, all World of Warcraft players will need to log in to the game using a Battle.net username and password, and anyone who wishes to create a new World of Warcraft account will need to start with a Battle.net account.

Creating a Battle.net account is simple and free. To merge your existing account with a Battle.net account, go here. For more info, check out the Battle.net site or read the FAQ.

Interesting that they're now forcing people to merge their accounts after a while of asking people (people must not have been doing what Blizzard wanted). This is part of a major effort by Blizzard to recreate Battle.net as a new hub for players of different Blizzard games (including WoW and the upcoming Starcraft II and Diablo III).

I'm not against this move since merging your WoW account into Battle.net is simple, but it's interesting that this is transpiring now after the Activision acquisition of Vivendi (including Blizzard) or it could just be something Blizzard was going to do anyway closer to SC II and Diablo III release dates.

The service sounds a lot like Xbox Live, Steam, PSN in a lot of regards.

http://us.blizzard.com/blizzcon/recaps/battlenet-panel.xml

What is the Real ID feature?

Real ID is at the forefront of online gaming as it will allow you to easily connect, communicate, and play with real-life friends. Connect with old friends and current guildies, and make new friends with the integrated Battle.net social networking tools. Beyond simply seeing your friend’s character names  (e.g. “Gorlac” in World of Warcraft or  “Snip3r” in StarCraft II), and having to remember which character name goes with which friend, you will be able to see your Real ID friend and chat with him or her across Blizzard games. What’s more, Real ID is totally optional -- the options are there for you to build your Blizzard Entertainment social network however you see fit.
  

Not forced to make a Real ID, but encouraged to.

What are some of the communication tools available in the new Battle.net?

Our vision is for the new Battle.net to become the ultimate Blizzard Entertainment social network, in addition to its matchmaking foundation. Simply logging in to Battle.net will make it easy to find and chat with your friends across World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and future Blizzard Entertainment titles, including Diablo III. Keep track of all your buddies in your friends list, view their online status and presence information, voice chat, send out party invites, and broadcast messages to your friends. Detailed character profiles let players keep up to date on friends’ progress and achievements.

 Cross-game messaging sounds a lot like the other three interfaces mentioned above.

I have no problems with any of this, but I find it strange that Blizzard is forcing WoW players to join Battle.net, maybe they could have done this in a better way?

Maybe one day BLizzard will ditch the idiots that are Activision and join up with Valve for a super independent studio that is the bet in all major genres, FPS, RTS, RPG.

While legally Blizzard and Activision are one company. Activision has absolutely no effect on what Blizzard does / wants to do.

I cant wait for the new battle.net, I hope they have ingame voice chat in starcraft 2

Activision's boss is still over BLizzard's, also Blizzard has started doing some really bullshit things ever since the merger.

They start doing them before the merger. For example splitting Starcraft II to a trilogy was announced before the merger. Blizzard can do bullshit things without  Activision.

I hope not. Voice chat is a horrible feature when with people not of your choosing.

Except they own Blizzard and all their IPs so if some day some Blizzard folks decide to leave, they will do it without Wow, Diablo, Starcraft and co....

Besides there are some advantages in being part of a bigger company.

The last two year of Wow development, Blizzard lost a lot of money as they were ramping up to release and finish Wow. Vivendi ( who owned Blizzard at the time) just bankrolled it. It would have been a much different situation if Blizzard had been independant...

They need to do something for Gaming on Windows because between Games for Windows thingy, Steam, Battlenet and more it's not very friendly to have to maintain several IDs and be limited to recognize the people that play the game from the same editor only..

This is one area where consoles are really ahead. Lets not kid ourselves, Steam and Battlenet and just attempts to copy XboxLive and PSN..

Valve is going to run into some issues with Steam at some point if they don't split it off. Having a game maker that manages the platform to sell all digital games is just a recipe for disaster....

I wish people would stop saying Activision bought vivendi.

False, it was afterwards.