Skype reintroduces itself in an all updated and advanced version. The Corporate Vice President of Skype, Amritansh Raghav, has confirmed the news of Skype being relaunched in an all new design, Today. The new layout is designed with an insight of the latest trends with which the majority of social networking apps are being driven today. It has introduced ‘Highlights’ which is much like the Snapchat stories.
Skype was introduced in the year 2003 with an eye to ease the concept of messaging and calling by providing it for free with an internet access. However, it was later acquired by Microsoft in 2011. Skype had a massive user base which mainly exploited its video calling feature. However, it got overshadowed with apps which offered similar features and many additional features too.
Humans have always been obsessed with copying other human activities. The phenomena is simple, you like it? You copy it. Initiated with Snapchat, almost all social media networking sites/apps today are majorly influenced with the approach of pictures and broadcasting them to friends circle in the form of stories. The popular social networking site, Facebook, introduced timeline and messenger stories for its mobile application, establishing an easier to use mobile friendly interface which allows the user to make an easy access to multiple social networking sites.
Skype has now joined the race!
Lacking behind until yesterday, even Skype has jumped in the race Today with some advanced features in its app. Skype has introduced the concept of ‘highlights’, inspired by stories. A simple left swipe from the chat page will lead you to the highlights, whereas a right swipe from the chats page will show you camera where you can click snaps and add texts and stickers to further beautify the snap.
However, Skype has introduced highlights with reasonable amount of difference in its layout and features in the newly introduced ‘highlights’. Some notable differences include the duration for which the highlights you upload are visible for an entire week compared to a single day visibility of other apps that have a similar feature. However, you can see your own highlights for a period of 24 months on enabling additional settings.
A swift swipe enables you to access the camera and share photos and videos with your friend and family in individual as well as group chat. Currently, Skype has a user base of 3oo million and according to Raghav, the new version of Skype aims at delivering a personalized experience to its users. He claims that the advancements in the app will help you to make access to several other sites. They call this latest version to be a search and transactional tool, capable of adding plugins and bots.
It is not just simple stories that have been added, it is search made easier. You can add relevant plug-ins for cooking recipes or movie tickets, etc. and have the details handy.
The new highlights work much like Instagram, to view a friend’s highlights you are supposed to follow them and vice versa. Skype enables an individual’s followers to react to the Highlights the person uploads with emojis, like it has always been on Skype. This feature of emoji reactions is much like the Facebook’s reaction feature with which you may simply react with a mood expressive emoji like thumbs up, sad, surprised, angry, etc or you may type a response that begins a personal chat.
What’s the news?
The hot news is the introduction of Bots and Ad-ins. Skype lets you get help from its Virtual assistant Cortana and the latest assistant Scoop. Scoop refers to MSN.com for news. this feature enables you to simply get insights of a particular news item by simply chatting with scoop.
Video Calling made better
The advancements in Skype also include theme based chats and an option to react on everything in a chat with an expressive emoji. This can be done in the video calls as well. Simply send the emoji with a choice of background colour and the same will be displayed on the video call window.
Skype is further planning to enhance the video call feature by letting people play games together while con video call or watch videos together. However, these features are to be implemented in the future.
Skype’s Android version marked its launch today
The Launch of the newly designed Skype has hit the Android market today and in the following month a similar update for IOS will be introduced. With this attempt, Skype aims at stepping back to competition. Until today, Skype was over shadowed with the emergence of several apps that began offering the similar features which were exclusive to Skype only.
The advancements in the Skype’s app can be seen as an attempt to pace up with fast growing features of the competitive apps which are in constant approach to give a personalized user interface to its users and a platform to grow connectivity with friends and family. Further, the acceptance and acknowledgement of the user base will be evident in proving the success or the failure of the new Feature: ‘Highlights’ introduced by Skype inspired by Snapchat stories.
Photo credits: Techcrunch
Very informative blog. Thanks for the update and information.