Ever since Microsoft acquired Skype barely six years ago, the messaging service went through persistent updates from time to time. So far, today marks the most drastic makeover Skype has ever experienced as its recent update dressed it like Snapchat.
Skype is officially jumping aboard the "stories" bandwagon, a trend among social media platforms that has been pioneered by Snapchat. Dubbed as "the next generation of Skype", the update focuses on the messaging aspect, adding three sections in a conversation—find, chat, and capture.
Find, Chat, Capture
With Find, users can scour through a conversation, images, restaurants, and add-ins and insert into a message. With Chat, more emoji and photo expressions are added. The fresh addition is the Capture which works similarly like Snapchat, Messenger, and Instagram's stories. Vanishing stories are the core of Snapchat.
With Skype, it works pretty much similar to other apps. Users can launch the camera: Tap to take photos and hold down to record a video. Skype's Capture shows a wobbly line after taking the video. The line also functions for calling, or when contacts are typing. After taking a photo or video, users can add text and stickers.
Highlights
Highlights is another feature that comes with the update. It allows users to post a series of images and clips that contacts can view and respond with emoticons. During on video or audio calls, reacting with emoticon is now possible. While the regular group conversation, especially with video calls, Skype sometimes is unstable and faulty. But with the new update, users can add contacts to a conversation by dragging and dropping them.
Skype vs other messaging services
With the competition that is taken over by WhatsApp, Snapchat, iMessage and Messenger, among many others, Microsoft intends to project Skype is more than just a video and audio calling service. This latest redesign is a strategic move for Microsoft to regain the glory this service once had.
Android devices get to try first the update. It should be available on iOS, Windows, and Mac shortly after.
