UK and US Get Skype Video Messaging

News
By Jane McEntegart
published

Now you can send a video message to your friends and family using Skype.

Skype this week launched a new feature that allows users to leave short video messages for their contacts. Only available for Mac, iPhone, and Android users for the moment, the feature appears in the "Conversations" drop down menu and allows users to record three minute videos that they can then send to their contacts. The first 20 messages are free. After that, you'll need a Skype Premium subscription to use the feature.

Speaking to The Verge, a Skype spokesperson gave no indication as to when Windows users can expect to see similar functionality on their version of Skype.

"We’re pleased that there’s interest for Video Messaging to come to Skype for Windows and Skype for Windows 8," The Verge quotes a Skype spokesperson as saying. "We’ll let you know when we expand the service to the platform."

What's more, The Verge reports that the Video Messages feature is only available for US and UK users for the moment, and that a rollout to other countries is expected in the future. However, we tried it in Canada and it seems to work just fine, so let us know if you're able to use it outside of the USA and UK.

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Jane McEntegart
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • southernshark
    Not even offered for Windows 8 / W8 phones yet........ Kind of sad.
    Reply
  • Soda-88
    Wtf? Why would Microsoft make it available on non-Windows devices only at first?
    Not that I'll ever use it but still.
    Reply
  • IndignantSkeptic
    What reason would they have for it not being worldwide except perhaps because some Internet infrastructure in some regions of the world is pathetic. That doesn't seem to be the case here though because these countries don't have the best Internet. Could it be government corruption?
    Reply
  • lradunovic77
    Skype -> being very slow lately and bloated. Time to find an alternative.
    Reply
  • everlast66
    That's very surprising for me. They normally don't keep the plain text messages on their servers when the receiver is offline. If user A sends a message to user B while B is offline, the message will stay on the sender's computer until BOTH go online at the same time and it leads to confusion. For example I ask someone who just went offline, and when I happen to meet the same person online a few days later the message goes through in the background and the other person starts replying me about something I already forgot days ago.
    And now they've decided adding video messages that I assume are going to be kept on their servers and take tons more space.
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    Soda-88Wtf? Why would Microsoft make it available on non-Windows devices only at first?Not that I'll ever use it but still.It will be interesting to see if the Linux version is updated before the Windows version.
    Reply
  • shadowfamicom
    everlast66That's very surprising for me. They normally don't keep the plain text messages on their servers when the receiver is offline. If user A sends a message to user B while B is offline, the message will stay on the sender's computer until BOTH go online at the same time and it leads to confusion. For example I ask someone who just went offline, and when I happen to meet the same person online a few days later the message goes through in the background and the other person starts replying me about something I already forgot days ago.And now they've decided adding video messages that I assume are going to be kept on their servers and take tons more space.
    Yeah that annoys the crap out of me. I use skype all the time and even have a premuim account... and the fact they they don't store plain text on their servers is stupid. Lots of free to play online games can do it just fine, you would think that one of the worlds most video/messaging/phone client would do it too. Hell they already have voice messages you can leave in skype...
    Reply
  • keyholder
    skype used to be good. fast , stable, did what it advertised.. now its over bloated turd.. now with microsuck having its greedy hands around it i can see it sinking fast.
    Reply
  • textmessage
    SMS, MMS and push notifications are mainstream communications channels alongside more traditional e-mail, print and broadcast mediums.http://www.txtimpact.com/mms-messaging.asp
    Reply