Skype Qik: Microsoft's crusade against mobile messengers
Unexpectedly for all, Skype acted as a developer of mobile applications, releasing the Skype Qik application for all major mobile platforms on Tuesday, which is a group video-messenger with its own characteristic features. Its main feature - Skype Qik allows its users to send each other in a personal or group chat short 42-second videos, and the communication takes place not in a mutual mode, like talking on a regular Skype, but in an asynchronous one.
“Skype Qik is the first video messaging app, easy and spontaneous,” said Piero Sierra, director of mobile development for Skype , describing the result of his team’s work.
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Although the messenger does not have any connection with Skype itself (such as exporting a list of contacts, which would be logical), Sierra calls it a “companion” of the company's main product, which with its 300 million users plays an important role in the communications market, and especially in the PC segment . The average video call on Skype today lasts 40 minutes, but is relatively rare. Skype Qik is designed for concise communication, but much more frequent.
For Microsoft’s Skype-owned company, the release of this application is a good opportunity to grab a piece of cake from the mobile market, which is showing strong growth. Although half of Skype users use its applications on their mobile devices running different operating systems - this is a miser compared with the audience of Apple Facetime, Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger and other instant messengers, not to mention the super popular WhatsApp and Viber.
Sierra believes in the success of its offspring and the rapid growth of its popularity among users of mobile gadgets. Among the noteworthy features, he calls in particular registration and authorization using phone numbers, not nicknames and passwords used in most instant messengers, the “survivability” of a sent message for two weeks and the limitation of video duration (which does not prevent him from being 7 times longer messages in Vine) and volume (no more than 5 MB). The video itself has a square format, like an Instagram photo.
Perhaps one of the most potentially popular features of the messenger is the Qik Fliks feature. You simply create for yourself a set of emoticons that correspond to the most frequent of your conditions, and in communication with the interlocutor, they promptly respond to certain of his messages.
In addition to the availability for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, the new messenger is ready to be conquered by a wide audience - the application has versions in 21 languages, implemented of course very high quality (after all, Microsoft). In the process of shooting, you can change the front camera to the rear camera.
Using phone numbers during registration is intended with the expectation of virality - when choosing a user from the contact list, the application suggests you to send him an SMS (for your money, of course) and thanks to this it is distributed among users of different platforms, different brands of phones which will not become an obstacle for creating group chat . True, here Sierra somewhat miscalculated - by collecting smartphone users from different platforms by their phone numbers, the application simultaneously loses those potential users who do not have these numbers - for example, owners of tablets or PCs.
“Skype Qik is the first video messaging app, easy and spontaneous,” said Piero Sierra, director of mobile development for Skype , describing the result of his team’s work.
')
Although the messenger does not have any connection with Skype itself (such as exporting a list of contacts, which would be logical), Sierra calls it a “companion” of the company's main product, which with its 300 million users plays an important role in the communications market, and especially in the PC segment . The average video call on Skype today lasts 40 minutes, but is relatively rare. Skype Qik is designed for concise communication, but much more frequent.
For Microsoft’s Skype-owned company, the release of this application is a good opportunity to grab a piece of cake from the mobile market, which is showing strong growth. Although half of Skype users use its applications on their mobile devices running different operating systems - this is a miser compared with the audience of Apple Facetime, Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger and other instant messengers, not to mention the super popular WhatsApp and Viber.
Sierra believes in the success of its offspring and the rapid growth of its popularity among users of mobile gadgets. Among the noteworthy features, he calls in particular registration and authorization using phone numbers, not nicknames and passwords used in most instant messengers, the “survivability” of a sent message for two weeks and the limitation of video duration (which does not prevent him from being 7 times longer messages in Vine) and volume (no more than 5 MB). The video itself has a square format, like an Instagram photo.
Perhaps one of the most potentially popular features of the messenger is the Qik Fliks feature. You simply create for yourself a set of emoticons that correspond to the most frequent of your conditions, and in communication with the interlocutor, they promptly respond to certain of his messages.
In addition to the availability for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, the new messenger is ready to be conquered by a wide audience - the application has versions in 21 languages, implemented of course very high quality (after all, Microsoft). In the process of shooting, you can change the front camera to the rear camera.
Using phone numbers during registration is intended with the expectation of virality - when choosing a user from the contact list, the application suggests you to send him an SMS (for your money, of course) and thanks to this it is distributed among users of different platforms, different brands of phones which will not become an obstacle for creating group chat . True, here Sierra somewhat miscalculated - by collecting smartphone users from different platforms by their phone numbers, the application simultaneously loses those potential users who do not have these numbers - for example, owners of tablets or PCs.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/361943/
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