I can't help but think this is a rather large mistake. I never pictured Skype trying to take on Snapchat, I always viewed it as a business communication tool.

Random gradients, random gradients everywhere.

Just feels like they cloned all the other social/messaging apps and completely threw away their own branding.

When in doubt .. ADD STORIES TO ALL THE THINGS!

Snapchat changed the game. I don't know if that's good or bad, but they did.

"WE ARE TRENDY!"

Good to see they are changing things up. Skype has felt stale for a long time with the only thing going for itself being it's reliability. Let's hope this breathes some fresh air into it.

This is the worst update/rebranding I've seen in ages.

Anyone else feel like the keming on the headers is a bit small?

I like this direction - Skype definitely started as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, and is for sure used in business communication, but I think hangouts dominates that space with Gcal integration.

While I definitely wouldn't use it, I definitely empathize with them attempting to enter the whole "stories" thing. A lot of people jumped ship from Snapchat in favor of Instagram, and you might see the same thing here. Even if not, the focus on mobile is pretty cool.

Reminds me of that scene in Mean Girls "I'm not like a regular mom, I'm a cool mom." where in this case Skype is trying to be the cool mom.

Anybody know who did the website work? Was it made in house? Because product-aside, this is a really solid marketing page.

skype board meeting...

Q: "so everyone, how do we stay relevant with all these social media platforms digging in to our customer base?"

A: "ADD GRADIENTS, GIFS, AND STORIES EVERYWHERE!!"

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I always thought Skype had terrible UX. I regularly Skype with my parents, but they still have a hard time doing simple things like viewing a photo I send them just because everything's hidden away behind unlabeled icons. Hopefully the new version fixes some of those issues.

I'm curious to know, does anyone actually use Skype in that way? - like keep it open all day and chat with people on it? I only ever open Skype when I've organised a phone call with my parents lol.

Meanwhile, Skype for Business 2017 is the buggiest piece of crap I've ever used for a chat app.

trendy af

Stories everywhere. i'm curious to see if this is going to have any effect in Snapchat, Messenger and Whatsapp DAU

Product aside...we're just going to pretend this hero section is not a disaster and so are the shadows on those header links? Got it. Wont mention it...

I see all the right things have already been said. Then the only thing I have to left, is to say that this is a very predictable, very bad move. As always. I don't remember any update to skype that was not bad for everyone using it.

I'll stick with Discord for now.

No emergency calls with Skype?!!

Well, damn, Skype would for sure be the first thing I'd reach for if I had blood spraying everywhere.

I'll just use Snapchat instead, yo.

No matter how fast your machine gets Skype always manages to feel the same speed because every few years they refresh the UI and the processor use skyrockets.

Used 100% of the CPU of my PPC machine back in the day, uses 100% of the CPU of my 4ghz Intel today.

I'm seeing parts of Facebook (5xemoji bar), snapchat, and a strong reference to the Apple Music UI, especially on the desktop screens at the bottom. Orange purple gradients are a bit too much too, a bit like the design brief was 'win the trust of the kids like these other brands do!'. I like the swirly zig zag cut off though. Hopefully as much time has been put into the IA and Nav structure, accessibility, as their effort to be noticed in this saturated space.