Skype has been around since 2003 and it was one of the very few platforms the mass market could use to video chat with friends and family around the world. In 2011, Microsoft decided to buy Skype for $8.5 billion and they have been outing several updates like mojis or group video chat to make it more appealing to users.
Well now they are going all out to appeal to millennials by making a radical user interface change that looks like a millennial favourite: Snapchat.
“Rebuilt from the ground up, the new Skype vastly improves the ways you connect with your favourite people and of course, chatting is front and centre,” Skype said in the release.
The new Skype has customization capabilities where you can customize Skype with your favourite colours.
There is a new feature, Highlights, which allows you to create a highlight reel of your day with photos and videos so that you can share everyday moments. To create these highlights, swipe to access the camera, take a photo or video and post it to your Highlights or you can alternatively send it to your contacts and groups. The people who see your highlights can react to them via emoticons or conversing with you.
The new Find panel will make you search for stuff on Skype like your favourite businesses or add-ins for the app (like Giphy) which looks like something we have seen on Facebook Messenger.
The new update will be rolled out worldwide, first on mobile then on desktop. It will first be available to Android then on iOS later on while the versions on Windows and Mac will be released in the next few months.
