Well it didn’t take them long, just 11 days after the rumours started flying (see my earlier post), Skype have made their beta release version 2 available for download to the public.
A little buggy, well it is beta after all, this is the long awaited addition to Skype that we have all been waiting for. With a few cosmetic touches, skype is really looking slick and impressive. Additional features include contact grouping and an expandable “My Panel” (mood, events, services integrated) and most importantly Video calls!
The download was pretty quick considering the demand is impressive and setup was a doddle, plug and play is an understatement. I am pleased to say that initial calls have been pretty smooth sailing, a pretty high refresh rate with very little lag, I am mightily impressed.
Skype is really gonna take this and reach the next level of users across all platforms. Until today Skype was trying to pull users from one form of telephony to another with little real advantage for the layman and not much comercial leverage. Traditional telecoms may have dismissed it before but they are simply not going to be able to compete with this. Its begs the question how this technology was not bought by BT for example rather than Ebay, when video was such a natural progression.
