the new Skype 5.0 Beta 2 today and you can:
– Talk with up to nine other people on group video calls
– Enjoy the clearer, easier to use design
Please make sure that you and your friends all upgrade to Skype 5.0 Beta 2 as anyone using the first Beta won’t be able to enjoy group video calling with friends who haven’t upgraded. So that everyone in the beta program can participate in group video calling, we will require all users to upgrade to Beta 2 by Friday, 10 September; if you don’t want to wait, you can download it right now.
This beta version comes with a free trial of group video calling. Video call up to four of your friends – all at the same time. Everyone on the call will be able to see and hear each other.
Note: group video calling currently works with Skype 5.0 Beta for Windows only. Everyone on the call needs this version of Skype, otherwise the group video call won’t work.
Release notes:
In this release we have a number of major improvements in comparison with previous release of Skype 5.0 beta:
* 10-way group video calling
* Skype Home experience
* Offline instant messaging
* New contact search and add experience
* Enhanced call experience under problematic conditions
* Post call experience
* General User Interface refresh
I have just upgraded to version 3.6 from 5.x. I say “upgraded” because the Skype experience has been going downhill for quite some time and, for me, has finally reached the bottom.
In the last few weeks, Skype decides to open it’s “Skype Home” screen EVERY DAY to tell me important messages such as “No status updates”. This is after years of nagging me with “You have Skype credit. Why don’t you use it to call someone?” in a little green popup.
The reason I cancelled my subscription (I had 3 online numbers with Skype) was because they would not stop nagging me.
Unfortunately, some friends and a few members of my family are still hanging on to Skype, so to keep in touch, I still need Skype installed. I wonder if the marketing monkeys at Skype know this, and think they can force their outdated advertising strategy on the poor users with no consequences?
Of course, Skype is owned by Microsoft now – and they have never really been any good at advertising, even when Google showed the way (the reason MS Messenger got thrown off my PC years and years ago was the flashing, jumping adverts distracting (and annoying the hell out of) me. As Steve Jobs once said, Microsoft just don’t have any TASTE. Well…Ditto Skype.
Forcing your product into people’s faces and hoping that a few may click is the strategy of spammers and phishers. I never click on them either. The day is coming when I will uninstall Skype completely and forever from my computers. Simply because they themselves pushed me into doing so.
ya, this should be better