Microsoft is building on the increasing popularity of the photo and video messaging apps with its own standalone mobile app called Skype Qik.
Microsoft, the world's largest software developing company, has launched an all-new mobile messaging app called Skype Qik for sharing short ephemeral videos. Qik app is positioned to compete with Snapchat.
Skype Qik allows users to share short videos with friends and groups of friends as a one-off message or a part of a conversation. Users can record videos up to 42 seconds before sharing it with friends. These videos will automatically be deleted after two weeks but users can go back and delete their videos from other participants' conversations before they expire. Microsoft sees this new app as a way to keep friends and family connected at all times and between "weekly Skype calls." Videos shared on Qik are not stored on Microsoft servers to ensure security for its users.
"A small team of Skype designers and developers recently took up the challenge to build a new app to run alongside Skype and provide an ongoing form of video chat," Skype program managers Piero Sierra and Dan Chastney wrote in an official blog post, Tuesday. "They knew they had to create something mobile and lightweight, as spontaneous as messaging but as intimate as calling. And it had to be fun and easy to use. What they created was Skype Qik."
Qik also enables users to share Qik Fliks, five-second GIFs that can be used to respond to a new video message. Unlike in other services, the GIFs are personalized with users own recordings that can be saved for later use. Currently, the feature is available only on Android and iOS, while Windows Phone users will have to wait for a couple of months.
Skype purchased Qik video messaging service in 2011 for $100 million. After keeping it alive for three years, the service was shut down in April. The future of the app was unknown at the time, but Microsoft put a team of designers and developers to modify the original Qik into the all-new Skype Qik.
Qik is an independent app and does not require a Skype account. To get started, users simply need to verify their phone number and start shooting and sharing videos. The app is available for download on Windows Phone Store, Google Play Store and Apple App Store for free.
