Skype 3.5 for Windows was released to the public a few days
ago, and to coincide with this upgrade, Skype and Dailymotion, an
online video community have partnered together.
This new version of Skype adds videos from the
video-sharing sites Dailymotion and Metacafe
to Skype and will establish an exclusive channel.
This will allow Skype users to share videos from
Dailymotion’s Mood
Channels.
DailyMotion CEO and cofounder Benjamin Bejbaum stated:-
“With this partnership, two of the largest online global
communities
have come together to create a new experience in video
sharing,”“From now on, Skype
users will have access to more than 3 million videos, including premium
content and exclusive artwork from our MotionMakers. Skype users will
discover that creativity is one of our core values.”
Skype User Moods
With the new feature, Skype users will be able to integrate
video
into text chats and also download videos to add them to a user’s
“mood”.
According to Skype, user moods are “a way of sharing your
feelings with friends and family and are becoming increasingly popular
in the Skype community because they are a simple, more personalized way
to share all sorts of things with other Skype contacts.“
To ensure a higher rate of acceptance to its users in various
countries around the world, Skype will be localizing each of its Mood
Channels to its key markets. The videos on the Mood Channels are
top-ranked submissions from Dailymotion’s MotionMaker
program.
Erick Hachenburg, chief executive of Metacafe, believes that:-
“video
mood messages provide members of the vibrant Skype community a great
way to express themselves by tapping into the original and entertaining
videos available on Metacafe, including those in our Producer Rewards
program that pays video creators for their best work.”
How Will Skype’s 200 million Customers React?
I am not sure that this will make Skype any more useful, but I
agree
that it will definitely make it more fun. It will be interesting to see
how Skype’s 200 million+ customers use the videos.
Don’t expect this to be the only new feature in Skype version
3.5
though.
Other features include the ability to capture a still image
from a Skype video chat, the automatic redial features that
automatically redials a number every two minutes until it is answered,
and the ability to transfer incoming calls to another person on Skype.
Michael Garrett is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
