Skype set the standard for one on one video calling, but services like Facetime on the Mac and Hangouts through Google quickly ran with group video chat for free.
Skype offered a “Pro” version where you could conference call, but that was an additional cost over the free service. Announced today on the Skype blog, video group calls will now be coming to all for free. Initially available on the Mac, PC, and XBox One, free group calling will eventually make its way to all other platforms as well.
The one area Skype will still be behind is in video broadcast. Google scored a hit with Hangouts on Air, allowing users to broadcast publicly live, and automatically uploading that vid to Youtube. For folks coordinating podcasts, Skype could do well to offer some kind of video capture service to compete.
You can read Skype’s full PR below.
Skype Loves Bringing Groups Together – With FREE Group Video Calling
When not in the office at Skype, I’m part of a cycling team with a group of four local friends. We’re training for a coast-to-coast charity cycling event but spend our weeks in separate parts of the world on business. As planning for our training days is a challenge, we often rely on Skype group video calls to stay connected. Now that Skype group video calling is available to everyone, free of charge, it makes our group conversations even easier! Group video calling enables so many important shared experiences, like my cycling team’s regular training check-ins and catch-ups.
Skype is proud that, since our beginning, we’ve created opportunities for people to communicate freely and easily, no matter where they are; from keeping in touch with remote family members or calling home when traveling to chatting daily with your close circles of friends. While Skype is known for one to one video calling, we know it’s also essential to connect with the groups of people who matter most, whether friends, family or colleagues. For the last few years, we’ve offered group video calling to Premium users on Windows desktop and Mac and more recently Xbox One. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re making group video calling free – for all users on these platforms. And, in the future, we’ll be enabling group video calling for all our users across more platforms – at no cost.
Whether for my cycling team or your catch-ups, meet ups, huddles, reunions, nights out, study groups, painting clubs, family ‘get-togethers’ or whatever group you participate in, Skype is committed to making group communications simple, easy and fun for everyone – now and in the years to come!
As we move forward, we’ll continue to listen to your feedback and deliver ever more and ever better group communications. So, as always, let us know what you think by keeping in touch on Twitter and Facebook, and join us on the Skype Community.