Goodnight Skypecasts
At Skype, our aim is to offer products that delight people and enable the world’s conversations. Part of our vision means coming up with new ways for our community of more than 338 million registered users to stay in touch.
Skypecasts is one of the many features that we’ve developed to enable these conversations. What we’ve learned by watching how the product is used and through user feedback is that Skypecasts is not quite measuring up to our high standards and expectations for connecting and delighting our users.
As a result, we have made the decision to retire Skypecasts from active service for the immediate future, effective 12 noon BST on Monday, 1st September 2008.
This decision is consistent with Skype’s efforts to prioritise resources towards the products and areas of innovation that that will have the biggest impact on the Skype community.
Philosophically, we continue to believe in the concept of Skypecasts – group communication on a specific topic of interest. As such, we will look for ways to reintroduce this functionality in a way that lives up to both our and our community’s high standards.
To those people who regularly enjoy hosting and taking part in Skypecasts, we apologise for the inconvenience and hope we’ll be able to release a new and improved Skypecasts product in the not too distant future. We’ll be sure to let you know when that day arrives.
Business as usual. Thanks for killing the community we ALL invested in.
i am so saddened that the casts are closing down… i hope that skype fixs the problem and gets it back running..i very much enjoyed useing the casts and over the years have meet some nice people on there….it’s sad that there are poeple out there that want these casts closed down……
Thanks for the great memories skype
NOW GET OFF YOUR ARSE AND FIX THE CAST NOT CLOSE THEM
We have made some great friends on skype and some not so nice ones too. Skype needs to fix the problems they have not close things down. Im sure if they asked the users in skypecast what needs to be done they would be able to tell you.
Im a xkypeoholix and it is because of the people in skypecasts. Where can you go and talk to people all over the world in one cast. We have all learnt at sometime or other from people in other countries about themselves and their countries.
So what have we got out of skype.
We have great friends a website https://www.xkypeoholix.com/cms/ for putting up with their crappy sound in casts and casts that drop people out all the time.
And when skype decides to bring back casts it is going to take a while before everyone comes back and trusts skype enough to stick around.
SKYPE DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO DO.
IT IS NOT JUST YOUR ADVERTISING THAT GETS THE WORD OF SKYPE OUT THERE IT IS ALSO THE PEOPLE THAT USE SKYPECASTS
THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES AND THE FUN TIMES TO ALL THOSE I HAVE MEET AND TALKED TO IN MY CASTS AND OTHER CASTS.
BUNDY
I was with skype from the beginning, will full phone priviliges, including skype in and skype out, voicemail etc…via my primary username. I also pay a few dollars a month, so that people from my home state could call me locally.
As a retired computer science professor, I used skype to pass on knowledge, answer people’s questions, and participate in the debates both intellectual and fun.
If skypecasts are over, than I wish to close my account with you immediately, and I further demand that my credits be refunded. I am a paying customer who beleives that the real reason that you’re doing this is that you don’t have a clue as to management of such a large community, and to those who contributed to the debauchery–thanks! The shouting matches, death threats, terrorist and criminal conversations really helped out in thier deciding to pull the plug.
Also, let’s remember that in the knee deep filth, was one thing worth fighting for…the other user you met who turned out to be a friend, a resource of information, or just a person who would listen.
SKYPE alone is responsible for refusing to fix the client software, so that people could choose what they did and did not want to see, and participate in.
SKYPE alone is responsible for not responding to the endless calls for fair and balanced montiroing, so as to catch the predators, criminals, jihadis, and other vermin crawling the net, looking for a victim.
SKYPE USERS are responsible for failing to collectively maintain control over their casts, partially by technical glitches, but more over an inability to understand that this has happened numerous times before…where a client VOIP conference protocol is created, published, abused, and shut down. It’s called, “Going the way of NetMeeting” which had cams too!!! So that little female mind who said, “Well, that can’t happen to skype…” GUESS WHAT!
SKYPE USERS are responsible for making all efforts to go through thier lists, and exchange some form of contact information so that programs which will allow for conferencing to resume can spread the word, and boycott skype.
ANYONE WHO IS PAYING FOR SKYPE—
If they kill skypecasting–delete the client, kill your account, and demand a refund of your existing credits…
I warned people repeatedly about the skype community needing to police itself, or someone else would–by pulling the plug altogether.
In closing, I wish to thank those I’ve met, especially those who gave me a good intellectual challenge, question, sparring, etc…I hope that in some medium we shall meet again and continue the debate. To those who want the free for all and chaos to reign–you’ve won again, but we all lost!
With a hurricane coming (Three named storms so far this week) to town, now I and others in the affected areas won’t have someone to pass information along to after the storm–thanks skype!
boycotskypemovetopaltalk.com
I just found: http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com it’s an alternative to Skypecasts and seems pretty good.
Regards,
Ryan
http://www.operation513.com
The Regard!
The Russian segment of the users skypecast yesterday’s day was very distressed this information.
Much sting lose such facility of the contact – a thousand and a thousand of the users are separated from each other.
The most galling – a misty explanations about future this type of the services skype
How can you get rid of skypecasts? Skype casts ARE skype, nothing else. more than 95% of skype users use skypecasts on a daily basis, for singing, talking, chatting, finding love and things like that. Why take something away from people if you havent got a solition to make everyone happy. Don’t do something you’ll regreat.
I really shocked and unhappy to hear that casts are ending.your decison was look so ludicrous ..We strong ask you to reconsider to make everyboy happy and resurrect improve skypecasts service …I have been meeting hundreads more people who are decent and who like to discuss and debate with reason,
.We acknowledged that You have provided a brillant free speech program whcin can access anywhere who can use ..
This has worked so well because it is a free service, I hope it continues to be so in it’s new version. i also sometime paid some of credit for internationl calling ..
I thank you for the services you have supplied over these past years…
a lot of peoples use this skpecast to learn /teach /instruct for a lot of reasons at differnt country free of charge ..it is really useful to communicate with them .. Please one more think twice to keep going this skypecast to access everyone as they did it before !
Ok folks,after confirming a few things with Skype personnel I do owe Mr Peter Parkes an apology..He is after all only the bearer of bad news. Skypecasts do indeed close Sept 1. So if my post gave you any hope this was all a hoax Im sorry.
I have been able to squeeze a small bit of info out regarding a possible reintroduction of Skypecasts in the future. They do have a team working on this I am told and it will be much better. But as we all know much better can mean censorship out the ying yang and basically no freedom of expression. And judging by Skypes past history with improvements I think we can all stick a fork in this one.
Skype management I now realize you chose this forum to announce this just to let people comment but you could have done it so much better either through Heartbeat or actually announcing in your front page somewhere or emails. I will also say you shot yourself in the foot here by dropping the ball. You have now deprived the WORLD of its opportunity to communicate an meet an discuss topics freely..But hey at least you let us know it was possible.
In any case its been a fun ride… And to all the people that contributed an enjoyed a good laff an a smoke in my place I thank you and hope to see you on another chat somewhere down the beat an path. If anyones wondering there is a final Skypecast saturday nite…Peace//
- Doobius -
proud owner of skypes first official an longest running skypecast
“Because I got High” cast
Many of us will leave Skype completly only of this closing. We will chance to another program that can give us the feature we love.
Thanks for skypecast !
I have been hosting regularly and I met so many nice people from all over the world .
Although I felt so sad to hear the bad news, I enjoyed this program for 2 years .
I hope to see better one in the near future . Thank you so much .
july
Thanks a lot skype you can go shove your service where the sun don’t shine then! I have become disabled and find that this has been away for me to meet and talk to people to take away the isolation and lonliness, no you have taken that away thanks a bunch I will stop using you service all together and never return!
Most casts are rubbish, many are good. I feel uneasy about some of the foreign casts. Know what I mean? A fee of $5.00 per month is not out of the question? Keep it going
Hello! I regret this terrible news, closing Skypecasts not think it’s a good idea, his popularity had much to do in the amount of users who now use Skype to call tlf fixed or mobile.
As you say there are countless programs to call a reduced price even more economic but the hook of Skypecasts favoured the use of this unique program as I do.
In short it is a pity but I believe that little can be done, if anything give my testimony
I have the joy of having made good use of this medium and has a number of users on my list of contacts with whom I will continue to maintain contact and continue learning and sharing things very pleasant moments.
Not only were a means of entertainment have also been a way for me learning about different cultures, computer and a long list.
With a lot of punishment and lastly I want to say goodbye to thank everyone who made it possible to secure a very big team that has nothing to do with the closure of Skypecasts thank you very much for everything to get
I realy feel very sad, by this news ..i have met so meany nice people on here, it`s been a lot of fun for me , But you guy`s realy do need to fix a lot of stuff on here realy…THANK`s WOOFIE
SKYPE: BIG MISTAKE! You are showing that your regard for the maintenance of the skype community, as you call it, is not a real commitment. The Skypecast community is a web that adds additional strength to the Skype company.
Apparently, the company doesn’t realize that Skypecasts users are a substantial portion of the total customer usage base, Is it wise to piss of so many customers, at one time?
All the work you have done, to build your business, will be affected by the reduced visibility, received, via skypecasts, by skype members.
All I can say is good luck… I predict you will see a noticeaible drop in revenue growth, and product visibility, due to this decision.
I am not sure what I am going to do as a result of this decision.
Boycott of Skype may be a possibility..
Movement to another service similar to the Skypecast service is definite.
To conclude: The decision made has poisoned my view of the Skype Company…. I now realize, company management really doesn’t understand the business model and how the communications links hold Skype together.
I might be time to rethink your move…. It’s up to you… Good luck.
I want to thanks for you’re services. Skypecast is a very nice “on line” place. It’s very sorry that you had decided to retire skypecast from your services. This used to be a “on line” places to learn many things like culture, lenguages, the diferents ways that english and spanish can be spoken; I had found very amazing people that has tha same job like me (I’m a tecaher who makes research) and can talk about this at your skypecast.I have a speciall remember when I wasn’t sure to be divorced and I opened a skypecast when all the people help me to make a decitión. Besides, I found love in a skypecast !!! We can’t deny that there is crazy people who uses this service for other things but, you may find the way to stop them and make skypecast the great service that you pretend, that is your challenge.
I really thing that your trully reazon for stop offering skypecast is that you don’t have the enough resources to suport them …. so … the history change … be my guest.
I am willing to PAY! Money to have skype casts! I have a pro account and I use skype for calls I have been thinking about getting more services. But skype casts are what got me started and they are fun I am sure this is about money so I will pay, Just give us that option.
There are lot of alternatives available. check out a huge list here: http://voipguides.blogspot.com/2008/07/free-conference-call-service-providers.html
and also video conference calls provider list: http://voipguides.blogspot.com/2008/06/video-conference-calls-services.html
The reason for closing the skypecasts is imho that the casts became a meeting place for all sorts of fringe groups like anarchists, conspiracies theorists and so on. Governments don’t like it. They put pressure on Skype forcing the Skype to close its casts.
But since there is the demand there will be the supply.
as a skypecasts user i must say that most if not all of my skype activity was using the casts.
without the casts skype will be just an icon on my desktop.
shame.
I am grateful to you for your having offered Skypecasts – group communication on a specific topic of interest. Thank you. !!!
And I feel very disappointing that this service is finished.
I can understand your decision, but this notice is too sudden and causes the confusion of the skypecast user.
You should think about the size of the range where the end of this service affects.
I and all Skypecasts users pray heartily,
You look for ways to reintroduce this functionality in a way that lives up to both our and our community’s high standards.. And release a new and improved Skypecasts product in the not too distant future.
I say “Let’s join Skypecast!”
When I created BlogTalkRadio (www.blogtalkradio.com) the skypecast offering was the only platform I could find that allowed people/groups to communicate with each other using voice. While, I thought the offering filled a void in the marketplace, I found serious flaws in the execution.
First, the need to download skype eliminates not only millions of hosts but many more guests or listeners. Second, we live in an on demand world. People want to consume content when they want to and not have to soley rely on a scheduled timed format. Skypecasts were not archived as a podcast. Lastly, if you are going to create a network of on going conversations, the network needs to be managed. When I spent hours on the platform in the summer of 2006, very often, the hosts for scheduled shows rarely showed up.
At BlogTalkRadio, we created a platform that addresses these issues and more. SInce we created BTR in September 2006, we have produced more than 125,000 segments, hosted by tens of thousands of different individuals, companies, organizations, etc.
We have incorporated a flash based VOIP interface which allows people anywhere in the world to interact with the host without dialing a US phone number or downloading a voip client.
Our service is free and we welcome anyone looking for a place to listen to or hosts an engaging conversation to give us a look.
Alan Levy
Founder and CEO
http://www.blogtalkradio.com
I think that is weak of Skype! There were nor problems at all allthe tme I used Skypecasts. There are Idiots but more normal and nice people than those stupid ones. So you punish everybody just because a minority . I think that is very weak!!
Kevin I only heard you last night having a bit of a cry over skypes demise ? A little hypocritical ain’t it.
I have read the many responses to shutting down the skypecast service… and it is evident that Skypecasts have a passionate community that feels strongly about the technology.
I am considerably surprised at the lack of imagination and myopic vision that Skype has as a technological company that supposedly prides itself on “high standards and expectations for connecting and delighting (our) users”. The buzz words of recent history have centred around that of “social networks” and it is incredible that Skype is seeming throwing away (if the “retirement” is permanent) a foundation for building superb voice-based social networks that can easily be commercialised without huge investment.
I’m sure that even as the service stands now, that because of the social community that has built up around this technology, users would already be willing to pay a small fee even with its flaws and imperfections… I am in agreement with appliantologist that with few tweaks and improvements people would actually expect to pay a reasonable fee for such a service.
Skype seems to have underestimated the value that people place upon communal voice-based social interaction because the era of social networking is still in its infancy. Skype seems to have missed the “emotional hook” gets into people that use Skypecasts. Many of the Skypecast “characters” though they may be loved and hated in Skypecasts, keep people coming back, and people just love to talk, gossip and argue amongst themselves. This is what keeps people using the service and using it for more than pure telephony. It is this that differentiates Skype from other voip “telephony” services in the market. It is the skypecast community that turns Skypecasts into content product and entertainment, and what’s more it’s freely provided by the public to Skype.
It is this is, after all, that is at heart of social networks and is keenly being commercialised i.e. communities and what people provide and give to each other freely. The particular mix that skypecasts have struck is a good one and very appealing; “global live and interactive talk radio that provides an open platform for those who love to talk, connect, be entertained, and share information”… well, that’s how I see it.
If Skype management cannot envisage a future beyond straight-forward (video) telephony, instant messaging and file sending they are not reading the signs of the times, they are downright foolish.. and yes, like it has been suggested, not only will other companies gain a competitive edge over Skype through it’s blunders, they will be “retiring” a very lucrative avenue for development and commercial opportunity built on the foundations of a potentially very loyal and enthusiastic online community; a winning recipe in a digital world.
I would hope that Skypecasts are revived and that they bounce back refreshed and ready for a public that not only adores its quirky nature but is willing to pay to keep it.
Mireille (Quantum000)
SO long and thanks for all the fish!
OMG. I NEED SKYPECASTS!!!!!!!
i cant believe this, i loved joining skypecasts whenever i felt bored, it was a great way for me to learn from others and to meet new people. I am really disappointed that there will be no more skypecasts. I also remember meeting a really good friend from a skypecast, i also have friends learning japanese from a skypecast.I will think they will disappointed too.
To be honest, whenever i sign on to skype, i am always looking forward to joining a skypecast, one of the main reasons why i love skype!
But i guess the decision cannot be changed, i hope the Skypeteam does bring back Skypecasts soon!
=O >>> =/ >>> /=Z
REST IN PEACE
but please wake up again.
Love Daisy
Hi Peter,
I am a Canadian working in China.Thanks to Skypecast,I met a lot of wonderful Chinese people who enjoyed using Skype so much duo to the special feature of the cast.Trust me,Skypecast is the soul of Skype! Taking it off,you guys are making the biggest mistake which will result in a huge loss of you market in China where QQ (a chinese IM which has all the features that Skype has except the cast )would be more than happy to see such a stupit decision were made by you guys!
If the only true reason to close the skypecast is the cost,why don’t you make a survey on how much people in the world would like to pay for hosting a cast? If the price is accepted by most of the hosts,and the cost of your server and maintenance can be covered,why not keep it so that Skype as whole can still remain competitive? Don’t kill YOUR SOUL if you want survive in this world! Think it over Please!!!
It is really stupid decision to give up skypecast !
Actually you guys have no idea to make more people know Skype, the people around me just never know skypecast, but when they used skype cast one time , they love it so much , just like me.
Mirelle,
I could not agree with you more. It has for me been an incredible social tool. Indeed, while we do argue and carry on and such, it is these factors that keep us coming back time and again. We have become to each other an extended family of sorts. Albeit rather dysfunctional at times, a family none the less.
I have enjoyed the skypecasts along with all of you, but I must say that for some of you to gripe over something that was provided completely free to you is pretty lame. It costs money to provide the amount resources to run skypecasts and there two reasons why they could not provide this service indefinitely. The first reason is that it is just not good business. Every company will provide incentives for people to get to know their service in hopes that many will sign on to their premium service. I happen to use and pay for quite a bit of their other services. The reality is that many of the paid services were suffering because of the amount of resources that are being consumed by the non paying services. In plain English, most of the complaints are coming from those of you who have never paid a dime for any skype services at all and are the same people who post all kinds of Skype Sucks messages whenever you could not get the free services. These guys aren’t going to say it but I will and I hope they post it.
As a paid user, what really has sucked is having the quality of my calls go down because too much was being drained by the non paying community. Maybe if more people had paid for premium services, Skype could afford to expand and provide enough power for all. But in the end I believe they had a choice between raising the cost of premium services to cover what the casts were eating up, or discontinuing the casts to provide the best quality service for its paying customers. God forbid they would have started charging for the cast membership… you freeloaders would have called for a boycott of something you never spent a dime on to begin with.
Skype is a business. Not a welfare program or communist state. God knows if it was the many of you could not even say half the things you say on here in any public venue in your own countries. It takes money to run Skype. Why don’t you open up your food pantry for 8 million people a day and see how many you can feed on the off chance that a small percentage are willing to give a donation for the next meal. See how long you can feed people. Skype has done an outstanding job but I think it is stretched to the limit trying to accommodate everybody. What they are doing is smart for the long term health of its brand.
For all those who enjoy singing. The same people trashed SingSnap for having the gall to ask people to start paying for their services after giving it away for free while they were building up the site. And yes SingSnap has gone through its problems just like Skype but the quality of its offerings are improving because it has the money and resources now from more paid users. I suppose the lady giving out the free taste samples at the market is betraying you unless she also gives you a free box of the product indefinitely?
No doubt that closing the casts will vastly improve the quality of their voice call services and attract a whole new base of customers who have been reluctant to come on board because of what we affectionately call “the Skype Monster”… Guess what folks… look in the mirror… that monster was all of us.
Nothing is free forever. Even Yahoo eventually limited custom rooms but mostly due to abuse. How about thanking Skype for putting up with us as long as they could afford it and just get over yourselves. They even expanded conference calls to accommodate you even though it is not the same. If you want to see how much it costs to provide this service then I suggest a few of you decide to hire a programming engineer and come up with your own community for free and see how long you can afford it. I sure am going to miss the casts and the fun I had with many of you. But I am going to enjoy more having a better quality service for my paid calls.
To the folks at Skype. Thanks for the memories. You have provided a great community service. Even though it was also provided to get paying customers, you still did a great job all things considered. Now if my other services continue to suck after ending the casts… you are going to have one hell of an angry paying customer on your hands. I am betting, you know what you are doing and Skype is going to have a formidable VOIP market presence in short order. Here’s to the future.
It’s a bad bad news :’(
I love Skype, I have met, laughed and sang with some wonderful people. I think you are making a huge mistake. I could manage without Skype, but some of the wonderful people I have met are housebound or lonely for one reason or another, and Skype has helped them cope and deal with this. I love chatting and running casts and I will miss all the friends I have made in the casts.
I hope you change your mind and correct the problem rather than get rid.
GET IT SORTED
Goddamgood1 (Melanie)
I would want to say that skypecasts were a cool feature in skype and I was just starting to use them, but it seems I would need to wait for the new version of skypecasts.
What if skype charged for example 1 Euro cent from every minute you talk in skypecasts and put a more strickt monitoring system there. Then I think skypecasting community will improve certainly, but skype needs to do it now. There is now time to wait for tomorrow, because then there might be loads and lots of services running the same thing. Of course for free in the beginning, but in the end it all comes down to maintenance, therefore I think that Skype will actuelly lose a lot of clientell at the first moment, because such is the effect of mass psychosis. While looking ahead I think that skype can survive, if it puts more effert to provide a quality service. Otherwise it just won’t be possible.
I don’t really understand the outrage from you lot when none of us pay for the service. I buy Skype credit and such but cast have always been free. Skypecast have surely been good for advertising purposes but its not as though they are stealing you lots money or anything. There is no reason to type an entire paragraph in all caps Dina, really. I think paying for the service of Skypecast would improve the quality of Skype user but how many of you would actually be willing to pay even a nominal fee? Maybe Skype could just charge host for service but I doubt many cast would be run if that was the case. Even with word-of-mouth advertising I doubt cast are really worth the servers they require to run. Everyone is just bitching about something they aren’t really willing to pay for.
I downloaded skype to use as a VOIP and the added service of Skype Mobile has been top notch and all the services I pay for have worked flawlessly. Meeting the people I have had the opportunity to meet through Skypecast has been an added bonus but as a pay service I doubt it would be the same.
You will be remembered.
Who cares if it goes i know there is something around the way and its going to be a lot bigger and a lot better than any skypecast if you want to know more feel free to drop me a messege on skpye djblade2006
if it goes its about time it did because of everyone that abuses it and provokes others no to mechanic the quality of the calls half the time or people hacking into them and making people go off line or crashing the cast too much can go wrong with theses casts what happened to the old skypecast days everyone was happy and there wasn’t that many problems.
Look at it now too many problems and too many abusive people on it.
Anyway if it don’t go then its just another hoax in the box to add to will soon find out by the end of Monday.
Bonjour from France !
What I can understand from your Communiqué is :
1. We cannot guarantee quality on it
2. So we prefer to stop developping and supporting that product
3. and we look forward to deliver a good one as soon as possible.
This may be more clear that way.
Take care people don’t find a better alternative trying to get a solution to satisfy their needs…
I hope you all understand at Skype (and stakeholders) that you have been very successfull so far since you have delivered a good product with good funtionnalities and QoS that fitted our needs with no constraints no advertising and other stupid things.
Things I appreciate with skype :
* VoIP ability (but not very competitive and easy to use) with Internet -to-old fashion Phones gateway
* Outlook automatic synchronization into Skype (although I’d prefer to have the choice to confirme or not).
* Third party applications (although this may be usefil to get some of those fully integrated and free of charge)
Regards,
Marc
What a shame. The foul-mouthed morons that spoiled some casts have finally spoiled the whole thing. Well done morons!
Oh，It is a rumor,skypecast is still well running.
Hoax?
Social experiment?
Mistake?
Change of heart?
or just running late?
The event was announced on the forum,
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=193321
A critical bug was written off on the basis that Skypecasts were closing,
https://developer.skype.com/jira/browse/SCW-839
There’s more to this than a simple hoax.
Ok..what can we do.. that´s the price we pay for not be paying a price! If Skypecast were charged i´ll bet ya we wouldn´t be here!
Still i hate what they are doing.. but i also understend cause whe complained a looooooot when the thing wasn´t working.. (sorry bad English)
cheers!
Fred
This makes me really sad. I LOVED the Skypecasts. It’s what got me hooked on Skype in the first place. So many lovely casts I have been in and so many wonderful people I’ve met through them.
I can chat and use video and audio in my chats with other IM’s. What reason do I have for sticking with Skype now? The whole community-part is gone. I don’t want to log in and then have nothing to do but to stare on my screen until one of my friends *may* pop in.
This is just horrible.
“We hope we’ll be able to release a new and improved Skypecasts product in the not too distant future.”
You “hope”? In the “not too distant future”?
Well, let me know when you do and I’ll get back online. Until then, have a good time everyone. I’ll be asking my friends (the ones I managed to make before you took the option of making friends away) to join me at another *not at all different now* IM.
why was my msgs removed did i say something i shouldnt ??? all i said was that BLEEP was an BLEEPside BLEEP whats wrong with that ?? anyway like i said before i enjoyed casting with you all and i hope to return soon to meet you all again . IF SKYPE COULD PREVENT THE HACKS WE WOULD ALL HAVE A MARVELLOUS TIME. also if you need admin to moderate these casts id be glad to do so. GOODBYE WORLD
I don’t believe this is to do with anything more than Skypecasts not fitting Ebay/Skypes business model. Skypecasts eat a lot of resources, not so much that I would have thought it threatened Skype’s premium services. As nicely as Skype’s message is about closing casts it is surely untrue. Ebay are not an altruistic company, they want to make money. Of course there are those that will misuse the service. Which makes me lol because how many counterfitters are caught on Ebay everyday and prosecuted in their respective countries for mis-selling goods. And what does Ebay do about that ? Exactly …. the only way Skypecasts will come back with Ebay is with embedded advertising or an annual membership fee. Go oovoo, and go anyone else who takes on the mantel of providing such brilliance as Skypecasts did with the motto of uniting the world through communication rather than trying to earn a fast back.
RIP Skypecasts, you will reincarnate sometime soon, hopefully not with Ebay, those brilliant technologists were fools to cash in and sell such great technology to such a company.
Alex Wales
Gun, foot, bullet, shoot. Sorry Ebay/Skype, you are losing customers as quick as British Telecom did when the market was opened up. You’ll find it hard to recoup them. All the signs are there. Come up with something spectacular soon or lose them for ever. And never post a message saying you want to “delight” your customers because that is imeasurable, stick with just giving them a good customer experience. Remember, oovoo is laughing now. You probably think they don’t have the capacity to accomodate so many new members but hey, foot, gun, bullet, go figure.
The Skypecasts were really the only thing that set Skype apart from so many other services.
Oh well, I guess since it’s time to start exploring. To paraphrase Gloria Gaynor “I will survive.”
Skype on the other hand…
You have lost a lot of customers by this act Skype, you should have listened to the positive reactions and not just the negative ones. Skypecast brought the world together and just like any other big corporation, you have torn it apart.
Stop listening to your bank account and start listening to conscience and maybe, just maybe, you may win a few people back.
Please fix Skypecast and re-release, sooner rather than later. You will not regret it.