Advertising in Skype
Today we announce something new – the launch of advertising in Skype, which will appear in the Home tab in Skype starting this week.
The Skype experience is our first priority, which is why we we’ve taken a lot of time working through and testing what kind of advertising would work best in the Skype environment. In fact, some of you may have seen some test ads from our friends at Rdio in the last month or two. As we roll out ads on a wider basis, we expect to continue to test and learn a lot more, and make any necessary adjustments along the way.
We believe that advertising, when done in the right way, will help us continue to invest in developing great products.
Here’s the detail of what we’re doing:
- We’re working with some great advertisers, including Groupon, Universal Pictures, and Visa.
- Ads will appear in the US, UK and Germany and advertising sales for Skype are initially focused in those markets.
- You may only see ads occasionally. Our initial plan is to show an ad from one brand per day in each of the markets where advertising is being sold.
- The ads will appear in the Home tab in Skype for Windows, and we may experiment with ads in other areas as well.
- The ads won’t interrupt your Skype experience. You won’t suddenly see annoying pop-up ads or flashy banner ads in middle of conversations.
- We may use non-personally identifiable demographic data (e.g. location, gender and age) to target ads, which helps ensure that you see relevant ads. For example, if you’re in the US, we don’t want to show you ads for a product that is only available in the UK.
- You can opt out of allowing Skype to share this non-personally identifiable demographic data with advertisers from the Privacy tab in Tools ▸ Options.
Here’s an example of what the ads will look like:
Ad in the Home tab in Skype for Windows.
The Skype experience is paramount and we are committed to learning as we go, continuing to evolve the offer for advertisers and to developing great products that enable you to connect whenever you’re apart.
if customers with a subscription are affected by any kind of ads, we will cancel our company subscriptions and find another service. As long as I pay for Skype I expect not to get any ads. Period.
As much as I love your service, both personally and for my company, ads are not acceptable.
I am a paid customer, including skypin as my regular phone. And it’s already interfered with my “experience”. The Skype application, which is minimized on the task bar, pops up on it’s own to serve me an ad I don’t want. You may gain advertisers, but lose customers. I will reconsider options to Skype at my next renewal period.
Time to seriously consider Google Voice!
Am I right to say that if I log into Skype while being in one of those countries, then I’ll see ads regardless of my profile settings, but if I go somewhere else — I’m fine? But what if I don’t want to see your ads regardless of the country I’m currently in?
I spend about €10 a month on Skype, and this is how you treat a paying customer. You seriously need to learn a thing or two about customer service. If I pay for a service, I expect no ads. There’s plenty of competitors biting at your heels, don’t give me an excuse to switch to them.
(p.s. you’re new mac client also sucks – fix that too)
@ Doug
Hi there!
I am interested in doing advertising with skype, but the link to the skype-advertising page is broken. Who may i get in touch with?
Kindest regards,
Julia.
You can put all the ads in the background that you want, but you need to STOP THE POPUP ADS. These ads are extremely intrusive and need to go away. I for one will not be buying any more skype credit until these ads go away.
meh, so far from what I’ve seen its not that bad. I mean of course I’d rather there not be ads at all but heck if this practice allows multi video group chats to be free like it was when it was in beta I wouldn’t mind.
@adammckenna29 – You’re right, the popup ads are extremely intrusive and I will be withholding any more payments until they stop.
NOT ONLY you totally destroyed a good interface design, you are giving me totally invasive ads too and I am a paying customer! Also, what is the point of the big big ad if the window is almost always closed now? I used to keep in on all the time before v5, now it is just impossible.
And you blocked Fring, that was my only option for mobile, since your nokia client drain my battery in less than a day vs three day of normal use, and it doesn’t support video.
Keep on and I’ll move to something else in no time!!
That explains (well, sort of) why Skype seems to have not cared one bit about dropped calls, stalled text messages, poor connections and the myriad other problems that have been reported in the forums. You’ve spent all your time trying to make money the easy way instead of the right way – by assuring quality service, thereby attracting paying customers. My primary chat buddy and I both planned to purchase call plans so we had more talk options. However, we both were holding off until the technical problems (that seem to be getting worse) are dealt with. So, you’d rather get pennies per click revenue for a crap app, instead of subscription revenues for a quality app.
Oh, and I’m one of the people who has not paid (yet), so I won’t object to ads. However, I agree with those who do pay. It’s like Microsoft showing ads in Word or Excel after you’ve already paid for the product.
Look, if Skype worked like it should (and there’s absolutely no reason why, given the extraordinary advances in communications technology), then I’d even consider buying an app like this. But it has to work reliably. There is no reason why this should not have been a top priority for this company, rather than planning for the tired old stand-by of ad revenue. For crying out loud, no one pays attention to ads; They’re so prolific that we’re numb to them. I pay no attention to them.
I do pay for Skype – and unlike some other posters I have no problem paying for a quality product. I do sympathize with the need to make some money so that you can “continue to invest in developing great products”.
However, you have destroyed your product. There is no way I would pay for something as misconceived as Skype 5. It is shockingly designed and poorly implemented.
I have dropped back to 2.8 (thank you for keeping that around) which I will use until you offer me a decent alternative.
It is annoying. Improvement that makes it worse and more aggravating to use. Why should I buy more credit or even subscribe? Have been a paying customer for a while.