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Skype surprises by taking words right out of the mouth.

As I was chatting on Skype (yes, it is my preferred instant messaging tool now) yesterday and thinking about writing an article on it, a lack of multi-user chat came into mind as one of the minuses. Not what you would normally expect from an instant messenger or VoIP software, but a very cool feature. If they have voice conferences, why not IM?

And - literally the next thing I see:

Skype launches Windows Version 1.1

Luxembourg, January 5, 2005 - Today Skype launches v1.1 for Windows and introduces the new Chat feature, allowing Skype users to hold multi-person or forum-style conversations with groups of people. Chat expands the existing one-to-one chatting and other instant message features in previous versions of Skype, and allows groups of up to 50 to communicate.

* download it now!

Just make a wish.
Now I won’t have to repeat news to everybody over and over again.
Just say it in a chat conference.

One less minus to name in the review.
What does it boil down to?

Pluses (+):

* High quality VoIP, free
* Convenient IM interface
* Encryption - both VoIP and IM
* Peer-to-Peer
* Cheap calls to phones worldwide

Minuses (-):

* Contacts can’t be exported
* All data kept on P2P client

The last one (all data on client) is both good for privacy and bad in having side effects:
- have to enter all contacts anew on every computer you use
- irregularities of delivery of IM messages
- irregularities of finding new contacts

When I mean irregularities of delivery of IM messages - the messages are kept on the sender’s PC until the recipient comes online. Both need to be online for the message to be delivered.

It’s cool how users on Skype forums have a “Skype Me” icon next to usual “Profile", “PM", … icons. You can actually press it and voice call to the author of the post.