Skype has launched a new mobile video chat service to encourage users to “capture the moment” and share it with friends. The service is called “Qik” (pronounced ‘quick’) and videos created with Qik can be up to 42 seconds long. In comparison, Vine creates videos that are 6.5 seconds long, and Instagram videos can be up to 15 seconds long. Like Instagram photos, the Qik videos will be square as opposed to rectangular.
Skype is owned by Microsoft, but the new Qik mobile app will be in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store as well as the Windows app store. It is a mobile-only app, so Skype users will not be able to video chat at work from their desktop computers.
When Instagram added video last year, many mobile operators saw a measurable increase in network traffic. Skype, however, is less popular with the younger users who tend to spend the most time sharing videos. Also, Skype has reportedly said that the average file size of a Qik video will be roughly equivalent to two JPG files.
According to Skype, each video lasts exactly 2 weeks and then disappears. Within a chat, users will also have the ability to erase any video they’ve sent, whether it’s been watched or not.
The ephemeral nature of Qik videos is not just a way to save storage space; it is also a nod to the success of Snapchat, a messaging app that allows users to share self-destructing videos. Snapchat ran into trouble recently when hackers managed to save and share Snapchat files. For more on that see the video below.
