From PC World: Microsoft announced a major redesign of its Skype app on Thursday, helping users foster an improved social network of sorts among their best friends, while an army of helpful bots stands ready to offer recommendations and cat GIFs.
Skype hasn’t eliminated the ability to chat with your friends, and it’s actually enhanced it with a live camera feed and the ability to quickly share news and other information around your network. But among the first screens you’ll see is a new “Find” interface that taps into bots and other services to help you discover new information. And unlike releases past, the new Skype will first be pushed to mobile: specifically Android, with iOS arriving in a month’s time, then Windows to follow later.
The core of the new Skype's “intelligent communications experience” is a way to share your experiences with your closest friends, explained Amritansh Raghav, the corporate vice president of Skype. But the idea of a social network has expanded, he added. It includes your personal friends, but might also include a series of apps and businesses that you exchange data with regularly.
“We’ve allowed you to stay connected in expressive and fun ways, without the confinements of these other experiences,” Raghav said. “You can chat, create, and share in more expressive ways, and bring in tools and services. In order to do more, we’ve added in those experiences from the real world. And finally, we haven’t forgotten what Skype is: a great audio-visual experience, and it’s available on all the platforms that you need it to be.”
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