Aussie Geek Podcast

September the 1st marks spring here in Australia, new beginnings and warmer weather. By contrast one piece of the Internet that gets the lights turned out and put into cold storage is Skypecasts.

Skype have announced that come September 1st; high noon BST, Skypecasts will be shutdown. I am none surprised at the reasons and there was more in what was not said than what reasons were given:

“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.”

Skype Blogs

Truth is that Skypecasts have become chat rooms of questionable content, spam filled rubbish and content lacking sludge. This combined with the fact that they are provided free to Skype users this is a total loss for Skype and now they realise it. I can only hope that the “retirement” is permanent.

Initially Skypecasts had huge potential, I know I had some awesome conversations and meet some amazing people. This was in the early days of Skypecasts but it didn’t take long to get to the current state of affairs. Right after they became as reliable as a taxi in Deli.

For us here at the AGP Skype is a valuable tool that we use extensively, both for the show and to communicate with each other and our audience. Skype itself is getting to be one hefty application. When I first started using Skype it was 10MB; last count it was over 30, that was a while ago. Skypecasts is bloatware and I’ll be glad when it is removed from the application.

Wise decision by Skype and one that is welcome by this Skype user. Yet again more evidence for the fact that Skype should put it’s efforts into being a killer app for VoIP. That is all that I and many other Skype users want, nothing more and nothing less.

Now that leaves room for my record button.

Thank you Skype.