Skype launches mobile video chat app Qik with clips that disappear after two weeks
Skype today launched Skype Qik (pronounced “quick"), a new video messaging app meant to be used alongside the main Skype app. The new mobile-only app is launching simultaneously on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.
Context & Ripple Effects
Skype has spent years assembling this launch: it bought the startup Qik back when Qik was still targeting feature phones in 2008, and by early 2013 it had folded asynchronous clips into the main app with Video Messages. Skype Qik is the next step of that arc — a separate, mobile-only app built around short clips that self-delete after two weeks, rather than another bolt-on to desktop calling.
The move lands amid a confirmed strategic pivot: Skype shifting its traditional voice- and video-call focus toward instant messaging as usage moves to phones. The breadth of same-day pickup — Skype Blogs, The Verge, TechCrunch, ZDNet, USA Today, Gigaom, GeekWire and more — signals how much attention any Skype consumer push commanded at the time.
First-order effects
- Skype now runs a two-app strategy on mobile: the main calling app alongside Qik for ephemeral clips, shipping simultaneously on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone so no platform's users get the feature late.
Second-order effects
- Rivals in ephemeral video messaging face a competitor with Skype's existing install base to cross-promote from, forcing them to differentiate on features like group clips rather than raw distribution.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, acquisitions like Qik stop being standalone products and become feature factories absorbed into platform suites — the same logic behind Yahoo's QuikIO hire for its video team in December 2013.
The trend: Legacy communication platforms are answering mobile-first ephemeral messaging not with tweaks to their core apps but with separate mobile products spun out of past acquisitions.