If you pulled your hair out over Skype requiring a paid account for group chats, than you’ll simply love this news: the VoIP company announced that they will be bringing advertising to their service. Starting this week, ads will appear on the home-tab for windows users. No word yet as to other operating systems, though they are sure to follow in short order.
Thankfully, the Skype developers are well aware that this has the potential to blow up in their faces. They promise that the ads will be useful, unobstrusive, and apparently also infrequent. From their blog:
You may only see ads occasionally. Our initial plan is to show an ad from one brand per day in each of the markets where advertising is being sold.
And although the ads may involve an exchange of “non-personally identifiable demographic data,” they are providing tools to let you opt out of such exchanges.
After years of ad-free, unlimited use from Skype, it’s very hard not to scowl at the recent changes. But to stay relevant, Skype will need money. Hopefully they’ll continue to keep their focus on providing the service so many users have become reliant on, while working towards profitability.
