video messaging
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Skype Qik was Microsoft's standalone video-messaging app, launched in 2014 as a mobile-first spin-off of Skype. Instead of real-time chat or calls, Qik was built only for asynchronous video messaging: users pressed a button, recorded a short video, and sent it to friends, with message histories shown as rounded profile icons and older messages disappearing after eight exchanges — a nod to the ephemerality trend popularized by Snapchat. Users connected via phone number rather than a Skype username.
02 / video messaging FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Qik never found an audience: it was downloaded fewer than 5 million times on Android, roughly 100 times fewer installs than Snapchat. Microsoft's own updates made it redundant — group video chat and video messaging were added to the main Skype app, along with filters. The company concluded that users were already doing in Skype what Qik was built for, and folded Qik's most-used features into Skype instead.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launched
Microsoft launched Skype Qik in 2014 as a mobile-first video-messaging app for sharing short video messages with groups of friends.
- Shut down
Microsoft announced on February 22, 2016 that it would retire the Skype Qik app, citing redundancy with Skype's own video-messaging features; the service shut down for good on March 24, 2016. Users were told to save any messages they wanted to keep.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In 2014 Microsoft launched Skype Qik as a standalone mobile video-messaging app.
- 02
Skype updates added group video chat, video messaging and filters to the main app, making Qik redundant.
- 03
On February 22, 2016 Microsoft announced Qik would be retired on March 24, advising users to save messages they wanted to keep.
- 04
On March 24, 2016 Skype Qik was shut down for good; its most-used features were migrated into Skype.