If you’re only going to do one thing then you better do it really well

Unfortunately, this is a lesson that Skype seems to be struggling with. Given that its primary function is messaging (instant, voice or video) I can’t understand how they do a worse job of it than some of their competitors who only do those things as extra features.

I’ve been a long-time user of Skype and there are situations where it is quite useful. Unfortunately, as an instant messaging platform it has gone downhill massively for me recently.

There have always been times when messages didn’t arrive for a while (sometimes days) and then all arrived at once. I don’t use the notifications on my phone because it’s not clever enough to understand when I’m already using my laptop and have seen a message, or am actively in a conversation and so pings every single time someone messages regardless.

There have always been some drawbacks, but for a good while it was one of the best messaging apps out there, so I persevered.

More recently, I’ve had a problem with the mobile version continually setting my status as “Available” even if I wanted my status set as “Invisible” – that’s a new bug which irritates the hell out of me, but more importantly, it is someone else’s product which has really made realise how bad a job Skype sometimes does.

I learned of the competing system because my family use Facebook chat and so eventually I relented and installed the Facebook chat app on my mobile – I was very pleasantly surprised. Messages are pretty much instant and while we were away recently I tried to do a voice call to a UK landline using Skype - it was so poor quality it was unusable. I immediately switched to Facebook chat and that worked perfectly and was lovely and clear.

Facebook chat also won’t ping my mobile if I’m using a browser to talk – I can also mute notifications for a specific conversation for period of time too – all really sensible and useful features.

Why is it then that Facebook – who only do a chat app as a secondary feature – can do a far better job of it than Skype? It’s a shame that Facebook chat isn’t really suited to a business environment – I just hope Skype pulls their finger out soon and catches up with the best in the market.