Telepocalypse

Skype's slip-up?

I’m beginning to wonder if Skype made a mistake in the design of their client. They’ve built it around the legacy of telepony and IM. What they’ve missed is a middle space in between.

Skype’s problem is that it is highly interruptive. Both IM and calls take away my attention without me having much say over it. This is expensive in terms of productivity. The whole point of the stupid network was to send signals that a smart network designer didn’t think of to solve problems they weren’t aware of. In this case, “I want to talk to you” hasn’t been separated out as a different signal.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The ability to see if someone’s online, IM them first and ask if they’re good to talk is a massive advance. But what I’d rather see is a little stack of names of people in the bottom right of my screen who want to talk to me. If they go offline, their entry fades out. Maybe the colour signifies the urgency of the request; a slowly draining sand timer icon indicates if this is a time-bound request.

In the ultimate “voice on the Net” experience, you would never be called at the wrong time, and would always be able to get through to people as quickly as is mutually convenient. Skype is a step in the right direction, by taking clicks and voicemail ping-pong out of the equiation. But it’s not the whole journey.