What are your feelings on Skype?

Mine always craps out on me. I don’t care for it.

@jmah It has never directly messed up on me, it just messes up my computer as a whole. And not just mine, friends and such have also had problems.

ps. I luuuurve your icon :)

Skype does video and video conference etc. Aim cannot connect to a landline or mobile – it relies on the other person being on-line. I have NEVER heard of it messing up a computer and I edit computer related articles. Sometimes people lacking in IT skills will mess their own computer up when installing it and trying to get a third party handset working with it. I use it in place of landlines – have for several years. Many businesses here use Skype as their primary tele system.

I don’t really like video chatting; I much prefer instant messaging. Regardless of the specific video chat program, I don’t like having to pay attention to it 100% of the time. With instant messaging, you can go back and forth to the conversation, doing whatever you want in the meantime. With video chatting, it’s so much more obvious when you’re not directing all of your attention to the conversation. I like the ability to carry on multiple conversations at the same time with IM, which isn’t possible with video chat. For me, the difference between video chatting and instant messaging is like the difference between making a phone call and texting. I suppose both have their time and place, but I just generally prefer IM.

Even though it went up and down a lot and we kept losing the video, it was a great way to stay in touch with my son during his recent travels. He called us from various European cities without outrageous phone charges, and a couple of times we were able to see each other. I would not use it routinely, but for that special purpose I thought it was great that we could do it at all.