Skype Shuts Down Extras
Skype announced today that they are closing the Skype Extras program:
Despite the incredible breadth of Extras developed for Skype, simply not enough people were using them to justify our continued support of the Extras programme. Unfortunately, effective today, we will shut down the Skype Extras programme.
Cucku Backup has been a certified Skype Extra since version 1.21. This announcement means that 2.10 will be the last Skype certified version of Cucku.
Skype has said that they will continue to support their API and so existing Cucku users should not be concerned that their backups will be affected by this decision. Skype is discontinuing their distribution of Extras, not support for the underlying technology that allows Cucku to send files to a backup partner over Skype.
Cucku is one of many Extras available in Skype including games, screen sharing, translation, IM interoperability, call recording, fax and call center services. This community of Extras developers provide valuable complements to Skype, an ecosystem that is key to the long term success of a platform: the iPhone App Store, Facebook Applications, the Twitter API, etc.
Skype Extras have suffered from a lack of visibility in the Skype Client. Potential users need to dig through menus to discover the availability of Extras and then launch a second application (the Extras Manager) which provides very limited information to users trying to decide if they should install an Extra or not.
The poor update rate for Extras should have been seen as an opportunity to streamline the process for discovery and installation. Instead, the decision was taken to pull the plug. With Skype's recent transition back to a private company it's understandable that they need to focus the business. But this seems like the wrong focus. It's hard work to create a developer community but it doesn't take long to lose it. As a paying member of the program Cucku was notified by email the same morning that this news was made public. In their blog Skype say:
...we still believe there are opportunities for third-party developers to enhance the Skype experience. We'll keep you posted.
I wonder how many developers will put their faith in the platform a second time?
Updated: Michael Arrington at TechCrunch says "Wrong Way, Skype". Om Malik at GigaOm says "Skype's new owners should be aware of one small thing: They are paying $2 billion for a company that, despite having more than 400 million subscribers, doesn't know how to leverage that platform."
posted by Rob on Friday, September 11, 2009
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Comments
So will Cucku continue to use Skype as its P2P network to transfer data or will Cucku start to look at alternatives? I was quite interested in this product but am a little concerned now as I read about Skype's announcement this morning. Certainly not relying on the Skype client would lighten up the resources on the machine and potentially simplify the process of joining backup buddies.
Charlie - the plan is both. Supporting an alternative communications stack is the #1 suggestion at feedback.cucku.com and we're already working on this. At the same time we have a lot of customers running over the Skype network and we have no plans to drop Skype as a transport. The announcement today is really about the time and effort that Skype is willing to put into promoting their ecosystem.
Skype Extras was just annoying to me as a Skype user and I had disabled it. I'm glad they shut it down as I got tired of the annoying strange game icons that popped up in Skype.
Now a collegue sent me an email about your application that I got very excited about. Hopefully you can work out something with Skype. This seems like a useful tool! compared to the rest of the things they bloated their software with.
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