Skype chased Snapchat and caught the backlash
Skype's 2017 redesign added stories and emoji; Microsoft U-turned in 2018
One of only 22 things they have ever fully walked back.
The market's verdict: +3.4% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
In mid-2017 Microsoft rolled out a Skype redesign built around Highlights, a Snapchat-style stories feature, emoji reactions and a colorful interface, and the response was close to unanimous loathing: reviews called it the most thrown-together thing users had seen in a long time and complained the chat system itself had become a mess. Microsoft spent more than a year defending it, forced everyone onto Skype 8, and on September 3, 2018 finally U-turned, removing the Snapchat-like features it had bet the redesign on. The app that popularized internet video calls spent its declining years cosplaying as the apps that were beating it.
This one is well documented.
They did it more than once
First they made it look like Snapchat, then they made it look like Teams, then they closed it.
Links
↳ caused by Skype redesign rollout (mid-2017)
Timeline
- Jul 14, 2017 Announced Microsoft announced it.
- Sep 3, 2018 Walked back Snapchat-like features removed after 14 months of backlash.