Here’s Skype’s New Meet Now Feature That Battles Zoom And Houseparty Video Chat

In a bid to make Skype more appealing to a broader range of people, Microsoft is making it even easier to use the service. The software giant is introducing what it’s calling Skype Meet Now, which is completely free to use for anyone, and doesn't require you to download any additional software.

In essence, Skype Meet Now is a fully contained version of Skype that works completely within a web browser. In addition, you can create a new meeting directly from the web by clicking the "Create a free meeting" button. From there, a link is automatically created that you can then share with your call participants. Also, from the very same page, you can go ahead and click the "Start call" button to get things going.

Call participants don't even need to have a Skype account to join in on the chat; just clicking the shared link is sufficient. And for those that already have Skype installed on their device, clicking the meeting link will open the native Skype app rather than the web interface.

According to Microsoft, call recording can still be saved for up to 30 days with Skype Meet Now, and up to 50 participants can join in on a call. At this time Microsoft says that Skype Meet Now is only supported on Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge (the new, Chromium-based version).

While Zoom and Houseparty are definitely currently the hot players in this field, both have encountered issues with security and privacy; something that has not presented as much of a problem for Microsoft's Skype. And Skype has also seen a big uptick in adoption with people around the globe sheltering in place at home; Microsoft says that usage was up 70 percent for the month of March (compared to February 2020), skyrocketing to 40 million daily users.