Skype axes add-ons

 

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Posted on 14 Sep 2009 at 17:33

Skype has shutdown its add-on certification program, claiming not enough people are using them to make it worthwhile.

Skype Extras was established in 2006 and offered a range of tools to third-party developers, allowing them to create add-ons for the VoIP service, including emoticons and music-player plugins.

The service was hoping Extras would offer Skype the sort of extensibility that's made Firefox so popular, however, in a brief blog post the company admitted the scheme had failed.

"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," writes Skype developer Antoin Bertout on the Skype blog. "Unfortunately, effective today, we will shut down the Skype Extras program."

While the Extras program didn't work as well as we'd hoped, we still believe there are opportunities for third-party developers to enhance the Skype experience

However, Bertout denied that Skype was turning its back on third-party developers: "While the Extras program didn't work as well as we'd hoped, we still believe there are opportunities for third-party developers to enhance the Skype experience. We'll keep you posted."

Reports suggest that Skype is now considering releasing a software development kit and APIs that will allow developers to integrate the Skype service into their own apps, bypassing the Skype client completely.

Skype stopped certifyinh new submissions on 11 September, and unsurprisingly the news hasn't gone down well with the service's users.

"I'm a developer of a Skype Extra. This was poorly handled. We got an email notification that the program is being shut down this morning - at the same time that the news hit," writes a poster on the blog.

"Lack of visibility was the problem. If Extras were made visible in the client and easy to install then the Extras program could have been a hit. It's a shame to see it killed off rather than improved."