On Monday it was announced on the official Skype blog that from now on group videocalls will again be available to all users for free without having to have premium services, a mode that will disappear from here on out.
To access this feature you simply select the desired contacts for the call and in the drop-down menu up top on each profile choose “Add to conversation”. You can add up to 10 people like this, and on the screen you’ll see a small window with the video stream for each of the call participants, as well as a button to have the call with audio only.
At the moment, this feature is only available for the Windows, Mac OS X, and Xbox versions, although it will soon appear on the mobile versions for iOS and Android as well. With this change, Microsoft aims to take a page out of the business manual for their current direct competitors, in particular Google Hangouts, which since its launch has continually offered new improvements—and all of its features are totally free.
