10 good reasons why MSN > Skype

Microsoft has decided to migrate their instant messaging service Windows Live Messenger into the Skype platform. This was something I assumed where going to happen when they bought Skype a few years ago. However, I would thought it would be the other way around. More and more people are also moving from MSN to Skype, and most people ask me "Wtf, are you still using MSN?" as I have contact with many people over MSN. There are also some (really) good reasons why I prefer MSN instead of Skype when it comes to IM.

- Email notifications

I have been using Hotmail ever since I got MSN. I have not seen any good reason to move over to Gmail, as Hotmail has been working in a perfectly good way for me. However, due to the Skype migration, I have been forced to have my email client open all the time in order to receive notifications when I receive an email. On MSN, a small message box would appear saying who you received an email from.

- Better integration with the taskbar

Skype and MSN both behave differently on the taskbar. On MSN, there is one icon indicating whether your status is set to away, busy, or if you are offline. Each you have open is displayed as one individual window, and when someone messages you, the icon starts blinking. On Skype, only a number of messages unread (on this device) appears. 

- Far simpler/less bloated UI

The UI on MSN is way simpler and cleaner than on Skype. Contacts uses less space in the contact list, and I really prefer tabbed conversations than how Skype groups your conversations. Even though this has gotten better after the last Skype updates, there is still a long way to go.

- Customization of UI and emoticons

Customization is an important factor. It is a way of expressing themselves either through a different font, emoticon or background image on the conversation window. Even though many people hate custom emoticons, there are people who actually use it. (And there is a way to turn them off) I use internet memes as custom emoticons in conversations, which makes the conversation a bit more personal - to me. Some people also prefer adjusting the text size, mainly because they don't see that well.

- Image sharing

The most annoying thing with Skype is that every single image someone sends me is sent as a file. Sure, it would be nice if I wanted to SAVE the images for later use, but who cares when it is only a screen shot. After a while, my download folder is full of images which I received and I only needed to see one time only. I agree there is room for improvement on the current image sharing on MSN as it is slow and images loses quality, however this is something I would like to see implemented in Skype as well. Even though there are already ways to share screenshots (Gyazo, Imgur, ...), it would have been cool to see if Microsoft could try and implement something new into Skype. On all platforms. 

- No syncronization of logs between other devices

When I am taking the bus home, I often talk to people over IM on Skype. The experience is good enough (except that the IM window can start lagging from time to time), but here comes the most annoying feature with Skype. When I get on my laptop again, every single message I have received (and read) on my phone gets sent to my PC. If I was lucky and closed the Skype app on my phone, I wouldn't start receive all the thousands of messages I have sent on my laptop, but on top of all this, all the messages gets marked as unread on the device I have not seen that message before. This is one of the reasons why I do not like Skype as an IM service. The idea of transfering chat history between devices is a good idea, but it doesn't work when all the messages I have read gets marked as unread. Imagine if all the emails you read at work wasn't marked as read when you got back home from work. MSN does not have this annoying feature "which does not properly work".

- Offline messaging

This is where MSN shines. A friend of me uses to get up early in the morning and takes the train to work. As we work together on several programming projects, I often have the need to message him about some changes I made to some code, or something else that he should know. If I use Skype as IM, I would have to let me PC stand on when he gets on early in the morning (when I am asleep). On MSN he would receive the message instantly, regardless if I am offline or not. He would only see that I sent the message to him on 11.20 PM. 

- Close Skype actually means CLOSE Skype

When I click "close all windows" on MSN, it logs me out and closes MSN, which is why I clicked the button. When I click close window on Skype, it minimizes it. Why? Because some users got stupid when they clicked the button and they didn't expect it to sign them out.

- Appear offline to one contact or a group of contacts

Sometimes you just want to appear offline to some people. I don't like how MSN removed the "block" feature, but it would be nice if they implemented this feature in Skype as well. 

- Youtube integration

Often your friend often sends you a Youtube link and you don't really want to open your browser to view it. It was awesome on MSN unless it was some copyrighted content which could only be viewed in a browser.

 

Skype and MSN are two completely different products built for two completely different purposes. Skype was made for voice and video, MSN was built for IM. Even though we lose a lot of important features after the Skype migration, I hope many of the points I mentioned gets added. Users have fled from MSN to Skype/Facebook/Steam, mainly because more people use Facebook and Steam is easier accessible during a game, and they are often in a group call while playing League of Xbox. Microsoft is doing a huge mistake by forcing MSN users to start using Skype as each product applies to one certain group of people. Some prefer Skype, and some other prefer MSN. We all have our reasons.