Skype has partnered with Jaman, an internet movie service, to provide users with thousands of embeddable film scenes that can be added to their chats, profiles, and “mood messages”. The service is still in development, and Skype plans to have it available within the next couple of months.
Jaman’s licensed collection consists almost entirely of independent and foreign films, which will appeal to Skype’s international audience but may put off its American users. Skype has yet to finalize the available clip catalog, but at launch it expects most of the videos offered will be movie trailers as opposed to actual scenes. This limited library doesn’t sound particularly enticing – Skype will need to include more engaging content if they want this to catch on.
It seems that everyone just realized that people like to chat while they’re watching videos. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen new products from Lycos, Videophlow, and Userplane that plan to offer similar features. The trick will be to offer content that people actually want to talk about, which some of these companies don’t seem to have covered yet.