Gather Town vs. Skype (discontinued)

Gather is best used as a company hub and a place to get a sense of fellow staff members' activity. It lets staff express themselves with their own space. It's also great for impromptu or quick meetings. Gather does not replace more serious meeting tools like Zoom or Google Meet. It's had a difficult transition to its version 2 with missing features, but they are working on it and improving quickly. Some staff may not enjoy the video game look or having to show up in the app.

Incentivized

Having interacted with a new replacement tool, Microsoft Teams, it is challenging to recommend Skype, as it lacks some essential features, such as being less equipped with the latest updates, and it is not platform-independent, causing issues on PCs and phones, as well as during calls that might hinder work.

Incentivized

• alert for messages
• Being able to have several spaces for communication for free
• constant updates

Incentivized

• The instant chat function is great. Very straightforward, easy to use, easy to learn, no technical issues.
• Video calls are pretty easy also, user friendly and a mostly stable connection with no issues.
• Voice calls are easy also, eliminates the need for an external landline or the need to use your cell phone. Clear connections, not really any dropped calls.

Incentivized

• Some people have trouble finding the controls the first time
• I use Gather Town during my training sessions with Zoom. A direct link to Gather Town woiuld be nice,
• Being able to integrate Gather Town IN zoom would be amazing.
• When people interact in a small group, a larger icone with their face would be nice

Incentivized

• Skype is a RESOURCE hog. People who have limited bandwidth will have poor call quality.
• It is hard to figure out how to use emojis and upload images in the chat.
• The background images do not fool anybody....it is clearly not your real background.

Incentivized

I have given this rating as this need to give more than that as it's very helpful for us and makes our work more efficient and fast.

Overall, it's great to use. There is a slight learning curve for staff who are unfamiliar with video game mechanics (Moving around a virtual world, managing their view), but most learned very quickly. Meetings generally just work and are quick to connect; however, video quality is often lower than in other conferencing apps.

Incentivized

Skype is not as good as Facetime in terms of ease to glance at it and figure out how it works. I think that's a result of Skype trying to be too many things at once. A lot of the menu and UI could be streamlined, and I would jettison some of the additional functions that have been tacked on over the years to simplify. That being said, while some options are slightly hard to find, they all work flawlessly once found.

Incentivized

I am not aware of the current support level for Skype for business, as I have never used even though I have the product. However, the support for Skype's personal paid users is not where it could be. Users who pay for Skype features do not have a clear path to reach out to support. So, rating 6, can be better as soon as I need to use Skype for business support and get a good experience. I will say that I will renew Skype for Business subscription, which is a significant inconsistency on my end. The explanation is that Skype for Business comes bundled with Office for Business, with no additional cost, so why not.

Incentivized

It can be used on the phone via mobile application as well as on the desktop by logging in to the website. Easily installed and ready to use.

Incentivized

Pretty easy to use. This is the ONE criterion I go by when ai try a new app. Some participants had some problems using the app in the first few minutes but after this, they really enjoyed the tool. Compared with the other interactive app I used, the learning curve was very short. So overall, Gather Town is one of the app I got back to.

Incentivized

We use Skype in combination with Grasshopper. While Grasshopper acts as a routing toll free number with extensions, if we are making calls directly, we do it through Skype. Skype's desktop and mobile apps are easier to use, and provide unlimited local calls at a flat, affordable rate. Allowing our team to use their existing mobile or desktop devices without additional hardware for business office phone calls is important, and Skype makes that possible

Incentivized

The service provided is up to date, as discussed before buying.

• Considerable money savings since it has a free tier option
• When required, a space for more than 100 people is contracted and we can canceled immediately.
• social events have been carried out virtually thanks to this tool

Incentivized

• Skype made keeping in touch with an advisor in Mexico very easy. The initiative there resulted in 5 new partnerships.
• Skype has helped me with account management for at least 3 customers in LATAM--usually it's a fast way to answer a question about a support renewal.
• For about 9 months Skype helped me stay in touch with a colleague in Prague. We would meet once a week to go over sales activities.

Incentivized