Five years after releasing the first version of SkypeGadget, I decided to stop supporting and developing SkypeGadget. I believe that I discontinued it about a year ago when I provided the latest update but today it is official. Starting today, Nov 3rd 2012, I will no longer offer support for SkypeGadget.
There are a few reasons behind this decision: (1) Windows 8 is out and it does not have support for gadgets. (2) Skype4COM, the library that allowed SkypeGadget to talk to Skype, is no longer supported and from what I’ve heard, it does not work with the latest version of Skype. (3) Gadgets are an old technology; the new era of live tiles is here.
Before I end, I give you the SkypeGadget memorabilia:
- SkypeGadget’s first name was SkypeConversation.
- It started as a contest entry. The first prize was an HTC Touch. SkypeGadget got on 6th.
- October 27, 2007 is the date of the oldest SkypeConversation version that I have (see the screenshot). I started developing it 1-2 weeks before that date.
- In July 2009, it reached 100.000 downloads on Gallery Live.
- Last time I checked the Gallery Live website, before Microsoft discontinued it, there were more than 300.000 downloads.
- On top of the numbers above, there are about 40.000 downloads from this website. I think the total number of downloads, from all places, is close to 350.000.
- The SkypeGadget page on this website has 95.000 views.
- SkypeGadget has less than 500 lines of code, including CSS and HTML.
- Believe it or not, people donated REAL money. Four people donated a total of $13 (2x$5, 1x$2, 1x$1).
- SkypeGadget was and will remain free and open-source.
- SkypeGadget was the first ever gadget that allowed interaction with Skype. There were at least 3 other gadgets that copied my code.
- There are people who use outdated versions of Skype just to run SkypeGadget (Thanks guys!).
You can still download SkypeGadget, I’ll keep the page up and running.