A small team of Skype designers and developers recently took up the challenge to build a new app to run alongside Skype and provide an ongoing form of video chat. As a result they’ve created a video messenger named, Qik.

Qik allows you to record, send and receive short video messages from your contacts. It uses your phonebook instead of Skype contacts, so you can send Qiks to anyone. Videos sent to the contacts will only last for two weeks and then will be erased. You can also delete specific videos ahead of that deadline. Other than videos users can also record five second animated GIFs and send it to groups of people.

This application is currently available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, free of cost but requires a phone number for activation. For more information about how this app works watch the video below or go to qik.com.