Video chatting allows you to see the joy on a distant friend's face when he devours a slice of birthday cake and the terror when he discovers the slice of cake was a makeshift home for a family of birds. Experience a rainbow of long-distance emotion with today's Groupon: for $10, you get a three-month Skype Premium subscription from Skype (up to a $26.97 value).

During peak hours, Skype's globe-spanning communication powers connect millions of users to one another on computers, smartphones, TVs, and landlines. The Skype Premium subscription bears all the ingredients of the free software—unlimited international Skype-to-Skype calls, face-to-face video chatting, instant messaging, and low-cost calls to non-users—and adds a dash of video conferencing for as many as 10 people at once.

With high-quality HD video feeds available for users with HD cameras, subscribers can study each other's rice-kernel collections without eyestrain during artistic pow-wows, family reunions, and business summits. A subscribers-only 25% webcam discount readies home-rigs for Skyping, and if tech problems arise, Skype Premium subscribers can access 24-hour live-chat customer service in English.

Though Skype occasionally features discounted prices on its website, this Groupon offers the best deal available.

Reviews

CNET editors reviewed Skype, awarding it a perfect five stars for its "streamlined interface," and CNET reviewers give the software an average of 3.5 stars:

• Excellent audio and video quality make it, coupled with it being free, make it [sic] my choice for calls. – mkosche
• The new updates seem to have improved the quality of both the voice and the video connections and have made the navigation within skype more intuitive. – ianblane