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November 26, 2003

What Do You Do During Conference Calls?

I too wonder about conference calls. Why is it that those back chat experiments work so well. What's really happening?

CHICAGO (Wireless Flash) -- What are workers really doing during conference calls? A new survey shows most of the time, they're not paying attention to their colleagues.

The RoperASW/Tandberg poll looked at workers in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Norway and Hong Kong, and found in all countries except America and Norway, less than half of workers pay full attention during audio conferences.
So what are they doing instead? Twenty-nine percent of British workers say they doodle, while 22 percent of Germans surf the web. Twenty percent of Americans say they have side conversations with someone else during conference calls.

It gets weirder: 22 percent of Hong Kong workers admit they weren't fully dressed during their last teleconference, while 14 percent of them were doing their makeup or hair.

Finally, seven percent of Americans admit they've left a call early -- the highest percentage out of all the countries surveyed.

NCBuy Weird News: Survey Reveals What Workers Are Really Doing During Conference Calls - 2003-11-21

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 04:17 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

November 20, 2003

Skype 0.95 Ringtones! Block!

Skype releases another update 0.95. However with so many frequent releases perhaps we are just just seeing the same users "download" the latest version. Here's another review "Skype Tops Frustration" supporting my recent post that there are still some hurdles to climb.

The downloads number remains a fiction for all those quoting it in the press. It doesn't represent users. We may see 2,857,223 downloads today. It's not the audience size. In fact Skype has been notifying all 0.92 users to upgrade. That must be quite a few!

For the notes. I'm yet to see 150000 online at anyone time although it must be close. Skype still skews to Europe and thus peaks around 12:00pm daily. The number is still impressive, however unless Skype releases more appropriate data these numbers appear to remain very optimistic!

Skype today announced the release of Beta version 0.95 with several new features and enhancements, including a ring tone manager and the ability to block unwanted callers. These enhancements are a direct result of listening carefully to the demands of our growing user-base (now in excess of 2.5 million downloads). Now you can make Skype sound exactly the way you want by customizing the ring signals used by Skype when someone calls you. In addition, we have added the ability to permanently block unwanted callers as well as global hotkeys. We would like to thank the thousands of users who requested these features by using the forums, and we look forward to continuing to design Skype by listening closely to what our users want. Please see our release notes for a complete list of enhancements. Don't Type... Skype! New Beta 0.95

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 04:37 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

November 18, 2003

Why Skype Growth is Slowing

What is ailing Skype growth today? The link below is hardly a statistical sample on Skype yet some numbers ring true. Read it all for more. What underlies the numbers is that Skype growth is changing. New users (like my son are online sporadically, he uses it with friends while teaming up to play games online). For the rest I hear the frequent story of I only have three or four buddies on my list.....

So a few quick notes on:

  • Number of buddies,
  • Always-on approach,
  • connection quality,
  • Conferencing and a
  • Telephone.

    But more people need to use Skype for it to really have an impact. So far, 67 people have taken the poll, and 64 percent of them say they are put off by the service because they don't know anyone else that uses it. A further 45 percent say they would be more likely to use Skype if their friends and family signed up for it.

    Still, less than 10 weeks after launching, 52 percent of poll-takers think broadband telephony services like Skype will absolutely replace the PSTN. Roughly 47 percent believe Skype won't accomplish this alone, but that future broadband telephony services might do it see Skype Spooks Operators).
    Boardwatch

    Number of Buddies: When I've spoken to others I find many only have 3-4 buddies on their list. That tends to kill the system, particularly if they aren't live all the time. As the research notes... Skype really works for globally dispersed families. I had a wonderful chat with a friend in the UK who has family in Columbia and the US. He said "Skype changes the way our family communicates". I know it has with mine. However many of these new Skypers are not used to IM and buddy lists. There's a discomfort factor with "visibility". That's going to take more than Skype's current iteration to change. It requires "profile management" with degrees of access. Voicemail would be a big help. Voice-mail cures the interruptions and creates accessibility.

    Always-On: The slowing of those online currently 144000 vs the number of downloads means SKYPE runs the risk of being and "on" or "off" product rather than an always on or one that's always active in the sys tray. Perhaps that is the preferred behavior. However, without the voicemail encouragement that is what it will be. Skype's utility vs other IM systems decreases when treated in this fashion.

    Connection Quality: I've had some occurrences with poor connection quality. I can't figure out what the problem is, why the packets are being lost etc. For the most part the sound quality holds up to the praise Skype has received. However, a new user with poor sound will give up after the first call and will fail to understand what all the fuss is about. I know two people that Skype fails with for me each and every time. One of these guys is a telco exec and the other is a collaboration expert. They have appropriate equipment and we've trialled other VoIP apps together which work. I remain baffled by it. One is local the other is international. I know Skype isn't working for them with other callers too.

    Conferencing: Will be a killer application for Skype. Business and collaboration reasons are great, I also know it will bring many kids along too. I've been watching my son's Skype adoption. He likes the hands free (no telephone to hold) while taking on the gaming world with a buddy. While Socom and other games have enabled it online the sound quality remains poor. They also have little control over who they are playing with. Enable the "pack" and they will run rogue in these games together. Running multi-phone lines off a single PC has been done. It will take something like this for them to move their buddies from AIM to Skype.

    Telephone: I've experimented with USB phones (they only sort of work and poorly so far) and in all cases the sound deteriorates from the headset. I've not tried a bluetooth solution. Although with the right cellphone that might become interesting. Skype and programs like it still need a phone. We no longer communicate locked down to our PC's, the tethered requirement is a deadweight.

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 10:32 AM | | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)

    • November 14, 2003

    Landline May Need A Lifeline

    Combine disruptive innovation, expensive upgrades, overvalued balance sheets, stratospheric sales and marketing costs, old technologies and trouble is on the horizon. This comment is on the numbers....

    The leapfrog effect where one technology makes the next obsolete can work in two ways. The new technology can be so much better that it really undoes the primacy of the former. Or, the new technology can screw up the financial rationale keeping the old tech companies afloat.

    Meanwhile, new phone companies, like the wireless kids and even some long distance carriers, get the same switching functionality for millions less. This adds up to a multi-billion dollar loss in competitive (dis)advantage for every landline company. And none of this appears (yet) to be calculated into their stock prices. Once it is....

    TheFeature

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 05:58 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

    November 12, 2003

    Number Portability

    Looking forward to a little change in perspective? When will the telecoms give us what we want. Carl Ford writes:


    The Carl Ford Blog: Local Number Portability

    For me, my cell phone and my home phone represent very different parts of my life. And the idea that I should combine them means that I will lose the selective call processing capability I gave myself with the cell phone.

    Don't know me and want to reach me? Here is my home number.

    I want to reach you anytime, I call from the cell.
    I expect that about 20% of the landlines will get this kind of migration. I also believe they can get about 5% back in a few years.

    Meanwhile you can still reach me on IM.


    The issue here is not the phone number but managing degrees of access. What it demonstrates is we now want at least three lines each. We're used to a shared home line, we like the personal mobile line, and also have various IM accounts with different profiles. Managing this access is just a nightmare. Similarly managing various devices can be a nightmare.

    In "early days" of Skype I posted on this. Numbers may still be required to connect certain services. However what's really required are relationships, introductions, mediated exchanges, conferencing capabilities. See this too on profiles.

    On the 20% migration claim... I'l like to enable my cell phone to handle a second line that is shared with my family. I can toggle it off /on at various times of day. When everyones phone rings in the house we know what type of call it is. Voice messages there are for all etc. Then the phones really will become wearable.

    That's what still excites me about the Skype type potential. Enabling me to manage access, profiles and multiple lines. At the moment my buddy list continues to grow. I want' to run my own exchange. Guess the phone companies aren't going to encourage me.

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 12:03 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

    Picture This from Korea

    Sometimes I look back and think hmmm that blog came out of left field. That was how I felt when I posted on camera phones. There's an opportunity to use this tech beneficially and I have a particular interest in tying them to photo blogs in corporate environments.

    Well the heavy hand of regulation is falling again. South Korea has mandated that all new camera-phones emit a 65db beep whenever a picture is taken. Now the "beeps" in conferences won't represent deleted audio tape edits. Frankly this type of regulation makes no sense. See Alan's report. Consider too how many times a day one is on security cams (look at England's numbers) and then how long till "nano-dust" is available for pictures? Sprinke and vacuum!

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 10:59 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

    November 10, 2003

    Outlook Skype

    Peter Kalmstrom has developed an interesting Outlook application for Skype.


    Outlook Skype
    Why an Outlook Skype application?

    You probably already have a number of contacts in Outlook. This application allows you to use those contacts to call directly via Skype and also store the Skype information directly in the Outlook Contact. The contacts folder can be either a private or a public folder. Using a public folder gives the added benefit of allowing multiple users to share Skype friends lists.


    He's managed a neat instructional demo as well.

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 08:48 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

    November 09, 2003

    Feedster & Skype

    This Skype complaint is one worth looking at a little more seriously. For I still believe that adding a SkypeMe function to Feedster would promote some interesting conversations. The SkypeMe button on my site has certainly worked positively for me. However, I think it is the unintended consequeces of linking Skype to RSS feeds and their resulting searches that will create the real value.

    Need a for example. Bet people start AOL blogs and then send out anonymous SkypeMe personals ads via RSS. You keep the blog and the handle only for that purpose. When Skype enables multiple profiles (lines) some will run more than one blog at once.

    Now if you were AOL you might just put an add in every feed to pay for the blog. Similarly once you find the "anonymized" blog entry... the SkypeMe handle will enable you to search all their postings.

    Debating Turning Off Skype -- Permanently

    I just had the oddest Skype experience. Someone called me. They seemed to know who I was (at least my last name). They accused me of not talking clearly............... I just exited -- and may never run the damn thing again.

    The reason for asking about this is that I've been debating adding a Feedster feature to find Skype IDs and now I'm not sure if its worth the bother. What's the perception of Skype out there? Yes they have > 1,000,000 downloads **but** I've only ever completed maybe 3 conversations successfully. And those three were right when it launched and the load was presumably lighter.

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 10:15 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

    IBM on VoIP

    IBM's case for VoIP During a presentation Tuesday at TechTarget's Networking Decisions conference, Johnny Barnes, IBM's vice president of global IT solutions and standards, told attendees that his company plans to migrate at least 80% of its more than 300,000 employees to voice over IP by 2008.

    Though the ambitious project will replace approximately 900 PBXs around the world with regional IP installations, Barnes said the effort will not only reduce voice costs significantly, but will improve worker productivity by enabling application convergence, as every new application going forward will have embedded voice capabilities.

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 09:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

    Another Indicator of Disruptive VoIP

    It's amazing that the old telcoms industry is still functioning. I'm not in a position to judge this new release from Stealth Technologies. However add this capability to Skype, add easy conferencing and companies like WebEx will be in trouble too.

    <Light Reading - Networking the Telecom Industry

    Any of these options is expensive. Using the Voice Peering Fabric, providers can connect to the peering point that Stealth has built for a fee of $500 per month for each 100-Mbit/s connection.

    This makes it much simpler and easier for these next-generation companies that will compete against the incumbents to connect to each others networks, says Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects, a telecom consultancy. This really going to accelerate the entire voice-over-IP issue, because its eliminating some of the costs associated with offering VOIP services.

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 09:14 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

    November 07, 2003

    Oblique Strategies

    I'd like a 1975 first edition deck of the "Oblique Strategies" by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. Today I had an e-mail from a friend and was following links and wow had to blog it. Why? See the fun stuff below. The BBC provides context of the "place-nireland/A635528">Oblique Strategies" This site is the effective home.

    So here's the fun stuff. Try this out... Oblique Culture(Click the Culture Tab on the right). Someone else was creative in another fashion with this version. Try this one too: Oblique Version 2 in English or French.



    "These cards evolved from our separate observations of the principles underlying what we are doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated. They can be used as a pack (a set of posibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from a shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if it appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident." Brian Eno Oblique Strategies

    I just like these things. Sometimes they come in books like Richard Neville's "Footprints to the Future". These types of combinations never solve anything, yet they speak to us and get us to look in other directions.

    Is there a blogging application? Look at this iteration again then hook it up to a newsreader with 1000 feeds and cycle the last 250 news items updating frequently. Throw the titles very fast at me. Enable me to change categories... eg new, tech, etc. Might be more than a toy.

    Posted by Stuart Henshall at 05:15 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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