First off, let's look at writing. The American Management Association wants writing interns to write a book on making deals online. Has Skype helped you make a deal? If not, the you may want to swing by the World Association of Newspapers conference in Seoul. 29 May - 1 June. If blogging is journalism, what is skyping? The next day another conference, TrendTag (Trend Day) in Hamburg looks like a great time for quants and futurists. 2 June. For more events I find interesting, see my list on evdb.com, including The 8th Asia Pacific IP Telephony, Singapore, the Wireless Community Conference, Monterey, California, INBOX, San Jose, California (where I want to learn more about spam over IP telephony), and SUPERCOMM Chicago.

We all want more from Skype. A million Apple fiends are all goosepimply with excitement that Spymac is adding Skype, maybe to become SkypeMac? This popular Macintosh portal adds SkypeMe to its user profiles, forums, to push realtime conversation on news and user posts. I wonder what Skype video will do to portals and online communities? Or to libraries: 26 steps for effective web presence in libraries includes Skype.

Martin Geddes is craving a long list of Skype client features. He ain't alone. Jan's Tech Blog says Skype's SkypeOut Dialing Wizard helps you sort out international numbers before you spend those SkypeOut minutes. Build it into the next release, please.

I'm fascinated by Consumer Casting Conversations (fr) who are using Skypecasting for market research. via Franck Dumesnil. Reminds me of Sparkcasts' beercasting. Gregory Narain, are you listening?

Skype's shaking people up.
  Some band together: the Internet Telephony Services Providers’ Association is trying to make the world safe for Skype and Skypers and others of our ilk.
  Others resort to force, as Hello Estonia sees it: Next call for Net phoning : Regulation. The idea of using Skype for emergency calls is beyond belief, per Richard Cobbett. "What wonderful, idyllic, crime-free world does he see in the morning, where technology is reliable and the internet doesn’t die on a daily basis?" Read Richard's "He’s got a gnu!" for a serious chuckle. All the fear mongering could lead to an Online Dating Patriot Act sponsored by True.

If you take comfort in your toolkit, Make your own Skype phone. Not for the faint of screwdriver.