In October 2003 Michael Robertson of Sipphone (Linspire and MP3 fame) said "So Skype is a nice little experiment but it will get quickly run over by SIP.". It took him until now and Project Gizmo to try and address the Skype desktop challenge. So today yet another softphone client emerged. As expected from the founder of Sipphone he's positioning Gizmo as "giving" you your SIP number, open source and plenty of other claims. Still the core story that Project Gizmo hopes to hook consumers on is below. It's the open versus closed argument again. It won't be enough and I'll tell you why.

Net calling software Skype has exploded onto the scene. Its ease of use and robustness have quickly built an enormous user base and introduced many to the power of net calling. But Internet users should be wary of Skype because its strategy is a throwback to the '80s built on proprietary standards that locks out all others. This week, a product called Gizmo is being unveiled - the first viable Skype alternative built on open source that pledges to connect to all. Michael Robertson . com

The argument fails because the product isn't better, not due to the righteousness of an open source argument it just doesn't have the features for tomorrow. Similarly, he forgets or never mentions in his argument mobile carriers. Skype sometimes suggest they should be thought of as a mobile carrier. Of course they have no infrastructure. Which is the final element. Skype and Gizmo are just pieces of software. The question is where can they live? Skype continues to live in more and more places. Many more than SIP.

Unfortuantely, I was not successful in completing a full test of Gizmo. When I can I will. It apparently failed to find a way through my firewall after registering my name. Note in image one, the Skype icon is connected and online. My two test buddies similarly couldn't get it to work. Was this a network problem, a software problem or what I don't know. So I left a message for Michael on his site. Image two suggests that time has gone into the user interface. The basics are certainly beginning to be understood. Versions are available for both Windows and the Mac. Linux is due in August.

When I first looked at Gizmo I had to go back and look at Jajah and then Teleo to see if it was simply a clone. While I've been unable to test the real capabilities there is one jarring component apparently missing. Gizmo has no text / chat function. It's also unclear from the documentation however I think you are either online or offline. Even basic presence is not supported. I also doubt there is any need to authorize new contacts and there is no video at the moment.

So while I like and even applaud the desire for open source it's not going to see me in the short term on Gizmo. This also disappoints me. Still this is another confirmation that SIP implementations aren't easy and aren't delivering. Skype may be safer than Mr. Robertson thinks.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Worldchanging is one of my personal blog favorites. This year they again turned their blog over to their readers (something we SJ could learn from) and I found myself with the opportunity to contribute. So with the Independence Day weekend coming up in America I hit the keys to encourage "Voices for Freedom".

Read it on WorldChanging, all the content links are there.

VoIP as Revolution

For well over one hundred years, the phone system has slowly but surely brought us closer together through the simple act of hearing each other speak. The Internet, in turn, radically changed communications with media from email to blogs, giving everyone online a way to share ideas with global audiences. Today VoIP - voice over internet protocol - combines the personal contact of voice and the global connections of the Internet. Moreover, it opens up the possibility of new user behavior, offering up a new vision for future.

From Skype users reporting on the "intimate planet" to kids exchanging language lessons to extended families adopting "always-on" communication -- for them a presence aware global intercom is almost here. And that global intercom is still evolving, from the addition of video to massively multiplayer games to Skypecasting to collaborative art. The emerging global multi-modal communications networks come not from gated and priced hierarchies but from the ground up. That's a big change and one likely to stimulate new innovations, new economics, and empower individuals to make a better world. Like information wanting to be free, conversations when free shrink the world.

What can you do today? Embrace solutions that enable global connections and then make them. Reach out talk and build your global network. And pay close attention to the actions of those threatened by new technologies and connections.

While this personal freedom to connect is powerful, strong vested and regulatory interests may well want to take it away. Our freedom to converse with whomever and whenever we want over the Internet should be a basic freedom. Skype proves that in a broadband world we really can reach a point where always on creates abundant opportunities to connect. We must insure these new connections are not squashed by traditional vested interests, be they political or business. Recent policy and legal decisions on Port Blocking, the RIAA and Grokster case and 911 access are examples of the turmoil the new communications methods have triggered.

Freedom in the 21st century is defined by communications. Let's not shackle voices with constraints. Let us listen and encourage a world abundance.

Let's think "Voices for Freedom".

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Stuart Henshall: VOIP As Revolution

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week at Supernova I ended up sitting next to a guy who really knew how to flood the back channel (IRC) putting his own spin on things. Just before lunch I learned he was Tom Coates, who consistently writes a blog with a great point of view. Yesterday I discovered he had paraphrased nicely what I'd said:

"I ask people two questions - 'what's your skype strategy?' and 'what's your presence strategy?' - Skype moves your use of voice from telephony to a kind of intercom where rather than closing a line down you just temporarily mute it. The social net reflects a revolution in the way that we use our tools. There's always been a tension to use a communications technology to get things done, but now communications technologies are being used to connect, to create communities..." plasticbag.org

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

We're not lost. We're locationally challenged.

John M. Ford

So, at this moment, I have a place. A chair, in a room, in a building, in a town, in a metropolis, in a province, in a nation, in a region, on a planet.

And I can move about. (Me walking about the room, waving arms, saying "La la la I'm moving about", then sitting down).

My Skype profile lets me pick a place in the world to call home. A country. And I can even type in a state or city.

But I need more. From the profile and from the Skype API.

I need:

• Lattitude and Longitude in my profile
• To search by proximity given a Lattitude and Longitude
• A temporary address, perhaps one that expires in an hour and that I can update frequently

This lets me build and use tools that do fun things.

• Find people who have similar interests that are near me. Think local sports ("Did you see that kick?"), grassroots politics ("there's a rally this afternoon; can you bring signs?"), religious fellowship ("can you make a minyan tomorrow?"). Harry Potter fans.
  
• Find people who are at a conference, even though they are not at home, to establish a conference backchannel.
  
• Put people search results on a Google map.
  
• People at a restaurant willing to do instant reviews of tonight's menu.
  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Can this man make Skype work for developers? I met up with Lenn Pryor in the local Skype coffee office, down the street from their office in Soho in London a few weeks ago. The time between has given me some time for reflection. He was about to settle in Tallin as he begins work to build better relationships with developers. Lenn's enthusiastic and isn't doubting the size of the task ahead. I observed firsthand how Skype's growth is so fast it is challenging old staff and new alike. As new people join the company we should look to what we hope could change. We also use it as a signal of what needs to change.

The key to Lenn's success will be the relationship that emerges between PR who wants hierarchy and control, and what is beginnning to emerge with share.skype.com and more open communications by Skype staffers. Hierarchy and control, unfortunately seem to be winning currently. Skype wants the developer discussions all on its own forums, the conversation to center around its blog and wants to control as they extend to conferences and discussions with developers. How it chooses partners for these events will be indicative of how it wants to work with both small and large developers and corporates.

My view is Skype's message so far is failing independent developers. Efforts to land deals on hardware have also ignored software opportunities.

Example 1: Building a business around Skype has to make you money. Skype's messages to date have been unable to stir the methods by which they will enable that. They have also fallen short in communicating effectively with developers and potential developers. Good ideas created by developers are likely to be incorporated into Skype at some time in the future. Few developers will make money creating a product that works on the back of Skype. More will make money integrating Skype into solutions and services.

Example 2: Failing to be open and recognizing the smallest independent contributors. Window-dressing is a term used in accounting. Skype's dialogues with small developers have been similar. The reality is Skype keeps trying to do PR related deals with large firms that provide "visiblity" and get reported. In this sense Skype displays arrogance and has been taken to task for it. Motorola, or Tom-Skype or Live Door get more PR than a Qzoxy, Pamela-Systems, Jyve, or VoipVoice. While in fact it is these small developers that have put their businesses and profits on the line.

My reflections on this post and my concerns trace to what I interpret as a clash of wills between PR and Lenn's role with the developer community. The developer community needs access to better roadmaps, needs an independent sounding board, and help getting its message focused. We need certification programs. So far it's not been in Skype's nature to be open about these. The original SkypeAPI EULA and the rules for the SkypeAPI competition are just illustrations of this. The rules were written by lawyers and not in consultation with a developer community.

The challenge Lenn has is to get these discussions into the open. It's one of the reasons we started Skype Journal in the first place to bring issues of concern to developers to Skype's attention. One of our objectives is to encourage a more transparent Skype. Skype won't win without developers on board. At the moment it is hard to score them highly.

Concurrently, if Skype wants to become a truly global brand then the focus has to address:

1. Trust: If Skype loses user trust it will be dead as quickly as Napster (from different causes). Skype can lose trust by making the wrong pricing decisions, thinking their "contact" list centralization was ok, not fixing the API, or simply "security" breaches. Trust is central to being successful. As a user I am already wary. Organizationally Skype has also let me down. So ask yourself. Do you trust Skype more than Microsoft? Skype more than your Telecom provider? Skype more than eBay? I don't know that I do yet.

2. Freedom: Our right to converse, to talk to whoever we want wherever we want, without someone looking over our shoulders. Guaranteeing basic freedoms is a powerful direction, it also requires a higher standard of openness than Skype has guaranteed so far. Skype as a network has the potential to facilitate and empower many aspects of our info lives. That requires them to create new agency businesses, encourage massive participation. Ultimately this will come from the sharing of powerful ideas. I'm afraid that Skype is too scared to embrace this task and opportunity. This is not a regulatory battle, rather it is a message for consumers. While some may want Skype to hire lawyers and do battle for the VoIP industry the battle is to motivate users to action.

So some three weeks later I remain hopeful that Lenn can bring the "voices" into Skype. It remains an organization that has a lot of growing up to do. I'm hoping he gets the chance to facilitate that. In six months we will know whether or not they have made the transition. Let's hope they make it. That may be all the time they have to get the developers on board.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This is a post about Skype's share.skype.com blog, and the comments features that I perceive to be a real opportunity. Jaanus has done a great job of not only launching the site but finding a flavor for posts that are nice stories. On that score I now have to think a little harder and that's not a bad thing. Still it is Skype's comment system potential that I really lust after. While I still have "security" concerns about using Skype passwords, I also see an opportunity for it.

Blog Comments:
Skype's blog is unique in using the skype id for capturing blog comments. This provides all sorts of potential benefits for calling users back, connecting users in a community etc. In the future it will enable you to look at a blog post comment and see whether the user is online etc. depending on how they decide to share their presence. Similarly, the future of audio commenting is not far away. If you combine a "voice message" call with an ftp option, Skype could send audio comments straight to a site. It's alrealy been done by Pamela-Systems in their pro version. Video comments aren't that far away.

Skype Comments Login:
I had a security concern the first time I visited the share.skype.com site and entered my Skype name and password. Until then I had thought that Skype only used the log-in server to log my client into the cloud to make calls. I'd heard it was tucked away safe etc. Now it seems the same log-in server is being used to register commenters on the share.skype.com site. Thus they want to not only monitor when I log into Skype, but also potentially in the future when I am logged into certain communities etc. This capability like Microsoft's passport bothers me. It suggests they are thinking about centralizing presence and identity. Something I believe is a very bad move. Facilitate yes. Centralize and control "NO!".

Blog Commenters Profiles.
With SkypeID's used for commenters it becomes easy to envisage a way to pull in the Skype profile and details for the individual who commented. Similarly the use of the SkypeID is unique, so spam can be controlled and "fake" ID's quickly blocked from the system. One step further and the Skype profile will sprout a video intro "Hi I'm Stuart etc.. adding additonal information to first time commenters.

Skypems.com or Skypecomments.com
The real opportunity in this is to create Skypems (short for Skypecomments) for which each time a Skype-comment-enabled blog captures a new text, audio or video comment skypems.com is pinged just like technorati or weblogs.com. The ping would include the name of the individual the blog posted on etc. The real benefit of capturing comment pings is it enables a search engine to construct a commenters blog. Thus comments would no longer be lost in the blogosphere. As these go audio, interesting audio feeds could be created.

SkypeCommentSpam.
Yes this could just create a new spam war. With new accounts calling in voice spam to blogs. However, I think we'd solve that fairly quickly and it's a problem that all of Skype is faced with. It would be a great way to add a reputation thanks. Thus only commenters with no or positive comments are allowed. In the eBay style. Lots of opportunities.

TypeKey:
Typekey set out to provide a central identity system and thus contain blog spam. However, it just isn't universal enough. A system more closely tied to Skype may help to create the next generation of commenting capabilities. Basically while we have had innovation in blogs, from formats to types, audio, video etc. there hasn't been the same attention paid to commenters. This presents an opportunity which Skype could grab with the good feeling that exists generally in the blogosphere. However, I'm sure Yahoo is waiting in the wings. They could execute this functionality with 360 pretty quickly. Then just offer me the code to plug it into my site!

So Jaanus I have a request. I'd like to convert Skype Journal to your commenting system. I know there is a passcode issue. That would need to be sorted. I'll work with you to define the extra features and functionality we want to build in. We will manage Skypems.com. That will create a nice opportunity to start recognizing those that comment and don't blog. By pulling extracts from the original blogs, context can be provided for every comment. Similarly all comments for one blog can be searched etc. Audio vs text. Lots of opportunities.

On the internal developer side poor progress has been made to date on the voice messaging functionality. I want to click on the blog and leave a voice message. The voice messaging function requires an upgrade to effectively enable blog comments.

I've talked to more than one blog company about the above. So far I'm yet to find one smart enough to take an interest. Some blog buddies who I really respect have asked where is it written up? From my perspective the description above is enough. I also wrote Skype to Blog some time back. This stuff is not hard it just requires the willingness to focus on the conversational aspect of blogging.

BTW. Jaanus I'm delighted to read you have added a trackback feature.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

"We do not have a comment" said a Skype Technologies representative.

Today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling says makers of tools that let users infringe copyright may be held liable for that infringement second-hand only if they promoted that use of the technology. So music and movie companies must prove the team at, say, KaZaA made a "clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement" to win their case.

I'm glad that I'm not Skype at the moment. They must have lawyers going through all the "Share Skype" animations and the feature lists and documentation, checking against the new standard. SkypeTech should no longer tell people they can use Skype to:

• play copyrighted music from their computers over the phone,
• play unlicensed music in voice mail announcements and messages
• send mp3s or movies via Skype's file transfer feature,
• listen to the copyrighted soundtrack to a movie playing on someone else's television while you watch it on vSkype or Video4Skype
• or that I can copy and paste the lyrics to "The Windmills of Your Mind" to a "Skype friend" without an ASCAP clearance

See also:

• PDF of the decision
• Electronic Frontier Foundation comments

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

A Norwegian company IPdrum has been doing the rounds with a press release that enables you to connect a mobile phone to Skype and use the mobile as a gateway. I didn't get it until I read David Gardner's description where he states you will need two GSM phones and SIM cards to make it work. Here's my IPDrum conclusion:

By connecting a second cellphone to your laptop that is in the same network or part of a free family to family type calling plan you can use it as an open gateway to free and unlimited minutes talking to other Skypers and/or making calls to other landlines at SkypeOut rates. Thus this is just an arbitrage play and not a cheap one. You need the cable $70 approx plus a second GSM / SIM card equipped cellphone on a package that won't cost you minutes on inbound calls. Oh and you need that broadband connection and have to hope that the extra cellphone will even work at your home (mine like many Americans doesn't). It may free you of more pennies than it is worth. Even as a gateway to cheap calls in a small office this doesn't appear very attractive to me.

Am I missing something?

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 06:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

An Austrian company has released Jajah and Robin Good calls it a potential Skype Killer. After testing it today, I'm not so sure as it just points to another new opportunity for Skype to take on SIP.

However a couple of things are certain. As parasitic software (include examples like vSkype in this definition) attaches itself to SkypeNet, Skype's readiness for the strategic challenges posed are questionable. In one test today my Jajah was connected into a Skype conference call. From Skype's perspective that's in a call with a foreign and unapproved agent. Not something they planned on. Although Jajah is not alone in managing this feat.

OK away from the hyperbole. What did we learn beyond the surprise of searching for Skype buddies, and adding them to Jajah and then making Jajah calls to Skype buddies?

Beyond the weird Watamba story as a product, it is close to prime time. Hanging it on Skype is a hope to get early adopters. Other than their SkypeOut equivalent, it is hard to see what the Jajah business model is. I ran some tests and began considering a SkypeSIP option.

Some quick tests:

• Got it going reasonably easily. It requires an e-mail address. The UI is not as easy to decipher, however works well enough.
• Demonstrated acceptable if not excellent voice quality. Jajah claims are a little over the top for different codecs. The client itself was a bulky 14.5 mb approx twice the size of Skype to download.
• Easy to add buddies. Made a Jajah to Jajah call and Jajah to Skype buddy calls. My Skype buddy was unable to return the call to Jajah.
• I was unable to create a conference call to two skype accounts. I was able to create a conference call to one Jajah account and one Skype account. Note Jajah to Skype calls work fine subject to the Skype client availablity. See the picture above.
• I could not get it to open the account page to add dollars. So made no calls to landlines at this time. Rates quoted are below Skype's.
• The claims and everything I tried suggest this is all packaged up with SIP. There is no authorization system. If you want to add a buddy you just add them. This was the same when I tested Teleo. As you would expect adding a Skype buddy to a Jajah account doesn't require an authorization.
• Similarly, status is online and offline and perhaps some form of away. This appears to be consistent with SIP / SIMPLE implementations I've seen
• When they add a Skype account they give it a jajah extension. thus I become stuart_henshall@jajah.com. I presume they then add it to their SIP registry.
• I didn't get the video working. It requires me to open a UDP port. That means messing with the router and that's not consumer friendly.
• It looked like all calls were routed through Amsterdam. So I'm not sure where the P2P claims come in.

Robin Good covered most of the weak points. I found I was not able to send a chat message to another person while in a call. As perhaps expected you can't send a chat message to a Skype buddy as there is no way of getting an answer.

Big Questions:

I doubt it.

However there could be a short term business model for mobile users etc wanting to call Skype users or even other SIP users wanting to connect with Skype users. Some packages are already available, for mobile callers who want to dial international numbers, for example. As Skype user numbers grow, more parasites will want to piggyback on Skype.

Note:
Jajah to Skype calls are unlikely to be secure. Thus potentially anyone on Jajah's staff could listen in on any call.

How should Skype think about this?

Consider this example. My company has installed Xten softphones and has various hardware solutions. With my SkypeSIP number I can then add my Skype to the Xten client and take my calls at work. No more problems or complaints about corporate security. I just add stuart_henshall@skypenet.com and everyone is happy.

Now my company could also arrange with Skype to "network" the corporate directory into Skype. Thus Skype agrees to bring into the Skype cloud name@ibm.com etc. Thus now IBM can manage the reputation of it's people with and when they are calling Skyper. Similarly IBM can port employee profiles to Skype. No doubt they can remain unlisted should they wish that.

Thus a SkypeSIP product is just like the augmented Xten Softphone for which they want $30 for volume. I think Skype could make more money as a value add.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (2)

This looks cool. If you're travelling light and want to take Skype with you on a USB stick complete with mini-headset then this is cool. I've not tested it. I would like to hear from anyone that has bought it.

.... a USB audio device plus flash driver.... make/receive the Skype call at FlashPhone, save your chat history and transfer file in flash driver.

....Travel and drop in any internet bar, keep your important file and chat record, plug and talk, unplug and leave.
Product-MPLAT

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

User stories

• Buzzword of the Week: Backskyping = Backchannel with Skype. Suw Charmin's post on the value and overload of backchannels.
• A success story: Skype and vSkype help presenters prep for a conference.
• "Mom Skypes speaker at Harvard law conference." Mom, can I skype you back? I'm in the middle of something...

Digital Lifestyles reviews Skype for PocketPC. 3 of 5 stars; poor sound quality.

A blind student is frustrated by Skype inaccessibility. No progress in any releases this year. Should Skype name a spokesperson for accessibility? How could accessibility be part of its developer program?

Players

Residential VoIP: MCI (soon to be part of Verizon) tests a Vonage-competitive service. Looks like smart approach. Willl MCI learn to work with local governments? Martin Geddes: how BT can fix Fusion, BT's combo of mobile, residential WiFi, and DSL is broken, at least if you're a customer.

Nokia and Apple are building a browser together. This could rock. What iServices might they build in? iTunes? iChat? iPhoto? iMovie? RSS? What would they have to leave out? Will we see the browser on iPods? And will callto: tags work?

Two services that show firms are learning from Skype. First, GTC Telecom rolls out Zanvo. "Zanvo is a free internet based calling service." Call-out service to come. Then there's Jajah.

"Free internet calls, live chat, video calls, low cost calls to ordinary and mobile phones, texting, HiFi sound quality, ringtones, message translator, low bandwidth, SIP and IAX compatible"

Coming soon

This week in Washington lobbying: The Congressional Wireless Caucus will hold a digital television luncheon, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is slated to hold a full-committee hearing on the changeover to digital television and the recovery of the broadband spectrum, and the Wireless Communications Association International holds its convention.

June 27-30. JavaOne. San Francisco. Several telephony tracks. Anyone written a Java wrapper for the Skype API?

June 28. Vertical LEAP. Santa Clara. Specialized search. Anything about searching p2p networks?

June 29-30. Where 2.0. San Francisco. Location, location, location. Just don't ask for directions in a crowded room...

July 13-14. Catalyst. San Diego. Same old SIP.

On Skype Journal, last week...

The Sultanate of Oman's Omantel blocks Skype.com. Anyone care to mirror Skype software?

Skype serves 10 billion minutes, upgrades the client, adds a browser to the client for big partners in Poland and China, and changes its home page to emphasize new users, and bans kids from its developer competition.

Videos: Stuart Henshall speaks for half an hour to the London Ecademy about presence. Phil Wolff interviewed by David Weinberger about Skype and politics.

Skype Journal's Bill Campbell interviews Skype board member Tim Draper about the company, the product, and the future.

After five days, vSkype served 1.6 million minutes and 272 thousand downloads.

On the fun and handy side

• A Greasemonkey script makes phone numbers on any web page into links, so you can just click on the number to call via Skype.
• Cordless Skype from a small Actiontec box.
• And the first story about plane-to-plane calls in Skype Air Heads.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Another reason to partner Skype and Firefox (the web browser of choice). Add Skypelinkify and making phone calls for Pizza off web pages just becomes a one click request. Skypelinkify activates SkypeOut calling capability to every phone number on any web page just by clicking. Let's give thanks to the guys at the Questar Developer Blog.

We have been using SugarCRM, and various VOIP solutions, among them Skype for some time, and I have always wanted to be able and click on a phone number I'd see on a web page. I felt so silly when I looked up a phone number on the web, and had to re-key it, or even to copy and paste it to somewhere else. Now, with the help of Marco, we have a neat Greasemonkey script: Skypelinkify. Skypelinkify links to a Skype callto:// URI every likely phone number on the web page. Questar Developer Blog Get the Instructions.

Thanks David for adding the details that made installing it easy. Remember it only works in Firefox, and not IE, since Greasemonkey is FF only.

It is *very* easy to install:
1. Install the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox from here. http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/
2. Open the Skypelinkify file from the link http://www.questar.it/blog/developer/skypelinkify.user.js
3. In the browser choose from the Tools menu, 'Install User Script...' Click Ok
4. From now on, any page you go to will have what the script thinks are phone numbers linked to the callto tag.

Note if you want to use this in another country you have to modify the script slightly.

David says: "I changed the file to skypelinkify the US phone numbers, as on my example screen. You only have to manually change the line "const defaultPrefix= '+1';" to the country prefix you want to use."

Cool! It also links all the numbers in a page. Benefits! No more copying and writing down those numbers. Just one more simple way that Skype and developers are making communication easier.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

• You can use your cordless phone.
• You get a solid ring on the attached phone.
• It's easy to make a SkypeOut without going to the PC.
• You can put a landline call on hold and skype and vice versa
• Finally I can make calls out by the pool.

• You need to be at the PC to connect to a buddy not on speed dial or to get any presence information.
• I can't listen to Skype voice mail via the Actiontec set up  Skype Forum.
• Dialing SkypeOut numbers is generally accurate although any pause in the dialing and you have to start again.
• While there is a speed dial function (you assign numbers to your Skype buddies) I'd prefer to scroll the list.
• No way to initiate a conference call from the Actiontec connected phone.
• If you unplug the USB it return Skype to Window's default sound settings and not the previous device used.

In my case I use multiple headsets and handsets. This has made my desk a mess and the four-into-one USB is fully utilized. Right now I can't say I have a great solution for either "working mode" bluetooth with standard headset or "social mode" using a handset either corded or cordless. What I want is cordless, no cables, great sound and better range than I get from my bluetooth for daily work. I'm still waiting on the solution. It would also help to have a quick toggle on Skype or via a plug-in that would switch devices even while in a call.

From the Forums, someone innovatively Skyperized all the phones in their house.

We've disconnected our main phone line from the patch panel where the lines run to other extensions in the house. We've connected our Actiontec Internet Phone Wizard to a spare PC and simply plugged the phone line into the wall outlet. Incoming Skype calls ring on all our house phones, and of course, we can place Skype calls from anywhere in the house!

Skype Forum

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

What happens when planes are full of web cam enabled Skypers? Will they  want social networking services that connect people while flying to a destination so they can connect as soon as they land? Combine it all and we'll have matching long haul destinations and Skype voyerism....  Another one of those un intended consequences.

If you've Skyped plane to plane let us know. Now I'm just waiting for five planes to be connected in a head in the clouds conference. How long will it take? Our thanks to Boeing Connexion and Skype for making it all possible.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

Should kids be allowed to program Skype's future? Aren't they the ones likely to make it, and show us new ways of communicating? So why would Skype set up a competition and then exclude them? That's exactly what Skype has done and I wonder why they are doing it?

Even Microsoft recognizes 15 years olds under their MVP program, which has had winners from 15 year olds to the mid-60's. Microsoft says their winners have two things in common: Great expertise and a willingness to freely share with their peers. That's exactly the type of encouragement I'd like to see given to Skype developers young and old alike.

Come on Skype change the rules again! You did it once already to change the heinous IP ownership issues. So forget the lawyers and let the kids enter. The kids are the communicators of tomorrow. Skype you ought to know better. Many of your own developers are not long out of diapers...

"Microsoft MVPs" represent a diverse group of backgrounds and professions, many of which are non-technical. They range in age from 15 years old to the mid-60's. Despite this diversity, they all have two things in common: great expertise in one or more Microsoft products, and a willingness to freely share their expertise, and their experiences, with their peers. Microsoft Most Valuable Professional

Please note that this competition is only open to non-commercial applications. Whilst we are not making any claims to source code, IP or anyother kind of ownnership we are trying to be explict in the terms about our rights to showcase your work on our web site and demonstrate them to our partners. We also cannot pretend that we may not wish to build similar tools ourself if we need to in the future. Skype Forum

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

See David Weinberger, blogger and Internet philosopher.



See David interview Phil Wolff for C|net TV.



See Phil talk.



See Phil talk about Skype, Skype and political activism, Skype and emergent social networks, Skype and the vicious backlash by incumbents.



Streamed Quicktime. About three minutes. (I can't believe I sound like that)

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Besides the fresh new face lift to skype.com you can find a new Windows release Version: 1.3.0.51

The Change Log reports:

Posted by Bill Campbell at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

• The word "Skype" is mentioned 10 times that I can see, reinforcing that you are in the right place.
• About 75%of the space invites you to download now, one way or another.

• So they talk about being a "little" program for making "free" calls.
  
• Bright friendly designs and colors.
  
• No corners or sharp edges anywhere!
  
• A handwriting font for most graphics, including the automated ones like the number of downloads.
  

• They brought an excerpt of the Share blog onto the front page: "Stories." Nothing in the stories links backs to Share, though. Share is now the "community" home page.
• They dropped the "minutes served" counter. Not so useful anymore. It will be a long time before it rolls over to 100 billion minutes served from its recent 10 billion. Would be nice if the remaining "downloads" counter linked to the statistics page.
• Very few words on the home page.
• Logo is smaller.
• They use hand-drawn bubbles around page elements to direct attention.
• I like how they say less on their home page. They summarize the business in three short declarative sentences:

"Skype is a little program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free (and easy) to download and use and it works with most computers. Download Skype now or learn more about Skype (incl. screenshots)."

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It was Fathers' Day around much of the world yesterday.

The present: vSkype recieved was purely informational, but for them it was an exciting day. Five days after launching their new video offering:

272,148 downloads. 1.6 million minutes served.

I believe this to be the fastest adoption rate for a Skype plug-in.

I interviewed the person I would dub the father of both Skype and vSkype, Mr. Venture Capitalist himself, Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

I posed questions for Tim in the following categories:

• The Skype Company
  
• The market for video
  
• The Skype Software Development Community
  
• The risks for Skype
  
• vSkype

Here is what Tim had to say...

The Skype Company

Is Skype a Global Telecom or secretly a media company in the making? A media company where calls are free; but content is a revenue generator?

I hadn’t thought of the media angle myself, maybe the founders have. For now, it is a communications platform. I think the biggest opportunity here is in collaborating with companies who want to do add-ons.

What are the challenges for Skype in Asia?

This is better answered by Niklas, but I think Asia mostly offers huge opportunites for Skype. Skype has great relationships with Tom.com in China and LiveDoor in Japan among others. More to come.

Stuart tells me his strategy is to move vSkype onto other presence networks, like AOL and Yahoo. What could Skype offer SCN (Santa Cruz Networks) to keep the technology in the family? Or should it?

I have always been a fan of open systems and free markets. I think SCN is best off going after multiple distribution channels, and Skype’s strategy is to work with as many application builders as they can.

How do you see SCN and Skype partnering with the other companies in your portfolio? For instance, you've invested in Akimbo, focusing on Video over IP to TV. Or your many social software plays. EVDB, FeedBurner, Meetup, Ingenio, Technorati, Wheels of Zeus and Xfire, for example. Are you encouraging Skype and SCN to broker technology or sell service to your other partners?

Great ideas. I am sure that many of them will be interested in working together. We will do our best to facilitate the meetings among them.

The Skype organization is growing at a very brisk clip. We know the Skype Application scales well, but their culture has to scale too. They seem a little thin in the manpower resources area. What is being done to make the culture more scalable?

I think Skype will benefit greatly from their API programs, from their affiliate programs and from allowing their users to continue to innovate around them. The team is exceptional and I believe they are moving in the right direction.

The market for video

This morning's (Saturday) New York Times article is about a guy in Seattle who teaches classical guitar in a number of US Cities and Spain using Videoconferencing. What other revenue opportunities do you see being enabled now that the good video technology is available? Where will we likely see the next disruption occur?

I try never to underestimate the imaginations of the creative people of the world. The "pong" videoconference game and the idea of putting a different setting behind you are two ideas.

The Skype Software Development Community

How important is a third-party development community to Skype and the Skype users?

I personally believe that there is nothing more important to Skype today than developing systems for third parties to easily add on to and plug in to and associate with Skype. We also want them (the third parties) to be very successful with their Skype relationships and a major initiative is underway to help streamline this process, while also helping consumers build trust in Skype applications.

Niklas Z has done a fantastic job of creating a huge new market ─ 40 plus million (soon to be 100 million) customers. Unfortunately these customers want everything for free. Skype is making money. But no one else seems to be. If third party developers do not make money they will soon disappear. What is an appropriate business model for the players in this market?

Give them time. Third-Parties for Skype have just begun building their applications. Soon there will be big successes from companies that pioneered using the Skype platform.

A number of developers who have seen vSkype have commented negatively that SCN has broken the terms of the Skype EULA and TOS with their Video Tab and floating V icon. This may, or may not true, I leave that to Skype’s attorneys. Doesn’t the lack of the ability to create plug-ins that map into the UI and maintain the Skype ease of use, look and feel actually hurt Skype and the third party developers? What can be done to improve this?

I don’t know about the first part of the question. I know Skype is doing everything they can to make it easy for third-parties to operate smoothly with Skype and their interface and these systems will get more sophisticated and streamlined with time.

The Platform Risks

That is exciting. Skype will remain open to creative and workable new solutions. There is a real benefit for a platform company to build an ecosystem that allows other companies to make money. Think of Ebay. Or even Microsoft.

SCN and vSkype

All offerings will have a different set of features and must find a market with an appeal to different users. SCN’s offering is especially good when talking to multiple users and showing things like powerpoint presentations and spreadsheets to a group. Skype’s own version will probably be more universal.

###

Posted by Bill Campbell at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Two new announcements from Skype Portal Partners (Onet - Poland and TOMSkype in China) appear to confirm my thoughts about Skype becoming a Global Media Network player as apposed to a being a Global Telecom as Skype touts on their home page.

Onet Poland

Breaking news from Gdańsk, Poland with Skype Journal’s contact Tomasz Tybulewicz reports via the Polish media site WirtualneMedia that Skype has partnered with Onet Poland’s biggest web portal. Skype will deliver a special Skype version which is Onet-branded. The first version is 1.3.11.48 and may be downloaded here.

“For now it is no different from original Skype, but later it'll be integrated with Onet services like online dating and other premium services. The story reports their aim to become number 1 IM in Poland (now the leader is First Polish IM software - GaduGadu roughly translates to SpeakSpeak or babblebabble) with over 4M users. New beta versions from GaduGadu have been released with voice and video.

The portal difference is ability to buy smaller credits - you can pay: 1, 3,
5, 10 and 20 Euros. This is great news for testing
skypeOut service.
Now for Polish users there is more then one way to pay for SkypeOut. Using Visa or
MasterCard, direct (online - you get credits in the moment you click
'send money') money transfer from mBank and Inteligo (Polish biggest
online banks), use service similar to PayPal (1-2 days from paying to
get the credits), standard Polish money transfer (1-4 days) or even
pay in a post office (but this can take even 14 days).

Ability to buy only 1 Euro can be useful for people outside Poland -
just to test service without risking much cash.”

It would appear that the Skype services are not being marked up. After currency conversions the price for VM purchased direct from Skype or Onet is the same.

So is Onet buying at a discount and earning revenue as an added-value reseller? I suspect so. So far my only response from an inquiry to a member of Skype London staffer is, “can’t comment on that”.

Tom Online China

From TOM Online in China. They too have a new Skype Version. It is 1.3 but with something special… a new Tab . The latest 1.3 for the western world lost a Tab on the Skype UI, while China gained a Tab. Google Translations tool comes up the following description for the new tab: “TOM label, gathering splendid content”.

Translated by my contact Jirong Zhou in Shanghai, China the new Tab provides instant links to content on the TOM Portal:
Voice Magazine, News, Online Search, Free e-mail, Weather, Horoscope and Fortune ,picture download, Free music ordering, Online community, BBS ( h’mmm no access to the Skype Journal, I don’t like that!)

How long before the Onet partner has a Content Tab? When will 3rd party developers have access to the Skype Content Tab through the API? Content is king…this Tab might solve a major problem for third-party developers to be successful in generating revenue...

Posted by Bill Campbell at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Rolls off the tongue.

As of now:

• Total Skype Downloads: 122,940,494
• Users Online Now: 2,296,041
• Total Minutes Served: 10,001,423,810

Milestones to come:

• 10 million concurrent users online
• 100 billion minutes served
• 1000 registered independent software developers
• 1000 Skype employees
• Zero PSTNs blocking Skype.com
• Someone from Skype as Time Magazine Person of the Year
• Dell ships millionth mobile phone bundled with Skype
• Skype office manager retires in luxury four years after Skype IPO

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (3)

• 285 lifetimes
• 333 million reruns of your favorite half-hour sitcom
• US$ 1 to 2.5 billion in long distance calls not paid to phone companies

What does it mean to you?

9999888778

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype Journal confirmed today that the only Internet Service Provider in the Sultanate of Oman blocks its residents from web access to Skype.com. This keeps people from downloading or updating the software and from buying SkypeIn phone numbers, voice mail service, and SkypeOut minutes.

Omantel, the Oman Telecommunications Company, offered stock to the public his week but still holds the state monopoly for both land-line telephony and Internet service. It is generally believed that Omantel blocks VoIP (voice over the Internet) as unlawful circumvention of their telephone system. Omantel staff said they don't expect changes to this policy. Some hope authorization of Nawras Telecom as a mobile service operator will eventually create competitive pressure.

600 thousand expatriates live in Oman and lower-cost telephony has been very popular. Net2Phone, Skype, MSN and the like help them stay in touch with their home country.

See also:

• Skype Journal: UAE Blocks Skype.com, 24 April 2005
• Skype Journal: UAE Blocks Skype.com; follow-up, 7 May 2005.
• Wikipedia: Communications in Oman

9998494563

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We were off line for a few hours today while some of us were asleep and others were in transit. We ran into our ISP's bandwidth limit much sooner than expected. Funny how exponential growth can surprise you, even when you're thinking about it all the time. Thanks to everyone who Skyped us; we really appreciate your support.

9998290565

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When will it roll over to

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Streaming video of Stuart Henshall's talk before the London Ecademy (Windows Media Player) about presence, networks, and more. via cherryleaf's blog.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)