I once considered AOL a relic, a doddering giant foundering without direction and burdened with legacy ideas and technology.

Not any more. 

Start with the AOL People Connection, where naturally evolving blogging, dating, and image sharing communities become formalized and juiced with extra resources. Or the Calcanis project reshaping Netscape.com into a peer news filter.  

The AOL of ten years' ago, even of five years' ago, wouldn't have been up for this kind of rapid evolution and leadership.

AOL's messaging family shows this managerial focus and maturity too. Read Andy Abramson's Requiem For The Future of VoIP. He explains AOL's closing of the AOL TotalTalk service as strategic abandonment of a commodity market in favor of AIM PhoneLine, "a true Phone 2.0 child and the future of voice." A walk through the reasoning with Andy shows strong situational awareness and readiness to act.

I'm also excited for their AIM platform evangelism. It opens their AIM technical architecture as web services. It's still only months old, but the words are right and they're hustling for geek attention. Now if they'd just do it across all their properties. It's prerequisite when competing for developers with Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft.

I'm glad to know aging fools, like myself, can get their act together.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

About a month ago a visiting friend told us that she was traveling to Mexico City the following weekend for her son's wedding. Her son lives in Minneapolis where he is involved in sales and servicing of mining equipment with lots of travel to southeast Asia and Australia; the bride was studying medicine in Houston. His mother started explaining to us how this was a match facilitated by Skype. So I followed up with Eric earlier this week now that they have settled into a new home in Minneapolis.

Eric learned about Skype a year ago May from a customer in Malaysia and started using it to communicate with this customer. He soon realized that Skype could replace his need for any calling card and now uses Skype routinely both from his home office from hotels, airports and customer sites while traveling.  In fact, he often uses Skype video for his presentations to make them more contextual. Within his sales presentations he talks about how his employer uses Skype, often including its free video conferencing, as one resource for providing customer service to customers who are half way around the world from the head office.. On one trip while making a sales visit in Orange, NSW, Australia his hotel did not have Internet so he did some "war driving" to locate another hotel with a free Internet signal to make his Skype calls.

However, Eric's more interesting story is about how he started to use Skype to facilitate his relationship with Lore shortly after they met a year ago this summer:

Skype definitely helped us to revolutionize our long distance relationship. We would have dates on Skype where we would do things together. For example, we would go out and buy the exact same sushi dinner and eat it together. We both enjoyed the same kind of sushi at the same time, but in different places. I even organized a Skype date for the day that I went down to Houston to propose to Lore. That way I knew she would be home! If we had to worry about long distance charges we definitely would not have talked as much over the past year.

In further discussion Eric mentioned how they did cooking contests on Skype - for example, simple-to-make quesadillas. They would actually watch each other make a quesadilla over Skype video; they then would sit down, eat their preparation and judge who's quesadilla is the best based on the look on the other person's face.

While Eric was painting his new apartment he would turn on Skype video such that Lore could watch the progression of the painting. In general he says, "Skype definitely helped us to make a long distance relationship more doable as it definitely makes you feel like you've been together for a longer period of time." He then went on to explain how they once did a "remote" shopping tour at the Brisbane Australia airport; Eric would walk through the stores showing items via Skype video while conversing with Lore via his Bluetooth earpiece; Lore then had the opportunity to select what items she would like to have purchased and brought home. And finally, when there was an occasion to celebrate they would each go out and buy champagne and drink toasts facilitated by Skype video and audio.

While they are now living together and have definitely reduced the need for Skype, I found that during my interview with Eric, Lore was on another laptop doing a Skype call with her parents and brother in Mexico City; Eric also uses Skype to talk with his family based in Toronto. Skype continues to be a facilitator in building and reinforcing their extended family bonds.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Bill Campbell's post about Wall Street is baloney, of course. Kent says it well.

You state "Wall Street frowns on the eBay/Skype side of the partnership according to the New York Times." I read the article you linked ... it makes absolutely NO mention of the market's (i.e. Wall Street's) view of the Google/eBay/Skype collaboration.

The share prices are "factually" listed at the end of the article (without comment) ... as is customary. As for "doing the math," Google shares rose 2.0% and eBay shares rose 1.9%. The difference is statistically insignificant.

There may be a story here, but this article, and yesterday's share movement for Google and eBay, isn't it.

Investors didn't even notice the Skype side of the deal. Why would they? Any benefits won't affect eBay Inc. cash flow for years. Meanwhile, they had lots of other news to consider. For example, the advertising part of the deal, extending Google Inc.'s ad distribution onto eBay sites mirroring the previous Yahoo!-eBay arrangement, and the Google Office Suite that positions Google more clearly in opposition to Microsoft. Both bits of news would clearly have more immediate effect on valuation of the business.

As for the Click-to-Call service, there is both an opportunity and a risk. The opportunity is to create a form of paid advertising with greater merit than page views or even click throughs. Web advertisers find page views a less relevant metric than ever. But someone actually talking to a sales person, well, I have a pretty good chance of converting that lead into a customer. It's the difference between driving by a car dealership and walking in the door to speak to a hungry rep.

The risks are equally huge. Click-to-Call assumes:

1. Potential eBay and Google customers have compatible smartphone software or hardware. eBay is now rolling out Skype to its buyers and sellers, starting back in June at the eBay Live conference. But uptake by the U.S. and Canadian public is very slow. Meanwhile Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, AT&T, Earthlink, Comcast and others are promoting their own VoIP enabled messaging clients, fragmenting the market.
2. They are willing to use PCs to talk. This is a new behavior. You can't assume customers will change their behavior in ways you approve. What percent of Skype users try voice once and never use it again?
3. Sellers are able to buy the right leads. Talk isn't cheap and margins are thin. eBay started by sheltering sellers from buyers; transactions just happened. Now sellers compete for buyers, augmenting eBay's natural traffic with their own off-eBay advertising and promotional strategies. For c2c, sellers must segment online prospects by interest in specific products. They must also decide which prospects are worth talking to. This is an auction-by-auction calculation and so far there is too little information to make an informed choice, especially for high volume sellers.
4. Sellers are able to answer callers. Most sellers aren't ready to talk to dozens or hundreds of callers a week. Some will need to set up phone-oriented CRM software, hire people or a service, and develop new call center management skills. They will learn to be agreeable and available at their callers' convenience instead of their own. These are new competencies, not lightly adopted and prone to misstep.

These are not fast, sure, or cheap to fix. But they can be managed. eBay and Skype know the problems and have started to address them. Skype education programs for eBay buyers and sellers is a start.

eBay's click-to-call service is FUDware today, the variation of vaporware that spreads fear, uncertainty and doubt among potential rivals. Nothing new for those who follow eBay financial conference calls. To get a payoff on c2c, eBay and Google will need to execute on branding Skype in the US and making the unnatural act of using your PC as a phone an everyday affair.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi. Just wanted to bring you up to speed and keep up our transparency. Let me tell you about Stuart, our independence, some policies, keeping secrets, reviewing, and ask for your help.

First, one of our owners and founders, Stuart Henshall, left the building earlier this year. He's still an owner but is happily working full time in an executive role at a stealth start-up. I've been asked not to say what his firm is called or what it's doing, but it's very cool. Skype cool.

Second, Jim Courtney joined us this spring. He's a great analyst and brings serious science, engineering, and business chops to his writing. He also brings his field work to the table, consulting on partnering strategies, channels of distribution, product management, and business planning. Jim's become one of the most linked-to VoIP bloggers and we're glad to have him.

Second, Jean Mercier asked if Skype Journal remains independent. Jean, an occasional Skype Journalist, noted I met Skype's Jaanus Kase. I've actually met a handful of Skype personnel. Yes, we remain financially indepedent of eBay and Skype. The only money changing hands that I know of is Skype paying part of Bill Campbell's air travel and lodging costs for a meeting next month. That trip is part of his uncompensated participation in Skype's closed Beta program.

Third, Skype Journal's policies guide our behavior. We link to them in our page footer. Our Editorial Policy governs accuracy, labeling and sourcing, explicit conflicts of interest, and accountability. Our Corrections Policy says we'll make things right. Our Syndication Policy points to our feed formats and provides terms of use. And our Accessibility Policy is more of a goal than reality, I'm sad to say.

Fourth, we respect confidences. If you'd like to tell us something as a confidential source, just tell us as you talk with us. We honor embargoes at least as well as the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek, subject to the usual conditions. If you hire one of contributors as a consultant, they will abide by mutual confidentiality agreements related to their work for you. For example, Bill's service to Skype through their closed Beta program is under an NDA so I never hear any inside scoop from Bill. And neither will you.

Fifth, our product reviews are filtered or frank but not both.

Bill Campbell loves to review new products, especially if they break through in a new category. But he won't print bad reviews. So the only reviews by Bill you'll see on Skype Journal will be happy ones, the disappointments washed out and negative feedback given privately. Part of this, as Bill explains it, is because many small companies can't survive a bad review or even a strong critique. Even big companies and their PR firms don't take criticism well and may exact retribution, which Bill prefers to avoid. So you get posts like Bill's Sony saves Skype on the launch of the Sony Mylo.

I'm less squeamish. For example, you might read my Sony Mylo suffers from Sidekick syndrome post, also in response to the Mylo's launch. They are so different a Sony publicist asked Bill if I worked here. A constructive review is useful for our readers, in the consumer advocacy spirit, and part of telling the whole truth.

So Bill is a gatekeeper, filtering in good news, and Jim and I will tell you the good and the bad. I hope this context helps readers and publicists.

Last, be a Skype Journal author. See our editorial wiki pages (still in draft) for more information.

• Becoming a Skype Journal Author

• Author Guide

• Editing Checklist - before sending your post

• Skype Journal Beats - What we would cover with infinite resources

• colophon - tools we use

Thanks. And if you have any questions or comments, leave them with this post, email editor at skypejournal doht com, or Skype me.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 04:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Jon Arnold is a Toronto-based communications consultant and IP blogger who does a weekly podcast on the Pulvermedia Podcasting Network with IP industry players. Jon and I also share in interest in the Boston Bruins, largely because he originally came from Boston and because my neighbor's son was one of the high points of what was a "down" season for the Bruins last winter. However while Jon is a dyed-in-the-wool Red Sox fan, I still maintain my loyalty to the Toronto Blue Jays when it comes to baseball. So we have our interests both outside and inside the VoIP arena.

Last week Jon invited me to participate as the guest on this week's podcast. Recorded late yesterday it turned out to be timely as a large portion of the podcast covers the Google-eBay announcement which resulted in several posts, not only on Skype Journal (here, here and here) but also by many of the VoIP bloggers such as Andy Abramson and Alec Saunders.I agree with Mathew Ingram in that the Google-eBay deal may turn out to be more important for Google than the Google Office announcement.

You can follow up (with a link to the podcast) here. It's been twelve years since I did media interviews as President of the then newly formed Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft. So if it sounds a bit rusty, it's just my nervousness associated with my first experience with doing a podcast and yet my sensitivity to try to keep a freely flowing conversation.moving along.

Thanks again to Jon for the invitation to participate.Give a listen (iTunes Player recommended) and hope it can provide some additional insight into where Skype is going.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jaanus has pointed out that today, for the first time, over 7,000,000 users were on Skype earlier today.  I usually find Skype peaks at some time between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. EDT. And this benchmark is reached on Skype's third birthday.

Now if Skype would fix the bug whereby presence information is not always current in version 2.5, we could get back to saying Skype is a real time communications service. I have noticed the same problem that Rachel, Rick Segal's very articulate daughter, has blogged about. For Rachel and her MusicIP team associates, Skype and its IM presence/chat engine has become "our office":

I'm criticizing because up until a couple weeks ago, the MusicIP team wasis as dependent on Skype for connecting with one another as an all-in-one-office company would be dependent on the water cooler, or for that matter, chairs [modified because after I thought for a minute...we still are dependent on it - we just complain about it now where we didn't before]. Taking to each other from a number of cities (which is usually at about six, but at other times people could be spread out among up to 10 different places), brainstorming via group chats, or simply sharing an interesting link for a laugh - more than our actual office, Skype is our office.

I have it on good authority the Skype development team is looking into this issue as I write. At the same time, Rachel's experience demonstrates, as Skype becomes mission critical to virtual communities worldwide, the importance of thoroughly testing new Skype releases to ensure they are backwards-feature-compatible. It also demonstrates that Skype's presence engine is just as important as, if not more important than, the actual voice communications features.

Let's hope we don't have to wait for version 2.6 going gold to fix this problem.

Update: Rachel has received a response from Roman in Skype Customer Support. Let's just say it's one more indication that Skype employees have just as much passion for their work as Skype users have for using Skype. Quoting Rachel again:

I've done customer service on an absolutely miniscule scale compared to what he's dealing with on a daily basis; his job isn't easy. We're cranky, we're put out, and we want answers. Roman clearly takes his job seriously and is representing the company he is a part of extremely well. It's not easy sometimes to articulate the right reply to a customer inquiry. But it takes a ton more courage and time to respond to said whiny customer in this much more public format.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype is three years old today! As a special gift they also had 7 million concurrent users online. Wow!

Well done Skype.

For more on the story check out Jean Mercier's blog. and of course the Skype blog by Jaanus.

Thanks to Tony in Austria for the pic.

Posted by Bill Campbell at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

The early results are in. Wall Street frowns on the eBay/Skype side of the partnership according to the New York Times.

"Google's shares rose $7.69 yesterday, to close at $380.95, while eBay's shares rose 49 cents, to $25.79."

I think they got it wrong. But you can do the math!

What do you think? Are Skype users into family-friend communication and social networking or are Skype users a bunch of capitialist commercial buyers and sellers? What did Niklas Zennström create? Where is his new team taking Skype?

We would like to hear your views!

Posted by Bill Campbell at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype gets hooked on Google. What's all this mean?

As Jaanus Kase of Skype puts it, "What does all this mean in detail? We'll see next year, as testing of all these new joint initiatives is said to begin in early 2007. For now, one thing is sure -- great companies working together is always exciting news."

Yes, the Google-Skype story feels very upbeat. It is a tremendous opportunity to monetize their huge customer base. This is bigger than SkypeOut and very scalable.

So do we have to wait till 2007? Will there be no sex? I doubt it. The new Skype-enabled Google Tool Bar is available in the 2.6 Preview Release Jaanus blogged about here.

Big Disclaimer

The formal press release ended on what seemed to me to be an unusual disclaimer,

"At this time, eBay does not expect this agreement will have material impact on its financial statements in 2006 or 2007."

Really? No sex? Let's see later today how Wall Street votes. eBay shares should, in my opinion (just about worthless), get a big boost.

To find out I talked with Don Albert, the North America General Manager for Skype. Don told me:

'Click-to-call' is something we have not done before. It is brand new. We are really excited by it. It is a new revenue stream for eBay it is just too early to predict financial impacts.

But when I asked Don, "How do you rank this relationship as a "big deal" or a "modest deal" relative to the Google-MySpace partnership about two weeks back?" Don gave me this comment:

"I am not too familiar with the terms of the Google-MySpace deal but this deal has enormous potential."

If you are not familiar the Google-MySpace terms looks like this:

As part of the deal, Google is expected to pay Fox at least $900 million in revenue share payments based on certain traffic and other commitments promised by Fox. These payments are expected to be made from the first quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2010. Source: Reuters

And you can read what Forbes said about the Google-MySpace deal here.

If you use Google Trends you can get some comparison of MySpace and Skype:

The big picture Don sees is this:

"It's about building new revenue streams. Any other company out there who wants to get in on 'Click-to-Call' better talk to Skype. We have 113 million users they can access. Getting buyers and sellers to connect is a new business model. It is a new way to add value for Skype users."

Ad Free; Spyware Free?

So I asked Don, "Skype has always promised an ad free, spy free application. The idea of a Google Tool Bar has struck the fear of God into some of my fellow skypers. Is this the first step to a change in the Skype philosophy?"

"We have no intention to have ads to the Skype Client unless they add value."

What about brand dilution between Skype and Google Talk?

"Bill, can I walk you through how this works? Users searching using the Skype-enabled Google Tool Bar on the web will be presented with a phone icon. Depending upon the default client they use, they will be presented with a Skype icon or a Google Talk icon. If a user has both clients they may even be given a choice to select the default client they wish to use for "Click to Talk".

What is really happening here?

My answer is simple: "How else do you get to be the number one property on the Internet?"

There has been a rage of partnerships lately as the race to dominate the talking, space-sharing, auctioning and search engine markets. Today's eBay/Skype and Google event was just another.

Getting into bed is about moving up this list (from the Forbes article) of hottest Internet properties.

Is today's story just about the foreplay? Who knows for sure? Click-to-Call buyer-seller functionality has arrived! What is important is what Don Albert says, "this deal has enormous potential."

Posted by Bill Campbell at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In a press release issued this morning, Google and eBay announced an agreement which comprises "two primary components involving text-based advertising and "click-to-call" advertising functionality";.In the course of the press release there are several implications for Skype; however, let me draw attention to where Skype already has incorporated Google searches, namely, as an option in the search icon of the Skype Toolbar for Internet Explorer and Skype Toolbar for Firefox:

Other options in this Skype Toolbar's search element include Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, eBay and Shopping.com.

Lisa Leff at AP provides a good overview; combined with the press release we can see the following implications for Skype:

• Google will become the exclusive provider of text-based advertising for eBay outside the U.S. This complements the Yahoo-eBay deal last June that applies only to the U.S.
• "Click-to-call" integration involves both eBay and Google platforms worldwide "using Skype or Google Talk". It remains to be seen how this will play out but certainly with over 100 million registered users, we can see where Skype's strength lies here.
• Skype will soon offer its users an option to download the Google Toolbar to which Skype will add a custom button. Probably won't look a lot different from the Skype Toolbar for IE or FF shown above.
• The most interesting comment from a Skype observer's viewpoint is the statement: "The companies will also explore interoperability between Skype and Google Talk via open standards to enable text chat and online presence." Does this mean that Skype will execute on its opportunity for IM Federation Leadership and take up Alec Saunders' challenge issued when the Skype code cracking story broke:

Skype should take a leadership position in publishing those protocols, and encourage others to build upon them. The Skype client becomes the first, and possibly the best, way to use the Skype protocol, but not the only way.

This agreement also recognizes the "international" aspect of Skype with over 72% of all users having registered a language other than English as their primary language:

• Skype has developed a universal Phone Number Recognition API component that Skypifies any phone number recognized on a web page or in an e-mail. In fact the PNR has been incorporated not only into all the Skype Toolbars but also into the latest release of Skype (ever wonder why you now see a flag associated with phone numbers in Skype 2.5?).
• Skype has just announced a localization support utility for its third party developers comprising a list of more than 2600 phrases translated into Skype's 27 supported languages.

Today Alec hypothesized on where the money is in "Click-to-Call". Jaanus Kase, Skype's Chief Blogging Office, has commented on the interoperability item above. Andy has thrown in his perspective, including what he hears about Google's "weak" pursuit of PSTN termination. I'm sure we'll see lots of other coverage, especially given I first heard the story on various morning television shows that are viewed at my fitness club. However, the final proof of this agreement's value and impact is going to take a few years to play out.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Google and eBay are swapping spit over ex-US advertising inventory, toolbar buttons, and click-to-call ads. Maybe even bring GTalk and Skype. We'll have exclusive interviews and more later today. News releases follow, but first impressions...

• Search Engine Watch: Click to Call is U.S. only and mid-2007.
• Blogging Stocks: Google eBay deal is much ado about nothing. A promise to do something sometime ain't worth much.
• Media Buyer Planner: Google, eBay Ink Click-to-Call and Text Ad Pact
• Andy Abramson: "Google won on this deal."
• Russell Shaw: "Google Talk isn't interested in Internet telephony's full potential"

Google and eBay Sign Multi-Year Agreement to Connect Users, Merchants, and Advertisers Around the Globe

MOUNTAIN VIEW and SAN JOSE, Calif., August 28, 2006 - Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) and eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced a multi-year agreement to benefit both companies' collective communities of users, merchants and advertisers around the globe. The agreement consists of two primary components involving text-based advertising and "click-to-call" advertising functionality.

Specifically, Google will become the exclusive text-based advertising provider for eBay outside the United States. In addition, eBay and Google plan to integrate and launch "click-to-call" advertising functionality that leverage both Skype and Google Talk globally in each company's respective shopping and search platforms. The companies said the financial terms for certain components of the deal involve revenue sharing, but did not disclose specific details.

"We're pleased to expand our long-standing relationship with Google to explore new market opportunities, like click-to-call advertising, that benefit both our communities of users," said Meg Whitman, President and CEO, eBay Inc. "People continue to evolve how they shop, communicate and advertise online. By combining the power of eBay in ecommerce and Skype in communications with Google's leadership in search and advertising, we can increase the usefulness of the Internet for shoppers, merchants and advertisers around the world."

"This agreement underscores how much we value eBay as a partner," said Eric Schmidt, CEO ofGoogle. "Our technologies will allow us to connect users to relevant advertising across eBay's international properties. By working together to promote click-to-call functionality through Google Talk and Skype, we are offering advertisers another innovative way to connect with customers."

The companies plan to begin testing the text-based advertising and click-to-call initiatives in early 2007 that will be evaluated over a period of several months. The specific components and timing of implementation will depend upon initial test results, and will vary by market, largely driven by local dynamics and joint capabilities.

Details of the agreement include:

Search and Advertising on eBay Sites Outside the U.S.

Google will become the exclusive provider of text-based advertising on eBay outside the United States. This agreement provides Google advertisers access to one of the Internet's most robust online communities while enhancing the shopping experience for eBay buyers by making it easier for them to find the products they seek.

"Click-to-Call" Advertising and Technology Integration

Google and eBay also plan to integrate and launch "click-to-call" advertising functionality within eBay's U.S. and international marketplaces and Google's search platform. The click-to-call capability will allow a user to click on a link or icon within a product or service advertisement to initiate an Internet voice call to participating eBay merchants or Google advertisers directly from either company's respective sites, using Skype or Google Talk.

Click-to-call advertising is an emerging e-commerce model that brings buyers and sellers together by opening up new ways for advertisers and merchants to generate customer leads using the Internet. It is particularly valuable for merchants or advertisers who may not have a website, or who currently use channels such as local directories to reach potential customers.

Starting in the near future, Skype will offer its users the option to download the Google Toolbar, to which Skype will add a custom button. The companies will also explore interoperability between Skype and Google Talk via open standards to enable text chat and online presence.

At this time, eBay does not expect this agreement will have a material impact on its financial results in 2006 or 2007.

###

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the first in a series going deeper into the "softer" business case for using Skype in the workplace. The series' launching point is the Squidoo Lens 8 More Reasons For You To Pick Skype At Work.

People ask "Why did Skype take off?" One reason: fabulous user experience. The time from click-to-download to your first conversation is short. And Skype outperforms expectations for ease of use and sound quality. First timers smile, laugh - you should see their faces in a class.

I contrast this with the first time I used the 1998 version of SAP. You attended a two-day class to learn how to fill out a simple invoice. Then promptly adjourned to a local bar to drown the frustration and helplessness.

Back to feelings. Great experiences stimulate adoption, indifferent and bad ones trigger abandonment. As true for industry as for consumer goods. Any IT manager will tell you it's hard to redeploy a product once users have puked on it. So happy, confident user experience curtails this risk.

Comparing Skype to other solutions, how well do they deliver on first impressions? Which indicators of customer delight fit this context?

Let's look at some steps in a new user's experience.

1. Download
2. Installation
3. Account creation 
4. Recognition of the dominant metaphor
5. Acceptance of the metaphor
6. First buddy
7. First chat
8. First call made
9. First call taken
10. First conference call
11. Restarting without logging in
12. First change of presence

Do users feel in charge? At each step, Skype provides excellent situational awareness (what you're doing now, what you're about to do, progress, and resolution - done or not done).

Can users figure things out? For core newbie tasks it is easy to discover how to do it, and to try things without fear. Lots of small design elements guide user attention to common tasks. And new contexts (like being in a call) emphasize the most relevant choices (like hanging up).

Do users feel smarter about Skype after using it? Positive and negative feedback so that a typical user learns more?

Do you trust Skype? If Skype was a person, it would be the nice, affable, helpful person next door. It gets there in part by soaking the user experience in an overwhelmingly soft, happy, fuzzy, warm, nurturing aesthetic. Conversation balloons. Light colors. Lots of white space.

More than this, Skype is the person who delivers. Trustworthy, reliable, straightforward. No hidden issues or personal baggage. Simple, fast, poised, and convenient.

Is Skype getting better at this? The trend may be the most important factor. Is today's Skype design more or less effective at creating "Aha! moments"? If it's better, how fast is it improving? Is it balancing feature creep with smooth activity escallation?

Extend this list; it's far from exhaustive. But you take my point. When comparing Skype to other messaging platforms, start with a product that delights the average person. That engages. And reinforces good behavior. How well does the average "smart phone" desk station with PBX score? Soft phones? Enterprise IM? Video conferencing tools? Are they more like old school SAP? Or like Skype?

Phil Wolff is managing editor of Skype Journal and a principal analyst of Skype Journal's professional services practice.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jaanus Kase. Skype's Chief Blogging Officer who visited Phil in Oakland, is also the Chief Skype Forum Officer and has recently completed leading the transition of Skype's Forums to a new platform that provides both visible and backend improvements resulting in a much more resilient and secure forum ecosystem. Key issues included login protocol, security and anti-spam measures. So what's changed? From Jaanus' Announcement: Welcome to the new Skype Forums post:

Here are the most important changes.

• separate forum logins discontinued - you now use Skype Name
• new forum platform - means more security, less spam, new features
• layout and skin changes - you can now use the Skype Emoticons and Skype My Pictures
• admin team reorganization - see below, "Who's who"
• structure changes

The most important "first use" change is the "Identity Re-claim" process for transitioning to using your Skype login information as the login to the new forums. But it's effectively the usual Skype login web page process; you do need to think about what you want to use as your Forum Display Name (which is independent of your Skype Name and becomes your identity on Skype Forum posts). The details are on the Announcement page linked above.

Jaanus, on his personal blog, has written a much more detailed description of the more than year-long process his Skype team went through in identifying problems with the previous php-BB-s platform, determining the objectives of the "forum remake", deciding on a new platform (Invision Power Board) and then executing on the transition in as seamless a manner as possible. In addition to making the change in login protocol, the most important considerations was to not lose access to three years of user feedback and passion. Makes for an especially good read if you're involved in managing a similar user forum.

Our congratulations to Jaanus and his team for such a successful transition. And may the user passion continue to be expressed!

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 04:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You may have noticed the new banner. My photo is from Skype blogger in chief Jaanus Kase's side trip to Oakland, California, earlier this year. Jaanus and I had lunch at Everett & Jones near the water. I wasn't impressed by the barbeque that time but it was great to finally meet Jaanus and talk enterprise blogging, online community, and social software. In the photo, Jaanus is taking a picture of cargo railcars going to the Port of Oakland through the Jack London Square neighborhood. Oakland is a major cargo hub, the fourth busiest container port in the United States.

Railroad rights-of-way made it possible for the telegraph network to spread across North America in the 19th century (like Skype on top of the Internets). At some point Western Union lost its dependency on the railroads, entrenched its monopoly, and lobbied Washington to protect it (like the phone and cable companies which followed). Meanwhile, the railroads developed standards so cars from one railroad could run on all the tracks. They later worked with truck and sea shippers to standardize the cargo container (packets for atoms). Containers slashed shipping costs. Now globalization is the standard in a world economy. And a bottle of Stormhoek, South African blogging wine can be shipped to California for less than a euro.

The masthead change is part of a long list of small site improvements. One side effect: you can read SJ on many mobile phone browsers. 

Help me rotate the photo a few times every month. When you have a snapshot and a story, post it to flickr, tag it "skypejournal", and let me know via email or Skype.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jaanus, the blog marketing face of Skype, has posted details of a contest to celebrate Skype's third birthday along with some brief historia about the launch of Skype on August 29, 2003 and their efforts to get the first 100 registered users..

If you want to celebrate our 3rd birthday with us, you don't have to send us expensive gifts or flowers. But you can send a birthday card. Please e-mail your birthday card to happybirthday@skype.net. It can be a picture, photo, video, just written wishes, anything really. If it's a picture or video, you can put it on Flickr, YouTube or any other of those Internet things and just send us the link. Please include your Skype Name.

Go join the celebration of bringing together over 100 million registered users. There are prizes offered; Skype Journal editors are not eligible even if we are not Skype employees.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The secret sauce used by Skype that results in the excellent voice quality of Skype-to-Skype calls and facilitates quality in Skype-to-SkypeIn/Out calls is the Voice Engine for PC and Voice Engine for (Windows) Mobile licensed by Skype from Global IP Sound ("GIPS"). Combining codecs, echo cancellation technology and other voice and packet management features the various GIPS Voice Engines eliminate or minimize the impact of inherent (wired or WiFi) network problems and deficiencies introduced by factors such as delay, jitter, packet loss, clock-drift, acoustic and network echo.

In a press release last Monday, Global IP Sound announced the extension of this relationship to include Skype's licensing of Voice Engine for Embedded such that the GIPS features and technology can be deployed in voice-enabled hardware devices. In an interview with Wendy Toth, VP Marketing, and Dr. Jan Linden, VP Engineering at GIPS, we learned:

• This agreement will permit the incorporation of GIPS Voice Engine technology into future WiFi phone offerings. (It is not included in the recently released WiFi phones announce last month.)
• It would facilitate the offering of a Skype for Symbian phones (such as Nokia's N-Series) although no such client has yet been announced by Skype.
• In July Skype/eBay and GIPS resolved the patent dispute that Skype effectively assumed upon Skype's acquisition of Sonorit and Camano Networks.

Eleven years ago I had been close to the scene when Microsoft did an original one-time licensing of the Spyglass Mosaic web browser that formed the core of the original Internet Explorer; Spyglass then went out of business within the following year as they had no sustainable revenue stream. I asked Wendy what was different about the GIPS business model such as to sustain and grow their revenues, given that Skype has licensed GIPS but has no ongoing revenue base for basic Skype calls. She responded:

• GIPS has developed a business model that relies on both initial one-time and ongoing usage revenues.
• GIPS has built up a diversified customer base such that GIPS's success is not significantly dependent on their Skype relationship.
• GIPS has set the bar for voice quality through their unique overall methodology for voice processing, incorporating echo cancellation and their proprietary codecs.

Other questions we posed to Wendy and Jan:

• What is the status of Global IP Sound's video technology which was demonstrated at Fall VON last year? Effectively they have extended their Voice Engine into a Multimedia version that incorporates video technology. The initial licensee of Voice Engine Multimedia is AOL. To date there has been no licensing by Skype but she would not reveal whether there were any negotiations to extend Skype's license to include Voice Engine Multimedia.

• Where do you see the real push or pull for compatible hardware devices? Dual mode WiFi handsets and compatible ATA devices.

• What is the most significant trend you have seen in the past year? Asia is a market that is growing much faster than our North American and European markets. Of particular note are Korea and India.

• Where do you see the market in three years? We will see VoIP go away as a term as it becomes transparent to all voice communications infrastructure. On the other hand it will impact how we communicate as new voice applications evolve. GIPS will be a player anywhere there is voice processing on the network. As an example, have a look at GIPS Border Interface Engine, bringing GIPS technology to the carrier market at the VoIP/PSTN gateway.

In summary:

• Expect to see new Skype-Certified hardware incorporating GIPS Voice Engine Embedded in the not too distant future.
• Given that their relationship has matured to the point where they can quietly resolve potentially divisive issues such as the patent dispute, the GIPS-Skype relationship that is a key element contributing to Skype's success has become much stronger.
• Going forward GIPS will be a player in the VoIP communications ecosystem at the client, device, network and carrier level .
• Question: Will Skype take advantage of other GIPS Voice Engine technology to provide improved video as well as a Symbian Skype client?

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In a post this morning, Alec Saunders has introduced Hullo, a new calling service that allows you to control not only to which phone your calls will both originate and be received but even seamlessly hand off calls to another phone as you go from, say, your home to your car. While Alec's post provides much more detail, two key points:

hullo bills itself as a personal call manager.  The promise is that it will help you stay in touch better than ever before.  It incorporates a buddy-list style softphone with some very slick advanced telephony features. 

The company is focusing their launch on the college and high school crowd.  The features have been designed recognizing that young people are increasingly the most sophisticated users of mobile phones.  hullo's feature set makes it easy to use those phones to socialize, arrange events, or stay in touch with friends and family who might live in different cities.  It's not hard to imagine how appealing this will be for students away from home for the first time.

Easy to set up conference calls, "it will scale pretty much infinitely, because it's not peer-to-peer based, relying on Versatel Networks' EdgeIQ series hardware on the backend to handle the traffic". During the beta period, for which no time period is specified, all calls, even long distance within North America, are free. You can originate calls from either the Hullo softphone client or via any of your phones - home, office or mobile - up to seven personal numbers can be specified.

I have set up the client and made a call that was crystal clear in quality. Currently it will pick up your Outlook and MSN Messenger contacts, at your option; however, as Alec mentions, it lacks an Instant Messaging and presence capability. Eventually it may pick up presence information from other IM clients such as MSN Messenger; apparently, with the appropriate development work, an interface to Skype is feasible.

The most interesting aspect is that it provides an interface via which you can experience managing which phone you are using for a particular circumstance. You can launch a call via your PC and then walk away from the PC to continue the call's conversation.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

• Hello Kitty Headphones and Microphone. Can't wait to find these in the Skype store or in starter packs, although I'm more of a Badtz-Maru boy. long way round via shiny shiny, via spacedim, via Gizmodo.

• SKY-click's web based call center went live yesterday. Skype under the covers. Salesforce.com integration. SKY-click home.

• Six minute screencast of BuzzTopix Skype Social Networking. A pretty cool way to have structured, agenda-driven Skype conversations, especially with debates or other structured dialog. I can easily see this being rolled into eBay conversational markets.

• iSkoot should learn from EQO as EQO continues to put its new eggs in non-Skype baskets. EQO is bringing mobility to MySpace, Friendster, and Tagworld, with  Skype doesn't yet have the US brand or marketing muscle to make North American software partners successful just by sticking a Skype Certified label on your product. Skype is building that muscle, but "Skype" isn't such a household name here that co-branding guarantees uptake. A Skype deal is necessary but not sufficient. So diversification is a good move this year.

• Scary brand note. Skype calls are buggy, at least per this fake public service announcement from "Men Against Drinking and Dialing." It's only funny if you share with the commercial's director a common experience of Skype calls being unintelligible, breaking up, and cutting out. Aside from dealing with the truth about a product, how do you deal with a hostile idea that spreads? Starve a meme, man the phones? 

• Skype from your television with MediaREADY set-top boxes. Florida's Video Without Borders makes money through Skype's affiliate program when users of their Internet-connected media centers download and use Skype for Linux.   

• Step through an Ubuntu Linux installation with Skype. Courtesy of the Ubuntu London blog.
   
  # sudo apt-get install skype

should get you going.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Microsoft Live Contacts offers developers 400+ million active users with 12 billion contact records. That's more than Earth's population, so should we assume a bit of duplication among the 30 contacts per active user?

A peak of 20 million simultaneous online (8.7% of the Live Messenger population, or 1 in 12) is 2 to 3 times more than Skype's reported raw peak usage.

Microsoft says Messenger users make about 10 million daily video calls. Skype's decentralized conversation prevents us from knowing Skype's messaging traffic.

Microsoft is building Live into a hot software development platform, including Live Messenger tools. Live's demographics should be strong bait for Microsoft's developer, co-marketing, and distribution ecosystems. A mashup city worthy of serious phreaking.

More details from Richard MacManus's Read/WriteWeb, one of my favorite blogs, about from the Auckland Microsoft TechEd 2006 conference where George Moore, GM of Windows Live, spoke.

George Moore also told the conference attendees some stats of the current MS active audience -

• 240M Hotmail users,
• 230M Messenger,
• 72M Spaces,
• 8M mobile subscribers.

He tells the mostly developer crowd at TechEd that "this is the audience that can be reached by Windows Live services." He goes on to say that at any one moment,

• 20M people are simultaneously connected on Messenger and
• 5.7 Billion messages are sent per day.
• Also there are 300M F2F video conversations on Messenger every month.

George said Spaces is "now the largest blogging service on the planet" (RM: so it's bigger than blogger.com?) - it grew to 30M accounts in its first 6 months.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (1)

During trip earlier this month to Nova Scotia, I visited Baddeck, Alexander Graham Bell's summer refuge from the heat and humidity of Washington, DC for the last 37 years of his life. Interestingly the estate is still (privately) occupied by descendants, including his 101-year old granddaughter. However, the highlight was to visit the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, a Parks Canada museum of his trials and experimentation.

From the era of the Voice 0.1 Manifesto and pre-Skype Certification: Just send me the voice -- not exactly your average Nokia N91! Oh, and definitely not suitable for SkypeIn or SkypeOut.

Definitely worth a visit for anyone keen on the history of the telephone; Alexander Graham Bell was the original technogeek often working late into the night, applying his curiosity and energy to not only telephony but also avionics, air conditioning, marine engineering and structural design. Some interesting notes that we can relate to in this era of telephony's evolution into the VoIP age:

• He was effectively trained as a speech therapist following in his father's and grandfather's profession of teaching the deaf; his father's work with a phonetic alphabet, where each sound is represented by a character, triggered his interest in developing the telephone. But what are codecs and Internet packets but ad hoc "phonetic" codes for the coding/decoding and transmission of sound?
• While applying for his original telephone concept patent in 1875, a year prior to the first actual telephone call, he spent a good part of the next 18 years in the courts defending his patents -- successfully.
• In all his homes he had a separate office/laboratory room where he could be a night owl geek writing, experimenting and thinking. But he never had a telephone installed in any of his offices/labs.
• He was a meticulous note taker and recorder of all his activities and observations, no doubt contributing to his night owl behavior. His (deaf) wife even painted a "surprise gift" picture of an owl with his visage worked into the owl's body to express her frustration; the painting is in the museum. But he most wanted to be reputed for his efforts in teaching the deaf.
• While his wedding gift to his wife were all but 10 of his shares in Bell Telephone Company; several of the museum exhibits leave the overall impression that she financed many of his subsequent activities. While there were three other original BTC shareholders, including "Watson" and his father-in-law, no mention is made of the actual share size of the original company. One has to assume these were the days before the concept of market capitalization appeared.
• The original photophone was developed in the 1880's but did not take pictures; in fact it was a communications experiment that had nothing to do with photography. However, the methodology was effectively a laser short of today's fibre optic technology. Aided by mirrors and a selenium substrate he demonstrated that voice could be transmitted very short distances over sunlight. It would simply require a laser;'s monochromatic, coherent light source to transmit over the long distances characteristic of today's fibre optic lines.
• He was a founder of the publisher of that coffee table magazine that became a cable channel: the National Geographic Society.

The AGB timline and some more pictures:

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Om says all the money in VoIP will go to device makers. Aswath agrees, saying the VoIP carriers and directories will be frozen out of value adds. Andy Abramson says "it's in add on applications and new services. The infrastructure costs have to be revenue neutral. Look to areas like access, identity/directory and new apps..." Kevin Delaney says "Value-Added services such as content delivery maybe, but that's not going to be the big winner. It's going to end up like cell phones. People want the pretty ones with all the extra features. It will become like computers where you buy addons to improve your service and what you can do with it."

Don't miss what Skype's doing. Forget about SkypeOut and SkypeIn revenue.