Over at O'Reilly's eTel, Gershon Goren, CTO of Webdialogs, Inc., publisher of the Unyte Desktop Sharing Extra for Skype, goes back to the time when Webdialogs decided to partner with Skype and speaks of the trials and tribulations they went through in working with Skype to launch Unyte. There wasn't always a Skype Developer Program and it was not always clear who the decision makers were at Skype.

As we began investigating partnering with Skype, we quickly realized WebDialogs would be pioneers with Skype in the level of integration that would be required for success. And so began the WebDialogs development team's journey with Skype--one that took unexpected twists and turns along the way. But our team of developers and the Skype Developer Program team persevered through a mutual learning process. And, as a signpost for other developers, we believe we proved that persistence pays and challenges can be overcome by working together for mutual gain--with the result being a tightly integrated product offering.

He talks about the evolution from the highly unstructured Skype Early Adoption program, the evolution and maturation of communications infrastructure to support development between two parties to today's situation with a much more mature Skype Developer Program. But the effort is paying off:; the bottom line reads:

Furthermore, our early perception that integration with Skype would pay dividends down the road has indeed come to pass. Our relationship with Skype has driven the bulk of Unyte's usage and helped us build our user base. Unyte has more than 500,000 users, largely as a result of our relationship with Skype.

Our relationship with Skype's SDP has enabled Unyte to acquire a broad international customer base that now reaches 30 countries. Without our relationship with the Skype Developer Program, this kind of market reach would not have been possible for us. {Skype Journal's bolding)

Stories we need to hear as Skype leads up to its forthcoming Skype Developer's Conference in Boston in ten days. Check the eTel site for the full story. Hat tip to Andy for pointing us to this.

Unyte: An Extras Gallery Success Story

Unyte Testing Beta of Enhanced Desktop Sharing Tool

Tags: Unyte, Skype Developer Program, Webdialogs

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have just read Ike Roelfsema's post on "Skype Goodbye and Skype Hello". Seems like Jaanus Kase has been bitten by the academic bug and is returning to University. Jaanus picks his study subjects well; I have always respected Carnegie Mellon as having one of the best programs involving human interactions with digital technology. From not only cost effective but also results oriented software development processes to actual human-computer interfacing, they have always had some of the best programs; I have had the pleasure of working with some of their methodologies and graduates.

While at Skype, Jaanus has become probably Skype's most public face through his authorship of some of the most read Skype blogs, his hosting of Skype's Group Chats on Skype topics referenced elsewhere here on Skype Journal and his participation in many Skype events. Thanks Jaanus!

Ike, who has long been a Skype "addict", a Skype Forum moderator, publisher of her Skype Lifestyle blog and builder of a business structured around introducing Skype-based processes into business services, has just spent her first day, as a Skype Consultant, as full-time Head of Communications and Forum Operations. As such she is assuming responsibility for managing Skype's forums, the great team of moderators of those forums, the development of the forums and related feedback/communication channels within Skype. (Sounds like someone at Skype was attending Richard Edelman's keynote at mesh 2007 earlier today.)

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TechCrunch: eBay's StumbleUpon Acquisition: Confirmed at $75 Million. eBay's getting a real-time context generator. Each time you thumbs-up or tag a page, you're joining other people who share that interest. So when you build Skype into the StumbleUpon toolbar, those contexts will enable, if not trigger, live conversations among millions of Stumblers. eBay's been investing in context generators like Meetup.com for a while.

Paid Content: Exclusive: Former Cisco Exec Mike Volpi In Line To Be New Joost CEO. He's a former Skype director, too, one of the ones who sold out to eBay. Hmmm, who is Joost's eBay? 

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

About to head down for the second day of mesh 2007 with its themes of Marketing and Business. Looking forward to discussions with keynote Connectors such as Global CEO of the PR firm of the same name, Richard Edelman, and Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster.

At some sessions I have been sitting with proficient blogger, Tony Hung, who publishes Deep Jive Interests and is editor of BlogHerald, one of the oldest blogging institutions in the blogosphere. Tony has effectively transcribed most of the sessions (except the one where he was a panelist) here for reproducing details of the session conversations. If Tony ever leaves medicine, court reporting could be a career. In Tony's summary of the day's events you will find a "small world story" but "Jim" will suffice for an appellation, Tony.

I am gathering several experiences of Skype usage in not simply business but also television production applications. More to follow when I write my response to Alec Saunders post of desperation (really with Windows but, as I state in the comments, MS DNA has a long half-life). Basically I am finding a very positive attitude towards Skype for those who have made it a critical tool for their activities where business operations or maintaining personal contacts.

More to follow; must run to catch the Richard Edelman session.

Tags: mesh07, Tony Hung, Deep Jive Interests, Alec Saunders

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thursday, 31 May, is Google Developer Day. Lots of events streamed online. A great way to learn about their web APIs, mashups, client APIs, AJAX, XML, commerce and all the other shiny buzzwords. No voice, IM, or email sessions.

Ten countries, one very long day, thousands of developers, free to programmers. The California event is too big for Google's Mountain View campus, so they moved it to the enormous San Jose convention center. 

Developer relations writ large.

If I can crash the event I'll bring back some details, but track the GDD07 tag on Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket and see related posts on Google Blog Search and Technorati.   

Same time, next door at the San Jose Marriott, is the Inbox conference. Several sessions on unifying IM, email and voice messaging. Case Study: Designing an Email System as a Back-end for Voicemail. The Power of Presence. Enterprise 2.0 and the 'Resocialization of IT'.  

This month's coverage of Skype's own developer program:

• Skype Journal interview with Paul Amery of the Skype Developer Program (video)
• Paul Amery's pitch to potential Skype Developers (video)
• Skype Developers Conference 2007
• Ants is throwing a Skype geek party: London, Thursday
• Skype Extras: Goals and Achievements

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I talked with Phil Windley about Skype stuff for their Technometria podcast. We talked censorship, Skype metrics, DDoS attacks in Estonia, the Skype Carterfone petition to the FCC, Skype's architecture and OpenCallerID, and side conversations triggered by Ben Galbraith's and Scott Lemon's observations and questions.

Grab a cup of coffee and play now: or Download MP3

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Paul Amery is Director of the Skype Developer Program, based in London. This is an informal interview shot under some willow trees outside the Santa Clara Convention Center in California for seven minutes in mid-May 2007 by Phil Wolff, editor of Skype Journal. Paul had given a talk that morning to more than one hundred programmers at the TMC Communications Developer Conference 2007.

Questions:

• What do you do at Skype?
• Do you like being part of a rock star company?
• So what do you do at Skype? Responsible for the developer programme?
• You were speaking here today. What were some of the key points you wanted to leave with the developers?
• How many developers are part of the program now?
• What are some of the Skype developers that you find fun or interesting?
• Why do you play checkers?
• How did you get checkers on to your desktop?
• What is coming up in the developer programme?
• What makes the Skype Developer Program different or better than other platforms?
• How fast is Skype innovating?
• How is Skype different as a place to work now than when you started.
• How has the company changed in the last nine months? How does it feel to work at Skype?

Feel free to add comments and tags to the video.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What was the occasion? Skype 1.0 release? Anyone know where? 

Photo shot around July 2004 by Blake Burris. This and more on the Skype Journal banner art blog.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mesh 2007 launched with a very lively discussion with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch as the keynote Connector talking about the evolution of TechCrunch from a hobby to a full-fledged business that recently hired a CEO to bring a level of stability to the operation. Mike provided many insights which will become the focus of a separate post later today.

Over lunch I had the opportunity to meet with Mike and discuss where he saw the real time conversation space evolving. As with many participants, he talks (and lusts for) applications that can embed voice; in particular, with Skype he would like to see a "naked Skype" that can be embedded within applications. Mike is also a big fan of GrandCentral for its ability to organize our voice connections. As for mobile, Mike does not see VoIP as an enabling technology for mobile voice communications but rather agrees with my own mantra of putting the IM functionality onto a mobile device but use the underlying phone wireless service to minimize mobile phone resource usage.

The second session featured as keynote Connectors Tom Williams of GiveMeaning.com and Austin Hill, founder of Zero-Knowledge Systems. Both have sold their original companies and have devoted their activities to web-enabling social projects that harness the power of collective action via the Internet. A key theme of their discussion was that to translate "good intentions" into action requires not simply the desire to "do good" but to mobilize and inspire participants in a project through empowerment of the individual and direct participation. From Austin "Give people things they can do to make a difference." The challenge then becomes one of scaling a project to make a significant impact.

As an example Austin mentioned today's launch of DarkGreenPC where an open source applet can be downloaded to your PC. To quote Austin: "DarkGreenPC is a non-profit, community organized open source project ... where we are going enable people to optimize the power usage of their computers collectively and turn energy saving into a social activity." Austin's claim was that with over 100 million participants, this project can result in power savings that would be equivalent to the power used by Switzerland for a whole year.

We concluded the morning with three "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" presentations by startups:

• Octopz: online collaboration technology for creative professionals
• DemoFuse: creating and maintaining interactive demo tours for websites
• FiveLimes: a place to seek out and sometimes purchase eco-friendly products and services

On to an afternoon of panel discussions.

Tags: mesh07, techcrunch, arrington, austin hill, tom williams

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As we approach the start of mesh 2007, I have set up a Skype Chat where visitors can complement the discussions with a back channel Chat. Of course you have to be a Skype user to join. Talk about social media, the Skype 3.x Discussion and Skype Prime Chat public chats have been ongoing for several months. This one should only last a couple of days and be an interesting experiment: (i) will anyone participate? and (ii) can it contribute to the discussion?.

There is also a mesh 2007 Facebook Group

Update: if you have a Blackberry, there is also a mobile mesh RSS feed available.

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As a result of last week's announcement of Skype's selection of VSNL as a call termination partner, I have spoken with Scott Bagby, Skype's Vice-President of New Markets, about why they entered into this agreement; our discussion quickly transitioned to one about Skype's ongoing efforts to improve SkypeOut call quality.

Scott pointed out that many factors enter into the final call quality:

Getting to the Internet: The audio hardware, PC configuration (especially active programs) and the nature of the Internet connection can all impact call quality even before reaching the Internet. Note that these are factors that, while Skype can make recommendations, are out of their ultimate control. This also explains one benefit of PC-Free phones; they are not competing with any other program for processor cycles.

Once at the Internet, SkypeOut calls go forward to call termination providers for which there are two general categories:

• Aggregators who aggregate various services around the world to complete a connection
• Local terminators who provide country-specific termination services

Skype initially contracted with five aggregators worldwide with the thinking that this would give the broadest coverage to a maximum number of countries with a minimum account management overhead. However, calls via aggregators can be routed through multiple carriers, a factor over which Skype has no control. Skype found a high variability in call quality placed through aggregators. Fundamentally a call could go across several "hops" with a need to unpackage/repackage (decode/recode) the voice signal at each hop, increasing the potential for call quality degradation.

As a result Skype has started signing agreements with country-specific call termination services, for countries such as, for example, Germany, Sweden and Brazil. Through their agreement with VSNL, they are able to add Canada and India to this list. Recall that VSNL acquired Canadian-based Teleglobe for their international VoIP expertise. As these calls go directly from Skype's gateway to the local country, it is anticipated that through these agreements SkypeOut call quality can, over time, be improved on a country-by-country basis due to the significantly lower potential for multiple "hops". Yet there will always remain a need for the aggregators in order to maintain and ensure worldwide coverage.

How does Skype measure call quality? A key input is the feedback provided by users. Remember those "how was your call?" web screens that would occasionally pop up after finishing a SkypeOut call? These call quality questions are now supposed to be popping up within the Skype client as one feature upgrade of Skype 3.2. Skype knows the routing for each specific call and combines that with the feedback from a call to determine call quality patterns and set priorities for where improvements in call quality are needed.

Another contributor to variable call quality is the coding/decoding that occurs with wireless voice streams; combined with the lower audio bandwidth of wireless phones, this requirement results in an additional weak point where call quality can degrade.

While I have not had many problems with SkypeOut calls (and then mostly on calls to mobile phones), we can only hope that Skype, in its termination agreements, can pick the winners when it comes to managing call quality.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm not cool enough to get into some clubs. Most clubs. Too old, wrong clothes, insufficient bling.

And that's right.

People who run clubs, even public ones, have standards for entrance.

Bouncers I'd like to run on public chats:

Captcha. Are you human? No bots but the host's bots.

Language. Parlez vous français? The chat room asks you a question in its required language. Can you answer it?

Expertise. Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Enter only if you can explain the difference between Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo. Or solve a programming puzzle. Or list three reasons Governor Bill Richardson should be the next President of the United States.

Age bracket. Too old. We could be discussing retirement homes and don't want any youngsters in the room. Or just people within a year or two.

Social proximity. It's who you know. You have to already know someone in the room. This might be automatic, via buddy list. It might also involve your name being flashed to the membership and someone saying they know you.

Authentication. Prove you're not a muggle. Perhaps OpenID. Or your employee ID.

Queue waiting time. Not so fast, buddy. Everyone must wait an hour before entry, just to prove you care. And aren't still angry.

Bring a gift. Tokens of  respect. Maybe it's a link to hidden gem on the Internet, a snippet of code, or a PayPal payment.

Read a disclaimer. Just so you know. Rules of the road, that we are insane about Harry Potter,

Subject to a Vote of the Membership. Probation. Any member can whiteball/blackball a new member in the first n minutes. 

Think of these barriers as defending the tribe, shaping the mix of people in the group, and a rite of passage for those joining it.

We need an API construct, I think. An event between applying and joining. In theory, you might have a whole new class of Skype Plug-In or Extra.

Thanks to Ants and the people he ejected from Skype DevZone Public Chat for Inspiration. Thanks to the Skype 3.X Public Chat for the play-by-play commentary on Ants' moderation. And thanks to hoggardb for the photo of the Chelsea bouncer.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

PC maker Dell just signed for Wal-Mart distribution, part of Wal-Mart's challenge to the big-box electronics stores. Will any of Dell's Ubuntu Linux computers be on Wal-Mart shelves? The lower initial and lifetime costs might be popular with Wal-Mart buyers.

If Ubuntu Dells show up in Wal-Marts, this might be good for Skype. Isn't Skype's Debian release sometimes pre-installed on Ubuntu, a user friendly Linux distro? This could be good for Skype's distribution and U.S. branding. Especially since we'll expect most Windows Vista computers to come with other messengers, not Skype.

Strangely, Skype doesn't appear to be Ubuntu Certified.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 02:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

The Do Not Disturb button on phones may have been the first modern presence indicator. Reinhold Henke says it started...  

"In March of 1967 the Northern Electric Company (more recently known as Nortel) was granted a patent (3,321,580, pdf) that claims a privacy feature button on the station set that would allow the PBX stored program control system to reroute the call away from the called station. This common feature on the feature set station phones came to be known as the Do Not Disturb Button (DND). This feature became so popular that soon after companies like Mitel, Rolm, Siemens, etc. followed the call of the Northern Electric Company..."

The DND button was a signal (meaning uncertain but determined by convention) used by a telephone switch to inform the routing of incoming calls.

Six Observations:

1. The purpose of DND was decision support. In this case, routing an incoming call.
2. The original signal was continuous. Hey, it was all electronic, pre-digital.  
3. The signal was tied to a specific desk phone. Not to a person. Or a group of people.
4. The signal stopped at the deciding engine. The incoming caller didn't see the signal and had no influence over the call routing decision.
5. Logic not in phone. Oooh, a clue!
6. The signal was binary. Just "take calls at this phone" or "don't take calls at this phone."   

Six Lessons:

1. The purpose of presence is still decision support. We can support more decisions than call routing.
2. Presence signals need to be "fresh," not continuous. Freshness just means we can trust the signal enough for it to be useful in our decisions.  
3. Presence needs device independence. Many of us are no longer tied to one phone. Or even one computer.  
4. Presence data is useful even if you don't share it with callers. The logic for call routing ran separately from the source of the DND signal. Indirection, abstraction, and logic are friends of privacy and convenience.  
5. Separating sensors/signals from logic engine(s) works. Decentralization offers value. More on this soon.
6. Presence values can be rich. We can be "back in 5 minutes" or "just take calls from my family.". Presence can signal more now, with all sorts of data to inform many kinds of decisions.  

Images from the patent:

fwd/dnd button by clarkk.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Although my own experience with SkypeOut has been quite good recently; I have seen some concerns expressed elsewhere about the call quality of SkypeOut calls. My own poor experiences usually occur on calls to mobile phones where there are probably multiple coding schemes involved on both the VoIP side and the wireless side of the call; also keep in mind that the audio bandwidth for mobile calls is significantly lower than that on Skype calls.

However, yesterday's announcement of Skype's selection of VSNL International as a new termination provider partner holds significant promise for an overall improvement in SkypeOut voice quality. About two years ago VSNL acquired Teleglobe, a company who had its origins in Canada as the Canadian overseas long distance provider and became, partially through an acquisition of Tom Evslin's IXTC, the world's largest (at the time) wholesale carrier of international VOIP and the seventh largest carrier of any kind. Tom wrote an excellent post on the VSNL acquisition of Teleglobe: "The World is Flat: VSNL in Definitive Agreement to Acquire Teleglobe" at the time. It includes a history of the evolution of VSNL from the state-controlled Indian telecom monopoly into a privatized division of India's Tata Group. In another post, Tom describes how competition drove ITXC to ensure they were offering a high quality service:

We managed to overcome enough of the suspicion about VoIP to allow us to take a substantial chunk of the world’s international traffic long before consumers even knew there was such a thing as VoIP.

VoIP Monitor brings us up to date on VSNL's current market position with "more than 415 combined direct and bilateral relationships with leading international voice telecommunications providers" and

Over 450 customers including the major portal players are currently utilizing VoIPLink, the Teleglobe premiere voice peering service. VoIPLink provides full interoperability with a diverse list of VoIP equipment and software vendors across multiple protocols.

(Hat tip to Andy for pointing us to this post.) Hopefully we can look forward to improved consistency of SkypeOut voice quality over time as this agreement is implemented.

Footnote: Interesting to note that, in his first post linked above, Tom mentions "Teleglobe was reconstructed from the assets of the former Canadian monopoly international carrier of the same name which were purchased out of bankruptcy by Cerberus, a leveraged buy-out firm." This is the same Cerberus that last week acquired the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler.

Update, May 31: Cerberus is now involved in the discussions to acquire Bell Canada (technically BCE Inc.)

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A screencast demonstration of Convenos Meeting Center Extra for Skype. Convenos augments the setup and conduct of a call, with Skype used for audio and Convenos using the browser to share presentations, desktops and other work product. The short screencast steps through setting up a Convenos meeting using your Skype contacts. Your contacts don't need Convenos accounts. The Extra version allows up to 20 people in a meeting, paid versions offer more options.  

Let's look at what's going on.

Note this architecture: Convenos' server talks to Convenos client that talks to user's Skype client.

Q. Is this a recurring design pattern?

Q. Does this pattern show demand for Skype web services?  

Video provided to Skype Journal by Skype's Paul Amery, shown at the Communication Developer Conference as an example of a successful Skype Developer Program partnership. Marshall Mosely narrates.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Updates

Linux 1.4.0.64 Alpha updated. Continuing progress. Change log.

Windows Gold 3.2.0.152 updated. (22.6 MB) Small changes.

Joost added to SteamCast’s Lawsuit Against Skype and Kazaa. Congratulations, Joost!

Identity

The Extension of Identity. The dominance of our relationship tools over our authoring tools helps Jim Benson discovers he is really Ed Vielmetti.   

Joe "Whuffy" Petviashvili detects a leak in LiveJournal's OpenID service. Still seeking confirmation. via Terrll Russell.

In Skypeland

Skype Find's tagsonomic problem: Synonyms. Same idea, different words, hard to find.  

Skype partner Vosky buys TMC advertorial. Darn, why didn't I think of that.

Skype hires VSNL for SkypeOut call termination. Should boost service in India.

The competition

Sony PSP to make voice and video calls over UK Wi-Fi. The network: other PSP players and regular phone numbers.

Microsoft signs interop pact with 12 VoIP leaders.  

• "In the two months since Microsoft published the interoperability specification, global telephony and networking companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Ericsson, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc., Mitel Networks Corp., NEC Corp., Nortel Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications, and gateway providers AudioCodes Ltd., Dialogic Corp. and Quintum Technologies Inc. have stated their support for the interoperability specification for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Together these vendors provide interoperability with approximately 90 percent of communication systems."

• Specs cover "voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), presence, instant messaging and conferencing".

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Paul Amery is Director of the Skype Developer Program, based in London. This is a handheld video of 19 minutes from Amery's pitch to more than one hundred programmers at the TMC Communications Developer Conference 2007 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California. In mid-May 2007 by Phil Wolff, editor of Skype Journal. The slide show is below the video

Feel free to annotate the video.

His slides were called "A Successful Conversation - The Skype Developer Program"

More to come.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Your cell phone ring tone is damaging your career via someecards.

What's your company's ringtone? Your team's? Your profession's? How does it fit with your personal reputation goals? Your marketing brand? What does it say about your customer relationships and positioning vs. your competitors? 

Announcing a new Skype Journal Prime Service: Enterprise Ringtone Counseling. 

Put Skype Journal's Audiophonic Identity Therapists to work. Let us help you pick the right theme music, song, or arrangement. With the right sounds at your back, you might catapult your business into the blogosphere, make you successful beyond my imagination, get you that corner cubicle in your own home office! 

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Enrico Noseda, Skype's director for European telecom business development, is leading the European rollout of the reseller program. We talked for a few minutes today while he was visiting Skype's London offices.

The Revolution

"Join the revolution! We learned from our own users. We understand that the business community is very interested in using Skype in the business environment. That's why we're are really focusing on this in terms of product development, as this package is demonstrating. We have 30% of our user base that is stating they make business usage of Skype; this is an enormous number of people. So the potential for this program and for this product is enormous. If I was a reseller, I could definitely join this revolution and change the way business communicates to the world."

The Profile

Skype is recruiting resellers based on their capacity to sell, the number and size of customers. "It is unlikely we will accept one man bands as certified resellers" said Noseda.

After you apply, a Skype staffer will call and interview for general fit. They haven't completely set criteria but are looking for the right partners to serve small and medium sized businesses. Skype is recruiting retailers, catalogs, VARs (value added resellers) and LARs (large account resellers).

The Programme

Authorized resellers will purchase discounted Skype Business Packs and Skype credit vouchers through national distributors. Some distributors are still being signed up.

The first twelve countries are Skype Pro countries but more markets will be added in Europe and elsewhere as pricing plans permit.  

A reseller extranet will come in June. The site will deliver sales, product and support training, merchandising, and sales leads.  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Building on the success of last year's initial mesh conference in Toronto, Mark Evans, Mathew Ingram, Stuart MacDonald, Mike McDerment and Rob Hyndman and their event management team have once again organized mesh 2007 described as ...

... a chance to connect with people who are as excited about the potential of the Web as you are – people who want to know more about how it is changing the way we live, work and interact with the world.

Under the theme "connect, share, inspire" they are providing a forum to exchange experiences, concepts and ideas about how the web is not only disrupting old business models but also "creating new ways for us to communicate, collaborate, entertain and inform".

And why is mesh happening?

mesh is happening because five people with an enthusiasm for the Web and all the next-generation things happening around us decided an event like this one had to take place in Toronto. Events connecting Web ideas and leaders of the future are going on everyday around the world - Geneva has LIFT, Paris has Les Blogs, New York has BlogOn and Italy has, well, Italy has Venice, it doesn't really need anything else - and now Toronto has mesh so we can be part of the Web 2.0 conversation.

Looking forward to providing coverage of this event and to hearing keynote panelists such as Michael Arrington, Richard Edelman, Jim Buckmaster (craigslist) and many others.

And with WiFi at the show I'll still be available on Skype. (Since there are very few WiFi access points in the building WiFi actually worked very well there last year.)

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So you're a Skype-crazy consultant in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden or the UK. You want to sell Skype to customers. But how?

First, join The Skype Reseller Program. Free to apply, apparently, and one short form.

Then buy the Small Business Pack (shipping early June) at a discounted rate, starting at 20% off the €99 recommended retail price.

Sell your packs.

Then buy €99 Skype voucher packs at 5% off and sell them.

Discounts improve with volume.

Things we don't know:

• Skype's acceptance criteria for reseller applicants.

• What keeps a small or medium sized business from enrolling in the programme to secure discounts for themselves.

• When the programme and products will spread to the other markets.

• Whether resellers based outside the 12 core countries (e.g. Spain) may sell into those countries.

• Whether these markups are deep enough for resellers to be effective.

• How long until reseller support delivers:

  • point of sale displays
  • sales training
  • co-operative advertising funds
  • lead generation
  • specialist certification

• Skype's policies on reseller inventory management and returns.

• Whether the reseller product roadmap includes Skype Certified or Skype Compatible hardware and software.

This is a great next step for Skype's ecosystem.

Thanks to Dan York for tipping me to Scott Davidson's announcement.

Skype news release below the fold.

THE SKYPE SMALL BUSINESS PACK – ONE LITTLE BOX THAT GOES A LONG WAY FOR BUSINESSES

Luxembourg, 22^nd May, 2007 – Skype today announced it is making it even easier for businesses to get started on Skype^TM with its new Small Business Pack. The Small Business Pack gives businesses everything they need to get started to make calls over the internet.

The Pack includes a Skype for Business download, 10 five month subscriptions to Skype Pro™ (Skype’s new internet communications package) worth €100 and €50 of Skype credit for making calls to landlines and mobiles across the world. It is available from the Skype online store at www.skype.com/shop (in the small business section) for €99+VAT.

Skype’s popularity with businesses comes from more and more businesses turning to Skype to keep in touch with their customers for less money. A recent survey of 250 businesses showed that 95% of those questioned confirmed they save money with Skype and 80% said that using Skype has increased employee productivity.

Enrico Noseda, director, telecom business development at Skype says, “Skype has over 196 million registered users today and in some countries more than 30% of those are business users. We want to give our business users a simple and more productive way to communicate but pay less for the privilege. With Skype Pro included, people can make *0/min unlimited calls to domestic landlines along with a series of premium Skype features and discounts on Skype-certified hardware.”

Skype has also made it easier for businesses to install and manage Skype. Skype can be easily installed on multiple computers using the Windows Installer package (commonly known as MSI) giving IT Administrators greater control over how Skype communications traffic runs across their networks.

An online control panel enables companies to allocate individual users with Skype credits that can be used to make cheap Skype calls to traditional landline phones or mobiles and provides a consolidated view of what is being spent.

The Skype Business Pack includes:

• Skype for Business CD
• Skype for Windows (business edition) with MSI Windows Installer
• €50 of Skype Credit to distribute to colleagues
• *10 x 5 month subscriptions to Skype Pro (€100 value)
• Tips and Tricks Guide for getting the most out of Skype for Business

(Total value of €150 – Recommended Retail Price €99 + VAT)

*15% VAT is added where applicable and all Skype Pro calls are subject to a small connection fee of up to € 0.039 per call.

For more information on Skype for Business go to www.skype.biz.

Footnote:

** All SkypeOut calls, including calls made by Skype Pro subscribers, are subject to a connection fee. For details on the connection fee, go to http://www.skype.com/products/
skypeout/rates/connection_fee.html.

** Skype Pro local calling benefits apply in certain countries only, for calls to landline phones within the country. For details please see www.skype/linkto ourskypepropage.com.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Skype Developer Program is all about delivering software applications where real time conversation (aka voice and IM) is a key element for providing a mission critical business resource. For instance, OnState brings call center experience, Skylook provides a key tool for customer relationship management; Pamela supports podcasting and other voice recording applications, Unyte allows call participants to share presentations and documents in real time across dispersed geographical barriers. Alec Saunders articulated the role of software as the key to telecommunications value-add in his Voice 2.0 Manifesto eighteen months ago.

So when a legacy telco talks about learning software tricks, we know the message is getting through. Om Malik has written an excellent piece "Telco dogs need to learn software tricks" reporting how software is becoming a key to BT's success in the 21st century:

... BT was one telco that completely understood that it was facing uncertain times, and had no choice but to reinvent itself to survive.

The senior BT management understood that while broadband was a start point for its reinvention, it had to boldly go where no telecom had gone before, if they wanted to survive. They had to behave and think like an Internet-based software company.

But to focus on a comment: in his summary paragraph:

Instead of spending $6 billion on IPTV projects, AT&T could say buy a Salesforce.com (have some money left over for satellite-based triple play) and ensure a few hundred thousand folks paying $60-odd dollars a month for the CRM as a service.

I seem to recall Skype got a bit of jump on a Salesforce.com relationship last week with its announcement of a Connector for embedding the Skype client within the Salesforce.com UI.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a little more from the Mobivox folks who let you call through Skype from your mobile phone.

A recent Mobivox corporate overview...

And a product reviewers' guide from September 2006, back when Mobivox was called Voxlib...

See also:

• Skype Journal: Mobivox has VoxGirl's number, maybe yours too (video interview)
• Skype Journal: Is Skype a telco?
• Skype Journal: A Caution re Third Party Skype Access
• Skype Journal: Managing Presence and Other Mobivox Issues: A Response
• Pat Phelan: Mobivox rox
• Andy Abramson: MobiVox Does It Right
• Solomon Ige: MOBIVOX commercial voip services launched in 23 countries
• Catherine Holahan: New VoIP Player: Mobivox 

voxgirl mobivox voxlib skype skypejournal skypein skypeout skypeapi

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype is hosting a contest: take a picture of yourself as your favorite Skype emoticon and win a prize.

Boyan Yurukov's full collection, about 28 in all. Boyan lives in Пловдив, Bulgaria.

See this and prior art on the Skype Journal banner art blog. Suggestions welcome.  

skype skypejournal icon semiotics emoticon emoticons video webcam skypevideo contest prizes bulgaria bg banner art collage

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On Friday I put about a post cautioning about using third party products, especially when in beta or not Skype certified. In response to my comments the Mobivox team has provided some insight into how they are approaching the potential for multi-device conflict when multiple logins to a Skype account have occurred:

• Users are logged into Skype as "Invisible", reducing the risk of receiving chats or file transfer requests because the people do not see you as online
• Mobivox will not loose a chat. A chat received while on Mobivox will be later transferred to the original user's Skype account when s/he logs back in provided her/his contact is online. Their chat histories will sync together so s/he'll get the chat back. Chats on Skype are peer-to-peer, histories always sync together provided one of the user clients keeps them. The only problem is the chat might appear as already received and be only in the history, it might not pop up. On the most recent Skype versions, it pops up as a new chat even if it was also received on another machine.
• We are currently testing logging users with "Do Not Disturb" status instead of "Invisible". This effectively prevents the user from receiving chats. We need to fully test for any other side effects before moving such a change into our production environment.
• When we call someone on Skype using Mobivox we will be sending them a chat message advising them that they should not be answering by chat.
• The only time any of this applies is when you receive a chat or a file transfer request during a call using Mobivox.

My only issue is with the last statement as I was finding that, once I had made a call via Mobivox, I could no longer receive file transfers. I would get the text message associated with a file transfer but not the actual file transfer window. The Mobivox team is investigating this further. Some of this may be a result of the new feature for handling multi-device logins in Skype's 3.2 for Windows; the problem here may be that all versions of Skype, including those on the various Skype phones, need to have this feature migrated to them to be consistent across individual logins.

With respect to VoxGirl's voice recognition, the problem I mentioned relates to the use of non-alpha characters in a Skype name imported from my Skype contact list; Thus one needs to manually change "Phil Wolff | Skype Journal | Oakland" with the Mobivx contact editor to simply "Phil Wolff" (without the "|"). (These changes are not synced back to your Skype client.) As shown on the right all non-conforming names, for the purpose of speech recognition, are shown in red in the Mobivox address book; in this example above Mobivox does not like the Swedish "ö" character.

Finally, as to my search for a product that gives me a fully featured Mobile access to Skype over GSM networks, Mobivox CEO Stephane Marceau reminds me that they initially want to have a service that accesses Skype from any mobile phone, not simply "smart phones", such as Blackberries. But an associated IM client for smart phones would be a recommended feature for their future offerings.

Looking forward to trying out Mobivox once again when the file transfer issue is resolved

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 02:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BBC reports on a British climber, Ron Baber, who set a world record by making a mobile phone call earlier today from the peak of Mount Everest. Of note:

• Logistics: the mobile base station was one set up in China with a direct line of sight to the peak
• Archiving: the first call was made to a voice mail account to officially record it; a second call was made to his family
• Danger: he had to remove his oxygen mask to make the call, keeping the calls short
• Power: he had to tape the batteries to his body to maintain a high enough temperature to power the phone

But the Chinese will not be able to read this report on a call via their telephone system.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In its ranking of the 100 Best Products of 2007, PC World has ranked Skype version 3 as number 38, taking up company with the Intel Core 2 Duo processor (#2) which contributed to Skype's initial ability to handle up to 10 participants on a conference call, RIM's Blackberry 8800 (#5), Sight Speed 6.0 (#21) as "the best videoconferencing app", Apple's 80GB iPod (#26), my preferred web browser, Firefox 2 (#35) and a product which I find handy on every mobile device I am evaluating: Google Maps for Mobile (#53). The list also includes three devices I use in association with my home entertainment system: SlingMedia's Slingbox Pro (#32), Logitech's Harmony 880 Remote Control (#98) and Sling Media's SlingPlayer Mobile (#99).

Of particular note is that Skype 3.0, the Blackberry 8800 and SightSpeed 6.0 are the only real time conversation products on the list. Would be interesting to see where in this list would be ranked Apple's forthcoming iPhone were the list made in September instead of May. With respect to Skype version 3 they say:

(VoIP software/service; unlimited calling, $68 per year) Though Skype may not replace a landline, the service makes VoIP calling easy--and cheap

Not quite sure how they come up with $68 per year with Skype-to-Skype calls being free worldwide and Skype Unlimited North America @$30 per year. New math for Skype?

Other posts: Jon Arnold, Peter Csathy (CEO of SightSpeed).

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Lots of hype last week (Mark Evans, VoIP Watch, Telelphone World) about a new service from Mobivox beta whose offering effectively lets you call your Skype contacts from a mobile phone. Once registered on the service, simply dial a local access number, tell VoxGirl whom you want to reach via Skype and a connection is made. I tried the service over the past week with some success but also have to issue some cautions as the key word here is "beta".

I have spoken with Stephane Marceau, CEO of Mobivox; he assures me that their primary goal is to enhance the Skype experience. Before releasing the beta version last week they did an alpha phase that involved over 1,000 users and raised many issues that have been addressed.. This beta is surfacing additional issues that they intend to tackle. With this background here are my cautions:

First, as acknowledged on their site, Mobivox "uses the Skype™ API but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise approved in any way by Skype™". And, as will be shown, in its current beta form, for good reason. On the other hand, when they have developed the basic service to an acceptable level, they intend to seek Skype certification.

To use the service, you must provide your Skype name and password. While Martin has authentication logistics issues in this respect, in practice it also creates an open Skype session for your SkypeID on the Mobivox server. But, as opposed to sessions over which you have local control on your own PC('s) and Skype phones, once you make a Mobivox-enabled call to a Skype contact, that "Mobivox" Skype session appears to be left open. But it is then also open to the issue of having Skype recognize which PC you are actually at; recall that Skype 3.2 is currently the only Skype client that can currently deal with multi-device presence. (My installation is the latest build of Skype 3.2 for Windows) As a result, and as confirmed by some testing done with a couple of Contacts yesterday, the Mobivox-activated Skype user cannot receive File Transfers back at the local PC (and may not receive all his/her Skype IM chat messages). The only way to recover from this problem is to go back into your Mobivox profile and delete your Skype Name. This is similar to an issue that I also found in my original experience with Fring. (Note that this issue only applies to files being received; I can still send out files.) In its current beta implementation the only way to use Mobivox effectively without losing Skype features on your PC login is to go into your Mobivox profile and restore/delete your Skype name every time you leave/return from your base PC location.

Another issue relates to the user interface. With Truphone I can look up someone in my standard Contacts directly on a Nokia N-Series phone and access any phone number via Truphone's service. No dialing, no change in the normal wireless call placement logistics, no need to remember my Contacts's names and how exactly they are entered as a Contact name. With Skype itself or services such as iotum's TalkNow I can get real time presence status via an appropriate client. Mobivox's use of VoxGirl to verbally make a (Skype) connection and to provide presence information reminds me of "Operator, Operator" -- my wife did see a "My Life and Times" presentation by Lily "Eernestine" Tomlin earlier this week! Think of VoxGirl as Ernestine without a sense of humor.

The voice recognition got me to a few Skype Contacts. However, at one point VoxGirl had trouble recognizing Phil Wolff's name, so I was offered the chance to search for a name via my phone keyboard. (Did "she" get confused with Jill or Bill who are also on my contact list? Or is it a case that Phil has as his user name "Phil Wolff | Skype Journal | Oakland"?) Have you ever tried to use the 12-button T9 keyboard algorithm on a Blackberry QWERTY keyboard? Not user friendly to say the least! And it did not get me to Phil via Skype.

The bottom line here is that a fully featured Mobile access to Skype over GSM networks remains a dream. I still say, give me a mobile Skype IM client on my Blackberry and use the underlying wireless phone service for voice calls until such time as VoIP over GSM becomes both an economically and technologically viable, as well as a user friendly, option. And be cautious when using products or services that are not Skype certified; you can never be sure when your Skype service is not "all there" through no fault of Skype's.

On the other hand if you want to try out the beta service, recognizing there are some issues, and provide the Mobivox team with user feedback, give it a try. After all, even with these cautions, it does provide low cost calls to Skype users around the world. I look forward to providing progress reports as this service develops.

Update: the Mobivox team has recognized there can be issues when dealing with presence and chat messages; they have responded to some of my issues above. Since it provides some insight into what these issues are and how to address them, their response will come in a separate post.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday Skype released a bugfix upgrade to its recent Skype 3.2 Gold release. Amongst other issues it fixed a problem whereby the upgrading from within Skype did not work.

Ironically upgrading form within the Skype client worked for me (starting the Help | Check for Upgrade from within the initial Gold release); however, the new release did fix a problem where my Audio devices would always revert to devices I had not selected in the Audio Settings of the Skype Options window. Now I can at least select Audio Devices and they remain at that setting when I make a call instead of reverting to what was probably my Windows default Audio Device settings once I "Saved" the Options settings. This was a problem also observed by one of my frequent contacts.

Bottom line: do the upgrade to avoid some of these annoying issues.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It looks like a telco.

It sure smells like a telco.

Why?

They’re making money from minutes. And they’re not very accommodating of partners.

Here’s the evidence (click to expand):

I got an offer to try out this new service. As you can see, they want me to enter my Skype password to log in on my behalf. Sorry, no go, boys.

But the real problem is Skype hasn’t provided the necessary platform — be it Liberty, OpenID, or whatever — to let 3rd parties use their authentication system. Skype is acting like a closed-up old style telco. Sure, you can attach stuff at the network edge in your own home and PC. But access any of our core network functions? No way!

Martin logs in to Telepocalyse by whatever means necessary.

Posted by Martin Geddes at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

People customize their stuff. The easiest way in Skypeland is to change your avatar.

Today's banner has a few avatars I used lately. Left to right: Skype Journal Labs, Phil on the street, exploding Phil, Phil as a yellow M&M Peanut candy holding a microphone, a Skype for Enterprise badge, and a Skype for Cows badge.

Some make a point, others are silly. All of them reveal something about their chooser [pleeeease don't tell what they say about me].

But I can only show one avatar at a time, just one, for everyone I know. And, frankly, I'd prefer a dignified avatar in a strategy consulting context, a fun one for my friends, a Skype-related one for the Skypers among us, a personal photo for my family.

Skype's identity model forces me to compromise, to project one personality for everyone. That doesn't fit my more mature reality, my faceted identity, my social identities, personas I choose to project based on social context.

I worked with a manager who didn't want a photo of his face in the employee directory. He conducted most of his job by phone. He preferred to establish relationships with his voice without racial overtones; his educated speech and warm, professional phone voice boosted his effectiveness and career. His photo, his company avatar, would have injected race into his internal customer relationships. Context affects everything when it comes to managing our personal brands and building social capital.

Wishlist: let me associate a mood, avatar, profile data and a Full Name with each contact group.

See more Skype Journal art on our banners blog. Skype me or send flickr mail if your photo or illustration fits our 900x72px shape and tells a story.  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past few days two communications software releases have brought new capabilities to Mac owners. And sounds like it's very timely from what Mark Evans reports on the new MacBooks.

First Skype has today released Skype for Mac 2.6 Gold, the first Skype client to offer a Call Transfer capability:

Users can now select More > Call Transfer to transfer an ongoing call to another Skype user on their contact list. This will be a useful feature for businesses and families alike.

Features that are already available in other Skype clients include:

• join public chats
• chat typing indicator: see when others are writing a message
• Skype Prime: call a premium-service provider and pay for their advice and knowledge with Skype credit
• automatic updates: get new features and updates without having to go to Skype’s website
• DTMF tones for automatic answering services available also during Skype-to-Skype calls

Download Skype 2.6 for Mac Gold here. Release Notes.

For SlingBox fans also released recently was SlingPlayer 1.0 for Mac, allowing Mac owners to view their home cable TV service from anywhere on the Internet, provided they have purchased any of the SlingBox products. The SlingPlayer includes a full emulation of your cable box remote control on the Mac:

With this software release, Slingbox owners can now view their television directly on their Macintosh computer screen. With full remote control, they can watch content from their home entertainment system whether from cable, DVR, DVD and even a full range of Apple entertainment products including: Apple TV®, Front Row, iPod® in Apple's Universal Dock® or iPod in an iPod Hi-Fi™.

The Mac ecosystem evolves and builds more momentum. But, to paraphrase an familiar battle cry, when can we expect to see Call Transfer in Skype for Windows??

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

With the launch of Skype for Salesforce.com last week, I had the opportunity to talk with some of the people behind the launch and learn more about its evolution as a free Salesforce AppExchange offering.

Scott Miller, Skype's Director of Business Development, based in San Jose, pointed out that Skype initially partnered with Salesforce.com back in January 2006 with a sample application, called Skype Tab Opportunity Conference Call, to assist with the launch of AppExchange and to show that a Skype-Salesforce mashup was feasible. Basically it added a Skype Conference tab to the Salesforce.com user interface. The level of interest in this mashup was such that Skype and Salesforce.com decided to work together to create the more comprehensive Skype for Salesforce.com launched last week which brings the full Skype experience into Salesforce.com. Effectively the sales or service agent using Salesforce.com can manage all their Skype activity from within the Salesforce.com interface. The key is the Skype "right click" context menu which can launch voice, chat and other Skype activities from any location with a contact's name; other features include a phone dialer, conference call tab and integrated note taking. Check out the full Test Drive demo here.

Scott then went on to talk about some of the promotional activities included to build awareness across the Salesforce.com customer base. The first 10,000 users to sign up for and download Skype for Salesforce will also receive 120 SkypeOut minutes. As an additional promotion they will be eligible to receive 3 months free SkypeIn. Of course they can then become Skype Unlimited (North America) or Skype Pro (Europe) subscribers. Beyond these promotions Skype is largely relying on the viral power of Salesforice.com to drive additional awareness even down to the contacts managed by Salesforce.com's customers with the ability to invite the contacts to become Skype users. The Skype tab will also link to Skype Business Center and Skype hardware stores to drive additional awareness of the full extent of the Skype ecosystem.

When asked why they elected to work with PamConsult as the developer of Skype for Salesforce, Scott replied that not only does PamConsult have a long history of work with the Skype API's but also has a keen awareness of the Skype user interface philosophy resulting in Skype's requirements for ease of implementation and use.

I later spoke to John Barnes, CTO of ModelMetrics, a Salesforce.com Certified Partner who has managed over 250 enterprise implementations of Salesforce.com. MediaMetrics served as a beta site during development of Skype for Salesforce, working with PamConsult; their next step will be to incorporate it into their own Salesforce.com contact database. They have also done demonstrations to several of their clients who are showing more than passing interest.

John is especially excited about the implementation into Salesforce.com's Call Center Edition ("CCE") where he feels the combination, which effectively places a softphone within CCE, can offer a solution that matches offerings from Cisco and Nortel at a much lower cost. While they have only been able to test over their own T1 line with no difficulty he foresees no difficulty scaling up provided appropriate Internet bandwidth is available. John sees Skype for Salesforce offering better tracking of chat conversations, click-to-dial and auto logging of call activities as three key features.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Skype for Salesforce can gain traction and if it can build the much broader Skype awareness Skype is seeking as it evolves into a service for small-to-medium enterprises.

Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

TDavid: Skype makes it into Wal-Mart bargain bin. "We are considering dropping Skype as the primary tool for our weekly radio show. The quality has deteriorated and we’re having numerous dropped call problems."

TDavid, the biggest reason for this is not in Skype (since other people use Skype for podcast interviews just fine) but in Skype's environment:

• Other programs competing for CPU
• Incorrectly configured router
• Insufficient memory
• Other programs competing for bandwidth

This is true at both ends of the call, obviously.

The purest strategy we've seen: use a standalone computer for your Skype call. Other approaches: all parties record locally; dedicate a machine for your Skype calls but pipe the audio through a mixer to a second machine that records the calls.

Ted Wallingford: Skype no longer in my Startup Items. Quality, performance issues on his macbook, too few in his social network using Skype. Switching to Gizmo Project + GrandCentral.

TodSpace: Skype on the moon. Cute fantasies post-Wal-Mart.

Alaeddin: 3 ways to build network effect for your business, inspired by Skype. Building network effects using extrinsic motivation, not relying solely on network effect (SkypeOut), turn your service into a money-making machine for customers (Skype Prime).

Laptop Magazine: Turn Your Cell into a VoIP Phone. Reviews of Fring, Talkster, Nimbuzz, Barablu.  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Major win for Skype. Getting in is half the battle. Staying in, defending their shelf space, earning better shelf space, expanding to the other half of Wal-Mart's locations is the other half. 1,800 U.S. Wal-Mart stores may be Skype's biggest retail placement since the roll-out at 3,500 RadioShack stores. Other Skype retail partners.

The U.S. prepaid cards come in $20 Skype credits and $8.85 for unlimited SkypeOut in the US/Canada. The Walmart Campaign at Skype.com. How to redeem a pre-paid card.

USA Today reports the new Internet Communications section is part of Wal-Mart's latest technology push. More selection of HDTVs, home theater, and digital cameras. Skype is sharing the Internet Communications section with Vonage.

SKYPE AND WAL-MART PARTNER TO BRING INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS TO THE MASSES

Skype Certified Hardware and Pre-Paid Cards for Skype Now Available in 1,800 U.S. Wal-Mart Stores

San Jose, Calif., May 14, 2007 – Skype, the leading Internet communications company, today announced that it is teaming up with Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, to address the growing popularity and demand for Internet communications among U.S. consumers. Starting today, Wal-Mart is offering Skype Certified™ hardware in the Internet and voice communications area of 1,800 of its stores throughout the country, providing more opportunity and accessibility for people looking for affordable calling options. This partnership gives shoppers immediate hands-on access to headsets, webcams and handsets designed to work with Skype, as well as the first pre-paid cards for Skype available in the U.S.

The addition of Skype Internet communications products to Wal-Mart stores comes at a time when Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) adoption among U.S. households is growing rapidly. According to the Telecommunications Industry Association, 9.9% of all landlines in the U.S. were VoIP lines in 2006, and this will rise to 34.1% by 2010. In addition, Skype is the number one software-based VoIP application in the U.S. by market share, according to a March 2007 report by In-Stat.

“We applaud Wal-Mart for recognizing the popularity of Skype and making it more accessible to Wal-Mart shoppers. This relationship with Wal-Mart will increase exposure for Skype and our hardware partners in a single dedicated Internet communications section,” said Don Albert, vice president and general manager of Skype North America. “Our research suggests that when users add a Skype Certified accessory like a headset, handset or webcam, it greatly enhances their experience and they use Skype more to connect with family, friends and business colleagues.”

Today, Skype is enjoyed by more than 196 million registered users around the world. Users download Skype software to make free voice and video calls and send instant messages over the Internet. Skype also offers paid-for products which let users make, receive and forward calls to and from landlines and mobile phones. To enhance the Skype user experience, hardware devices and accessories are available from approximately 50 leading manufacturers. These products certified by Skype give users the additional flexibility to talk more freely and naturally when placing Skype Internet calls.

“We have taken a sharp focus to launch the products and brands that consumers are moving toward at the most affordable prices,” said Kevin O’Connor, vice president and general merchandise manager, Wal-Mart Electronics. “The Skype hardware and pre-paid cards are a great fit with Wal-Mart because they offer long-term money-saving solutions at the right time for many customers -- parents, grandparents, college students and military families.”

Wal-Mart is the first and currently only retailer in the U.S. to offer Skype’s pre-paid cards. Shoppers can purchase a $20 pre-paid card and redeem it for Skype credit to make inexpensive international calls at rates as low as 2.1 cents per minute. Another pre-paid card is available in stores for a three-month subscription to the Skype Unlimited Calling Plan for just $8.85. This gives consumers three months of unlimited Skype calls to any landline or cell phone number in the U.S. and Canada.

Up to nine different Skype Certified hardware products are available within branded Skype Internet Communications sections within Wal-Mart stores’ electronics department. Shoppers will find Skype certified headsets under $15, webcams under $25 and handsets under $30 from quality brand names such as Plantronics, Philips, Logitech and more. The relationship with Wal-Mart represents the first time a retailer is bringing together Skype Certified hardware and pre-paid cards for Skype under one dedicated section.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (1)

If you had just one consumer behavior to cultivate, what would it be?

Mobivox wants your outgoing call.

Here is a 3 minute interview with Mobivox CEO Stéphane Marceau. [That's my ugly mug, by the way. The much more debonair Stéphane, see thumbnail right, follows quickly.]

User experience

When you register at the web site, you give your phone numbers and Skype login info. (Great use case for Skype to support OpenID.) One minute total signup time. Nothing to download. You don't even have to run Skype anywhere.

Get your local Mobivox number.

Call it and talk with VoxGirl. (Put VoxGirl on speed dial.)

VoxGirl is your Mobivox agent.  

VoxGirl knows your Skype contacts and can call them for you.

VoxGirl can tell you whether your Skype contacts are online or off.

VoxGirl listens for more commands during your call. So ask VoxGirl to add other Skype contacts to a conference call. Or to dial a number and add that person to the call.

VoxGirl can place SkypeOut calls for you. You can speak a phone number or dial it on your phone.

You get the idea.

Mobivox becomes the one number you dial.

Strategy

Once you're conditioned to calling via VoxGirl, watch Mobivox make VoxGirl smarter and more skilled. They should be able to add services before, during and after a call. You'll pay for some of those extra services but the basics will remain free (and keep you coming).

Services I'd love to see this year:

• Build in Jott, speech-to-text transcription forwarded to your email. Great for notes to self and others.
• Record conference calls
• Bridge my voice call into an active text chat
• Play news, sports, or other radio programs as I ask for them
• Speak RSS feeds from Google Reader or Bloglines
• Speak my email
• Google 411, map directions, etc.
• Initiate calls based on my web calendar
• APIs so I can write my own VoxGirl services

Contrast this with GrandCentral. Where GrandCentral's one number manages your inbound calls, giving you control over interruptions, Mobivox's one number turbocharges your outbound calling. 

Mobivox is live in 23 countries. Let me know what you think.

p.s. This is a featured video of the day on Viddler's Development Blog.

p.p.s. Other voxgirls on the web include Amanda Ray, backing vocalist for Melanie Susuras Band, and Stockholm's Tina Strindberg.  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Combine seven ideas...

1. On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.
2. Any sufficiently large user base will reflect the population as a whole.
3. Every civilization has criminals.
4. It's hard to separate criminal thought and speech from lawful thought and speech.
5. You want to protect liberties for everyone even though some people abuse them.
6. Every nation interprets right and wrong differently.
7. Skype serves 200 million people in more than 100 countries.

That said, see this investigation, Paedophiles use Skype ‘loophole’ to woo children, by Daniel Foggo, Claire Newell and Martin Foley of UK's The Sunday Times dated 6 May 2007. They primed a honey trap with Skype user profiles targeting pedophiles seeking sub-14-year-old girls in locales convenient to their investigation. Sure enough, creeps fell for the bait.  

Skype isn't a bulletin board where moderators can watch for bad behavior. It's a private, encrypted, person-to-person phone system. So Skype's ability to intervene before something bad happens, or even to detect that something bad has already happened, are very limited. As Kurt Sauer, Skype’s chief security officer, told the Times: “This raises some very practical issues. However, we have not found a way to address each of the issues.”

The very efficiency of Skype's directory is what enabled the bad actors to locate their targets. Millions of people use that efficient white pages to find and talk with each other daily, allowing Skype Journal and other reporters (like the ones at the Times) to investigate stories all over the world. You don't want to cripple an entire network as a response. What can you do? What are your options?

There are matters of call content. What do you do when the age of consent in one jurisdiction is 18 years' old and is 14 in another? When the definitions of predatory behavior, fraud, or snooping are different? When a call can be described as patriotic whistleblowing, industrial espionage, or treason, depending on your point of view, in the same country?

The problems aren't simple. The solutions aren't obvious. Kurt's going to earn his pay architecting policies that work.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently Skype announced the crossing of a benchmark for the Skype Extras program: passing the ten million download mark in just over four months of availability. In the past I have written about a few of their successful partners: Pamela, Skylook, Unyte and HighSpeedConferencing.com. According to this press release (and the Skype Extras Downloads report) the number one consumer application is Reallusion's Crazy Talk for Skype while the most downloaded business application is the Pamela Call Recorder. However, even though they are number 12 on downloads, Skylook has been able to develop a very successful business model through identification of their core customer base market niche and delivering of features they have requested.

During May and June there are one European and two North American events where Paul Amery, Director, Skype Developers Program, and his Developer Program colleagues will be promoting participation in the Skype Extras program:

• Last week's eBay DevCon Munich
• This week's keynote presentation by Paul Amery a,t TMC's Communication Developer Conference
• June's eBay Developer Conference in Boston

During my visit to Skype's London office in March I spent a couple of hours with Paul and Lester Madden, Manager of Partner and Development Relations. Our discussion centered around the three primary goals for the Skype Developer Program and how they planned, at a high level, to achieve them. These goals are:

• Building Awareness of Skype Extras
• Addressing the issue of "compete vs complement"
• Ensuring quality of services

Currently the Skype Developer Program has over 40 partners who have developed or are developing third party programs, such as those mentioned above. But, referring to "applications as the value creators" envisioned in the Voice 2.0 Manifesto, there is a multitude of opportunities to embed Skype's voice and other real time conversation tools across many disciplines. The challenge for the Skype Developer program is not only to build awareness but also to ensure there is an appropriate underlying infrastructure. Within this framework Skype wants to leave space for partners to demonstrate their own individual vertical market expertise while providing significant value-add to their target market(s). The level of interest in participation is shown through their over 4200 developer registrations for email newsletters that accompany the Skype Developer Zone weblog.

Paul and his team plan to build awareness not only through the Skype Extras presence in the Skype client but also through seminars and conferences such as those mentioned above, building a blogger relations program and targeting specific enterprise markets, such as the free Skype for Salesforce in the CRM space which provides an inlet for resourceful partners to access the Salesforce.com customer base.

A second key issue is addressing the "Compete vs Complement" issue. Here the goal is to establish a level playing field where partners can build on their expertise while they bring value-add to the infrastructure provided by Skype. This infrastructure incorporates not only Skype API's but also promotional programs (Skype Extras Premium) and an e-commerce back end, such as Skype Prime, amongst other activities. Building blocks that address this issue, partially based on feedback from both partners and prospective partners, include:

• Providing roadmaps, both technical and commercial
• Establishing (a) viable and appropriate e-commerce platform(s) to facilitate business transactions
• Clearly identifying and articulating the responsibilities of both Skype and its Partners for participation within the program

Within these responsibilities, both Skype and its partners need to define:

• Level of promotion, not only via the Skype client but also through promotional vehicles such as weblogs and (online) advertising with some sponsored by Skype and others by the Partners themselves
• Revenue sharing levels along with articulating the services provided in return for the revenue split
• Timelines for evolution and maturation of the program
• "Smart Marketing 101": cost effective marketing using both online and offline tools and event participation

The final goal relates to quality of services. With its reputation for ease of setup and use, as well as robustness, Skype wants to ensure that this philosophy transitions to its partners' products. The driving goal here is to have products that meet levels of usability and performance built around how users intuitively think and act. To this end we are seeing the evolution of the Skype software certification criteria; user and partner feedback play a large role in establishing appropriate baselines:

We release updated test specifications into production use twice a year — in each January and July. The specifications evolve under the eyes of the entire Skype developer community, and everyone is welcome to contribute their suggestions for improvement.

Of interest during the next few weeks' events will be the Skype Developer Program's success in launching and communicating the appropriate initiatives for achieving these goals. Skype Journal will have a presence at both of the North American events.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Davis Janowski on SkypeFind: "361 [listings] to almost 103,000 in a few months is nothing to sneeze at; but out of 196 million users? Maybe it will just take a little longer."

Just for context, the US has more than 26,000,000 small businesses and free agents (2004 census figures, pdf). SkypeFind must grow a thousand-fold to cover the world's 100-200 million businesses.

Hmmm. A few questions...

1. Will contributors grow exponentially or linearly?

2. Will they post more than 1.2 times per person?

3. Will some people comment/review instead of post?

4. Can you get more participation by promoting markup of existing generic yellow page listings? Or by helping people create virgin entries?

5. Will the chances of finding what you want be high enough that you keep using the system?

6. Will it become so easy to add new listings that everyone does it, repeatedly? Like with digg?

7. Will your posting in public, especially by your friends, change, chill or heat up what and when you post?

8. Will posting become so useful (because you want to find them again) that you'd prefer to store a business in the public SkypeFind? More than add them to your email addressbook or bookmark/del.icio.us lists?

Let's see what happens in another few months.

See also:

• Sten Tamkivi on SkypeFind rollout

• SkypeFind Flower Power

• Skype takes on Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in local business listings with new "SkypeFind" - and ratings/reviews

• Dear Skype: A letter of concern from a Developer about SkypeFind and the Skype ecosystem

• Contactivity: A design goal

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How would you feel if you don't call your Mother on Mother's Day? Guilt drives these Mother's Day Promotions. Skype's is the most generous with the fewest strings. Since only one in three US adults plan on spending the day with Mom, calling may be a popular alternative.

Sweepstakes. Call anyone on Yahoo! Premium Voice (calls to regular phone numbers, you pay per minute) (not just your mother). The more you talk/spend, the more chances to win, up to 100 minutes a day. U.S. only. rules. 

Their sign-up-your-mom promotion ended Wednesday. Two hours free calls if you signed up early.

Missing Mothers' Day Features:

• Queued Love. Record a year's worth of 30-second voice mail messages to your mother in one hour. Automatically send those one minute voice messages every week. Personalized scripts adapted from your Twitter and blog feeds.

• Blood Pressure Mouse and BP Moody. New mouse measures your blood pressure, blood oxygen level, and pulse as you use your computer. Your IM mood message updated every 5 minutes. So your mother doesn't have to trust you when you say you're well; she can see live raw data for herself.

• Send Money. Actually, Skype has this feature. And it works both ways.

Happy Mother's Day, Mary, Kel, Shari!

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Each will receive the SMC WiFi Phone & FON Router bundle for being the first in their time zones to respond to the Skype Journal SkypeDriving Contest.  

• Dylan Kissane, Lyon, France
• Rajendra Pandey, NSW, Australia
• "Yogu" Umasankar Yogeswaran, Taipei, Taiwan
• Pavan Mullapudi, Sunnyvale, California
• Doug Sink, Battle Creek, Michigan

And thanks to all of you who added your creative ideas! We'll recap this weekend.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Just downloaded the Gold version of Skype 3.2. While there are a few minor changes, relative to the previous beta releases, identified in the Release Notes, Jaanus has the full story here where he talks about the improved call quality discussed in a previous Skype Journal post:

One thing that’s not obvious in the user interface but that you’ll surely notice during your calls is (yet again) improved call quality and echo cancellation, including with things like laptop microphones and speakers. We always recommend using dedicated hardware like a headset for best quality, but if you really have to call and don’t have any around, quality with this version is now again improved. We remain committed to providing the best call quality in Skype and continue our research and development activities in this area.

One feature about the MacBook that impressed me when I first saw one being started up was the ability to take a "self-photo" as an element of your Mac profile. With this release there is no longer any excuse for lack of a photo in your Skype profile, provided you have a webcam. Skype 3.2 includes a feature that allows you to take a snapshot. And the Skype folks are promoting this feature through a "video snapshots human emoticon competition".

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've talked with several entrepreneurs who believe in Skype Prime so much, they want to build a business around it.

Skype Prime, for those of you who haven't seen it, is a feature of the latest versions of Skype. It lets you charge a caller by the minute or by the call, Skype taking its cut (30%) after a clearing period (four months), rates subject to change. It's all in Beta testing at this point but should be huge.

So how do you make a Skype Prime directory when you're pretty sure Skype will operate their own hugely successful directory?

Leverage Skype's strength against them. Skype must, by definition, be generic, serving everyone. But you don't have to.

Niche. The point of a directory isn't to make a list. The point is to trigger useful, relevant conversations. To do that today you need rich contexts.

For example, create a marketplace for investment advice, if you think that's a growing service category (and you're passionate about the subject). Or "secretarial" services. Or podcasting.

In the podcasting business, for instance, you can offer richer, podcasting-specific profiles than Skype can. A service provider could show:

• links to podcasts they've worked on (a portfolio)
• whether they are on-air, business, production, or technical talent
• endorsements by happy clients, with ratings specific to the kind of work
• independent feedback by customers
• Prime billing rates for specific services (like podcast transcription or acoustic profile improvement or music clearance)
• Non-prime billing rates (in case you want to arbitrage)
• times of day and days of week they usually work (maybe even subscribing to public calendars to describe availability)
• tools they use
• certifications and memberships 
• syndication of their blog posts

You can use this information to foster public dialog about services, market rates (you will know, when nobody else will, what the market spread is for podcast voice-overs in Spanish this month), and podcast industry news.

With skill, you'll create community where Skype cannot follow. The public conversation should lead to richer search and trust for buyers. Then to private, paid, Prime conversations.

Not as easy as making a simple list, is it? If you want help, Skype me. My rates are...

Posted by Phil Wolff at 03:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Antoine "Ants" Bertout, Skype's DevZone manager,is throwing a geek party at Skype's London HQ Thursday, 10 May, 5-8pm. Invite yourself by email with:

• Your name
• Your company
• Your location
• Are you an existing Skype developer? (Y/N)

I'm assured there will be good beer, food, no long pitches, and Skype developers who speak Skype APIs at least as well as they shoot pool.

Meet, greet, and if you manage to pry embarassing secrets from intoxicated staff (which guy wears Hello Kitty boxers?), take candid photos, or shoot revelatory video, we'd love to repost here at Skype Journal. Ping me.

Have fun, y'all. Wish I was there.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Salesforce.com has been an ongoing web application success story over the past few years. Securely accessing an individual enterprise's customer database on-demand from the web and promoted largely through viral customer adoption, I have encountered many enterprises who have come to rely on Salesforce.com as their primary Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. It is a classic in terms of how it allows businesses of all sizes to manage their customer database without the hassles of dealing with IT management while adopting to the individual enterprise's business rules and building a secure archive of the enterprise's sales and support activities. From their own company website:

Why? Perhaps it's because we deliver integrated, completely customizable enterprise applications for companies of all sizes. Or maybe it's because Salesforce is so easy to learn and use, and thanks to the power of the on-demand Apex platform, it can be up and running in weeks or days—not the months or years required by traditional client/server CRM software. Or it could be the unprecedented speed with which our customers see real, tangible ROI. Or maybe it's because of our 100-percent dedication to the success of our customers.

Today Skype and Salesforce.com issued a press release announcing:

"the availability of a new version of Skype for Salesforce via salesforce.com's AppExchange. Skype for Salesforce provides seamless Skype integration into Salesforce on-demand CRM applications and aims to improve workforce productivity and to streamline customer and partner communication."

Skype for Salesforce enables real time customer conversations via:

• Skype-to-Skype and Skype-to-SkypeOut voice calls; the latter optionally using Skype Unlimited Calling within North America or Skype Pro in Europe and Asia
• Receiving calls via SkypeIn
• Embedding Skype presence indicators into Salesforce
• Text chat with customers and prospects using Skype IM
• Conference calls for up to ten participants involving any combination of Skype and non-Skype users.

Skype for Salesforce was developed by Skype Partner PamConsult, the publishers of the very popular Pamela personal digital assistant for Skype. Extracting from the Salesforce.com AppExchange description:

Skype for Salesforce offers you full Skype functionality in your Salesforce screen. You will see the online status of your Skype contacts, you will be able to call them with one click and also receive calls. For received calls with caller ID, Salesforce automatically retrieves the record of that person so you are prepared when you take the call.

You may also import your Skype contact list. This allows for easy Skype calling from Salesforce.

Conference calls are also supported and allow you to easily, directly from Salesforce, start a conference call with a few clicks.

and concludes with

We also plan to release a (commercial) Premium version with added functionality like call recording, call transfer,

With Salesforce.com's over 646,000 subscribers at over 29,800 companies, Skype for Salesforce represents one more viral step towards building Skype adoption, especially in the SMB market. More to follow after interviews with some of the principals involved.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Photo by Jeremy Carbaugh. "Skype video call with Jason and Cindy whilst they drive across the country."

I'm just glad the driver isn't running the Skype call.

Seriously, what UI and features would you want for a car-based Skype?

What Skype Status states or mood text would you set and share?

Assume:

• displays in the central console
• cameras pointing inside the car
• cameras pointing outside/around the car
• wireless broadband
• bluetooth
• access to whatever electronic information your car produces

Be the first responder in your time zone to leave a comment and win a Skype wifi phone bundle.

Details:

• The prize is the SMC WiFi Phone & FON Router bundle from the Skype store. Three parts:
  • SMC WiFi Phone
  • La Fonera FON WiFi router
  • Up to eight hours of free calls to landlines + 12 months of Skype Voicemail
• We have prizes for five winners.
• Winners: please email your real name, phone number, Skype name and shipping address to editor @ skypejournal dot com.
• Skype Journal bloggers are inelligible if you've contributed this year.

Thanks to the Skype Store for donating the gear.

Technorati tags: skype, telematics, skypejournal, voip, car, automobile, smc, fonera, wifi, wi-fi, router, fon, contest, skype journal

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBacks (0)

I haven't seen too many medium sized companies take the plunge. But Skype access partner FON jumped into Linuxland last week.

As of today Fon will disengage from Microsoft and adopt Linux in the Ubuntu form as our operating system of choice.

I would like to ask all Foneros to pls migrate to Ubuntu at your earliest convenience. As of next week Fon will not buy any more Microsoft licenses, nor install, service any new Microsoft programs on any existing computers.

Martin Varsavsky, FON founder and CEO, says he wants the productivity from leaving behind slow and problematic Windows systems that suck up time and money. His case makes me want to try Ubuntu.

When you're downloading, Foneros, use the Debian package (9.6 MB) for Xandros, MEPIS, Ubuntu, other Debian-based distros.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 05:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ecademy's Julian Bond kicked the decentralization mailing list to life with a post asking about The decline of P2P and Decentralisation. Skype features prominently in the discussion. It's an example of the tensions and trade offs between centralized and decentralized application architecture.

P2P overcomes bandwidth costs and centralization risks. But bandwidth costs have fallen with Internet buildout. And new technologies wash away technical risks of centralized services. So economics drives P2P less now than previously thought.

It's a great thread with serious thinkers.

Technorati tags: decentralization, skype, osokine, julianbond, ecademy, adamfisk, lamp, skypejournal, p2p, centralization, architecutre, economics, strategy, design

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's good news about Skype for Linux 1.4 Alpha from Raul on Skype's Garage blog.

• Audio quality improvements, on par with Windows 3.2 and Mac 2.6.
• More reliable code, thanks to a major rewrite building on Trolltech's Qt 4.2.
• Better device detection
• ALSA plugins support
• UI improvements for file transfer and general layout

This Alpha release is far from done. It has 20 substantial issues affecting audio, chats, contact lists, history, notifications, file transfers, and option settings. Entire features are missing, including contact list groups, creating new accounts, packaged versions and the whole Skype API.

This work is all straightforward. The hard stuff was the rewrite of the underlying framework and UI. I'm betting we'll see Skype's Linux builds follow Windows' by weeks instead of quarters now.

Get the October 2006 gold build if you want to use Skype on Linux. The developer page for Skype for Linux is a great resource. Read about previous progress in this post on February updates.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Strangely Literal Podcast:

Ever want to be Buffy, Spike or one of the Buffy Cast?

We're probably be doing an open voice-casting call for Buffy Between the Lines in the next month or so and if you're interested in auditioning for the audio drama there's some stuff you probably should buy/do before you start....

Posted by Phil Wolff at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Under the umbrella of the annual eBay Developers Conference is a Skype Developers Conference in Boston June 11-13. Under the Consultants and Integrators Track are listed four key Skype management speakers associated with the Skype Developer Program:

Skype: A global opportunity
Paul Amery
Skype has over 171 196 million registered users from all 4 corners of the globe. As a developer Skype can provide you with the tools to build your application, and help you market your application to the users. This session presents to you the global opportunity available to developers.

Skype Development Techniques and Tools
Peter Kalmstrom
Skype is offering a range of different tools and techniques for developers. Controlling the Skype client via the API, showing presence on the web or building a Skype extra. All will be covered!

Skype Extras: Concept to Cash
Lester Madden
If you’re a developer looking to build applications for Skype’s global market place then this session is for you. In this session you will learn all you need to know about building and deploying Skype extras with the publishing studio.

Skype Public APIs and Developer Services
Peeter Motskula
With more than 196 million registered users worldwide, a number of public APIs, the Extras distribution framework, and developer services ranging from technical support to software certification, Skype is a great platform for software developers. In this session, Peeter Motskula gives a high-level overview of the APIs and services offered. Questions and ideas welcome.

More conference information here; registration here. And Andy has the speaker schedule here.

Caveat: Skype has 196 million registered accounts; this includes dead accounts, users with multiple accounts and other registrations that should be revisited to ensure currency of use. It's well know in direct mail advertising and telemarketing that a user base has significant changes over time. At this time perhaps the most accurate indicator of size and usage trends is that Skype currently peaks at over 9.5 million users online early in the North American business day. Even this number represents a significant market size opportunity for (prospective) Skype Developer Partners.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

On Wednesday Web Dialogs made available a beta version of its forthcoming enhanced desktop sharing tool for Skype: Unyte 2.5. The new features include:

• Unyte P2P viewer
• Enhanced image quality
• Remote assistance
• New integration options available in the Unyte API

Most interesting is the P2P viewer which creates a direct connection between the host desktop and viewing participants provided the viewers also have Unyte installed on their desktops. This eliminates the need to go through a web browser and provides improved performance including faster screen updates.

The Remote Assistance feature allows, say, customer support personnel to view a customer's remote desktop regardless of whether the remote "assistee" is a Unyte user or has a Unyte account.

“We’re eager to get users’ reactions to the latest version of Unyte,” said WebDialogs CEO Lou Guercia. “We take feedback very seriously because we know that’s the best way to make our products stand out in a crowded marketplace.”

With over 800,000 downloads of their free Skype Extra version, Unyte has become one of the most popular partner applications, especially for its ability to increase business productivity. If you're in the mode for beta testing, download it here.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 02:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tuesday I had my first opportunity to try out the Jajah mashup working inside iotum's Talk-Now New Presence application (demo here) on a Blackberry 8xxx (including Pearl and the newly announced Curve 8300). While calls can be easily established via the Talk-Now client (i) there is a need to understand your own carrier's rate plans, especially roaming charges, in order to determine where there is a cost advantage and (ii) there are some call quality issues but not sufficient to inhibit its use where there is significant cost advantage.

First point to make is that this mashup only works from Contacts whom you have included in your Talk-Now list of contacts. However, you can readily add any of your Blackberry Address Book Contacts into your Talk-Now Contacts. Understanding this aspect, one finds an option for making a Jajah call amongst the Call Menu options within Talk-Now. Click on the "Jajah Call:" line and the call is automatically established. There is a short delay, with an advisory dialog box, while Jajah calls back to your phone and then makes the connection out to your called Contact but this is by far the best user experience I have encountered for one of these "native long distance bypass" services.

(i) But here's where one must watch the resulting costs: Jajah is a service where calls to other Jajah subscribers are free. It has a basic cost of 3 to 5 cents per minute for calls to the PSTN within North America or to landlines in most countries outside North America. As is common with all plans, including SkypeOut, much higher rates apply to calls to mobile phones outside North America.

However, there can also be costs for the basic wireless connection, based on the carrier's rate plan. For instance, even though my Rogers service sees the call as an incoming call, they only have certain rate plans that include unlimited incoming calls (and mine is not one of those). So these calls are charged against my basic wireless service minutes.

Where I need to be much more wary is when I go outside the country -- at that point I am charged the Roaming charge of $0.95 per minute for calls from the U.S. and $2.00 (or more) per minute for calls from outside U.S./Canada. In Summary:

• long distance calls within Canada are reduced from $0.10 - $0.30 per minute (depending on the carrier's long distance plan subscribed) to <$0.04 per minute plus connection time;
• long distance calls from Canada to many European landlines are reduced from a minimum of $0.06 per minute (if on a Rogers International Saver Plan @ $7.00 per month) to <$0.04 per minute.
• roaming calls placed from the U.S. are reduced from a total of $1.25 per minute to ~$0.98 per minute (a 20% reduction)

Check with your own carrier and the Jajah rate page to determine the savings available.

(ii) The other issue I raise is call quality. While much better than the original VoIP services, there is still a slightly noticeable latency with these calls such that the normal flow of conversation can have "pregnant pauses" while waiting for the other party to respond. In addition the voice quality itself is not quite up to the crystal clear quality of a Truphone or Skype-to-Skype call; it has a certain "tininess". Yet it is certainly as good as, if not better than, the voice quality I often encounter on standard GSM wireless calls and is of sufficient quality to carry on a reasonable conversation, especially if it is a personal call in a relatively quiet background environment.

In conclusion the Talk-Now - Jajah mashup provides a window into the world of potentially lower cost mobile long distance calling over GSM networks but it still needs some work to make it a replacement for, say, Truphone over WiFi or Skype over broadband Internet (or maybe T-Mobile's rumored to be coming HotSpot@Home?), at locations where these services are available. And, combined with Talk-Now's contextual presence features you at least know if the party whom you are calling is available, provided s/he is also using Talk-Now.

If you have a Blackberry 8xxx, sign up here for the free Talk-Now beta and here for a Jajah account, give it a try and leave your feedback in the comments.

One final comment: given the architecture of the Jajah network, this Talk-Now - Jajah mashup should not be confused with a VoIP over GSM service as there is no VoIP client processing packets within the mobile device. And it does not change the issues inhibiting Skype over GSM mobile..

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yahoo!'s messaging client now has a browser-based sister: Yahoo! Messenger for the Web - Beta.  

WebMessenger is a baby client, a first cut:

• No multichat
• No voice
• No video service

Before they could build it, Yahoo! had to deploy:

• Central messenger engines
• authentication, presence, message transport, gateways to other messaging platforms, etc. 
• A way for programs on other servers to talk to the engines
• web service APIs

This is a great start in The Race to Talk Enable The Web.

Yahoo! will keep adding engines and APIs and building web front ends, in this case a flash UI, until WebMessenger is more feature rich than than the downloadable client.

Then watch Yahoo! open up its messaging APIs to other teams within the Yahoo! family. You'll see custom web clients built into Yahoo!'s jobs, dating, shopping, games, sports portals. You'll see a Unified Communications theme continue beyond Messenger integration in Yahoo! Mail.

And one day Yahoo! will break the story that it's opened its messaging APIs to developers. So everyone can build Yahoo! Messenger with Voice into their own stores, blogging platforms, political campaigns, virtual worlds.

But you'll only want to build one voice platform into your web site.

So Microsoft, Google, AOL, Adobe and Skype are racing to to build that platform. So are cable, telephone, and broadband companies. They are racing to be the one voice and video talk channel for the Internet. The new public phone network. The new PSTN.

See also:

• Jeff Bonforte: Yahoo! Messenger, hold the download. "For the millions of Internet users who don’t own PCs, instant messaging is, with today’s launch, instantly available from any Internet-enabled computer."

• Sara Bacon on the Yahoo! Messenger Team Blog: "You can’t be signed into the full version of Messenger and the web version at the same time. If you sign into one, you’ll be automatically signed out of the other."

• Tom Keating: Yahoo Messenger for the Web launches. "Instant access to over 350 million users"

Update:

• The Last Podcast: What’s so Special About Yahoo’s Webmessenger? "Is my memory totally shot? Or is there a reason why this is suddenly news (besides the fact that Meebo and others have been doing the same thing for a long time)?"

• Rafe Needleman: Yahoo Messenger is now Webware. "I like this app well enough, but what I'm really waiting for is the global rollout of the integrated e-mail/chat app Yahoo promised us back in November."

• Elinor Mills: Yahoo Web-ifies its chat application. "It is being launched initially in Brazil, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and the United States, and is available in English, Portuguese, Vietnamese and traditional Chinese. Yahoo rivals Google, Microsoft and AOL already have Web-based versions of their instant-message applications with Gmail, which launched in 2004, MSN Web Messenger and AIM Express, respectively."

• Ryan Stewart: Yahoo goes Rich Internet Application for its browser messenger. "Built using Adobe's Flex 2 on top of Flash Player 9. The application is very well done and I thought it was more than competitive with Meebo. It's also fast, intuitive and stable, things a lot of people don't usually associate with Flash applications."

• Ted Patrick: http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/05/yahoo-web-messenger-built-with-flex-2.phpYahoo Web Messenger Built with Flex 2. "Highlights: Yahoo IM Protocol via Binary Socket --> flash.net.Socket. Nice skinning of the Flex Component set. Real time Localization to 4 Languages!!! It just works seamlessly. I logged in and chatted with Abdul Qabiz this AM. This sure would make for a great Apollo application. Shoot, by delivering Web Messenger Yahoo has enabled this app to work on the desktop cross-platform on MAC/WIN/LIN. Deliver using Flex for web RIA and you get desktop application deployment for free."

Congrats to Sara Bacon and the rest of the Web Messenger team.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)