Two weeks ago, it was announced that PamFax, with its ability not only to fax a document but also work through the Skype Extras Publishing Platform to collect revenues, was the winner of the European Mashup competition as well as the worldwide winner.

Thursday afternoon at a Skype Developer Event in San Jose, a mashup that I had been using during my trip to locate WiFi hotspots in the south Bay Area, JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype, was the recipient of the North American Mashup Cup. After receiving the cup JiWire COO Nidhad Hafiz (right) gave a brief demonstration and I had an opportunity to discuss its development with Nihad and CEO Kevin McKenzie (left). Not only does the JiWire Hotspot Finder locate nearby locations with WiFi access but it also provides local information of interest to the road warrior such as driving directions, weather, road conditions and several catagories of nearby retail, lodging and services locations. From the Skype Press Release:

The JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype allows users to search for and to find WiFi hotspots anywhere in the world through Skype. It allows one to view surrounding access points and then connect to them in just one click. The JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype includes easy keyword search capability; just type in "café" or "hotel" or the name of a specific location to find a nearby hotspot. You can also get local weather or traffic reports, news and directions by simply clicking on the map.

The download of the JiWire Hotspot Finder adds a contact to your Skype Contacts; typing "?" provides a complete set of instructions for using its Natural Language search engine. But not only does entering "restaurants in Sunnyvale, CA" into the chat window bring up a list of five "closest" WiFi-enabled restaurants (with a "next" command to bring up additional restaurants), it also brings up the JiWire WiFi companion that provides the meat of this mashup.

Initially the map will show interactive buttons indicating the locations of the hotspots found in the search; running your cursor over individual hotspots provides more details about the location.. The Location Tools tab includes five left sidebar buttons starting with a "Find Near By" button from which you can ask for, say, any Starbucks or Marriott Hotels, located within the map. Need the local weather forecast for the next five days? Click on Weather. Driving Directions and Local Traffic Conditions are also available via their interactive map. A local newswire runs across the bottom of the window. Run your cursor over identified locations for any of the services and a detail window pops up with more information, such as phone number, for the particular retailer or service or traffic condition.

The WiFi Tools tab provides details about your current WiFi connection and access to a tool which will check the security of your WiFi connection. Note that JiWire considers WEP keys as insecure whereas it defines WPA keys as secure. You also have the ability to register new Hotspots; JiWire will find the technical information; you only need to load the address and name for the location. It does also promote JiWire's Hotspot Helper (which I had subscribed to at some point prior to availability of the JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype). The JiWire WiFi Hotspot Helper does enhanced the security of your WiFi connection, if necessary (for instance changes WEP to WPA) and also provides a "SMTP" facility to send out your email, should the WiFi connection be blocked from your regular email SMTP server.

For the technical details: JiWire is written in C# and of course uses the Skype API's along with API's from Microsoft Virtual Earth, Microsoft Live Search, Weather Channel, Yahoo (Directions, Traffic, News) and additional geocoding information from MapQuest, Yahoo and Google. Nihad mentioned also that the Windows API itself along with .Net framework were also key elements in making this product happen. While the full utility runs under Windows, adding it to your Skype Contacts on a Mac or Linux platform will only bring up the search results but there is no WiFi companion window available at this time.

In my discussion with Nihad he not only mentioned how easily he had developed this application using the Skype API's but he also drew particular attention to how the Skype API documentation provided sufficient information to execute the development project much more effectively and efficiently.

Speaking with Kevin he mentioned that, while there is no business model associated with JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype, he does see it as providing awareness generation for their services that may lead to both purchase of their WiFi security tool and to use of their ad-supported desktop services. Kevin also mentioned that Nihad had developed the JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype as a "work of passion" outside his normal responsibilities at JiWire. And that passion certainly came through in my discussion with Nihad.

WiFi access is a key infrastructure requirement for road warriors using Skype. Over the past week I found WiFi access to be of varying reliability with the easiest ease-of-access to be a friend's (secured) home WiFi networks. I found this tool useful in locating WiFi hotspots; however, the biggest issue is for the WiFi service providers and Internet security software publishers to make a determined effort to make connecting to these WiFi hotspots a simple process. (I could not even get the registration web browser to come up at Starbucks on the T-Mobile service yet it worked beautifully at one hotel location over lunch.)

Congratulations again to Nihad, Kevin and the JiWire developer team.

Tags: Skype, Skype Mashup Competition, JiWire, JiWire Hotspot Finder for Skype, Skype Developer Program, Skype API, PamFax, Nihad Hafiz, Kevin McKenzie

Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Just over a month ago a two-day Skype outage caused great consternation with predictions of gloom and doom for Skype. Early yesterday here in California (around 1600GMT) I noticed almost 9.7 million users online -- back to about the same number as peak loads immediately prior to the outage. Somebody out there is continuing to use it; for someone Skype is offering value-add.

Meanwhile Andy Abramson over at VoIP Watch wants Yahoo executives to admit "Yahoo isn't talking." And whither AOL's AIM Phone Line? Om reports on Vonage: How Low Can You Go? And Matt Asay, over at CNet, writes: Swapping Vonage for Skype: One man's search for VoIP that actually works where he starts out with:

Yes, you read the headline right. I have long been a critic of Skype, suggesting that eBay was foolish to buy the VoIP toy and generally ridiculing it as a serious business tool.

Today I'm eating crow, and it tastes great. Why? Because Vonage has been complete rubbish for me, whereas Skype is increasingly approaching perfection. I dropped my traditional phone service for Vonage. I'm now about to drop my traditionally awful Vonage for Skype.

Read Matt's full story about how deterioration of service levels is driving away Vonage customers. (Hat tip to Andy for pointing out this story.) This morning Alec Saunders writes Walks like a telco, talks like a telco.... must be a telco where he discusses why many VoIP companies are dying when they simple try to offer lower cost versions of traditional legacy telco services. And he concludes with (my bold emphasis):

To get to free phone calls requires a fundamental change in architecture which Vonage et al have not embraced. It requires pushing the core calling functionality to the edge of the network, which implies turning off the "minute meter". Voice, in this scenario, is nothing more than an undifferentiated stream of bits, charged at the bandwidth rate of the network operator. The profits must be made from the services surrounding the call - before and after - not during.

The SIP standard anticipates this model by allowing for both peer-to-peer calling models, and calling models which pass through a centralized proxy. While no VoIP "operator" has ever embraced the peer SIP model, Skype has delivered peer calling on their proprietary protocol. Skype understands that the money isn't in transporting the bits, but rather [is] in all of the ancillary pieces that can be offered around that bit transport — ring tones, voice mail, phone numbers, and protocol licensing to third parties who wish to attach equipment to the Skype peer network. Similarly, by embedding conference calling in Facebook, at iotum we're trying to create a better experience before and after the call, rather than during simply focusing on the cost of the call (although free is pretty compelling, I would argue…)

That's the fundamental difference between the success of Skype and the failure of Vonage and SunRocket. Skype doesn't look like a telco. Vonage, however, walks like a telco and talks like a telco…. without a telco's deep pockets.

Not only does Skype offer an unequaled range of real time conversations services -- chat, presence, video, 10-party conference calls, voice mail, SMS messaging, call transfer and file transfer; but we are also now witnessing the emergence of Skype's Developer Partner program fully demonstrate the value of having service-oriented, ancillary offerings. Offerings that embed Skype into (business) processes such as call centers, collaboration tools, audio hosting tools, faxing, conversation archiving and CRM tools. To recall my post Skype Partners Answer Jeff's Call for Innovation in Voice Services:

In the Skype ecosystem we can see the recipe for a foundation for innovative IP-based services.

• Start with a full real time conversation platform that combines voice, presence and text messaging.
• Start with a real time conversation platform that is enhanced with video, call transfer, call forwarding, voice messaging and file transfer.
• Start with an IP-based ecosystem that has a set of API's to facilitate application development and mashups
• Start with a platform for which hardware has been developed to take advantage of many features of the platform.
• Start with a platform that can be accessed via not only Windows, Mac and Linux PC's but also USB phones, PC-free phone sets, mobile phones, Blackberries (here and here) and the Nokia N800 Internet tablets.

The post goes on to list some of these Partner-generated services. And as Skype's Partner program holds its various Developer events this month, we are seeing the beginnings of the evolution of Alec's Voice 2.0 Manifesto. Over the past two years as Skype's Partner services have evolved we have witnessed a withering of voice services at Yahoo, AOL and others. We have not see others recruit over 200 million account registrations (or disclose how many users are online in real time). Yet the Skype ecosystem is emerging from its cocoon, ready to fly as a major contributor to low cost worldwide real time communications services.

And the telcos don't have the strategic horsepower to compete with Skype; their most valid strategy for competing with Skype is to partner with Skype for the services and just ship the bits.

Now if we could just figure out what's going to evolve for Skype from the Google-eBay agreement announced just over a year ago that included this statement: "The companies will also explore interoperability between Skype and Google Talk via open standards to enable text chat and online presence."

Tags: Skype, Yahoo, AOL AIM Phone Line, Alec Saunders, GigaOm, CNET, Matt Asay, Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch, Voice 2.0 Manifesto, Google, eBay, Skype Developer Partners

Posted by Jim Courtney at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

PamFax now available for North America; Evoca launches phone-to-web media services platform.

The Skype Mashup contest award winning PamFax initially was rolled out as a beta for use by Europeans in order to determine infrastructure issues as well as performance requirements. You could send faxes to, however, not initiate them from, North America. Yesterday PamFax was made available worldwide, including North America. Download it at the PamFax website; it will be available in the Skype Extras Manager within a few days.

Evoca provides audio web hosting services using embedded Flash player technology where, for instance, voice recordings can be made via a Skype Contact algorithm. Today Evoca launched "a phone-to-web media services platform to easily create user-generated content"; a key feature is that there is no software download required to use the services. From their press release:

Evoca (www.evoca.com), the phone-to-Web services company, introduced Evoca Media Services to help companies increase their ROI - “Return on Interaction™” by using audio content to attract users to go online, generate more page and ad views, boost purchase and donation conversion ratios, and increase advertising revenue. Evoca Media Services technology gives companies easy ways for their customers, audiences, and supporters to record content from any phone - landline, mobile, and Skype™, and play the content with branded Flash players that bring any web page alive.

“Evoca invites media companies, political campaigns, cause marketers, social networking sites, and any organization to ‘Get a phone for your website’,” said Murem Sharpe, CEO and president of Evoca. “Now organizations can leverage the world’s 4 billion phones to capture customers and supporters’ exact words at the point of passion, when they have a phone in their hand.” People can record opinions, reviews, testimonials, and stories from local and toll-free phone lines available for over 40 countries. Companies can turn browsers into buyers and donors with Evoca's hosted voice application services that keep the target audience engaged both online and offline.

Along with this launch comes a set of Evoca API's and a comment from Mashable.com:

With its API, Evoca now enables users to customize their call recording solution for their audience. While it seems the focus is on business users, there could also be opportunities for social networks looking to add a voice comments feature (Facebook app anyone?).

Tags: Skype, PamFax, Evoca, Skype Extras

Posted by Jim Courtney at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The editors of Practical eCommerce magazine asked me these five questions for their November package on the future of eCommerce.

1. Skype, wireless Internet, cheap broadband access, cell phones. How does the explosion in communication technology affect ecommerce businesses?

2. How does an ecommerce owner balance the offering of services, such as video, that require a decent amount of broadband against the reality that many consumers (and, potential customers) still use dial-up Internet access?

3. How will consumers access the Internet five years from now?

4. What new communication technologies do you foresee? How will they affect ecommerce business?

5. Other thoughts on the future of communication technologies relative to ecommerce firms?

What do you think?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My breakfast club asked about the future of music; my take.

In twenty years...

We'll be listening through...

• Wireless ear buds for the poor.
• Literal ear buds for the middle class (in the ubiquitous Lasik era).
• Bass-range full-body mods for immersive world players.

Everything touchable/viewable has the option of a sonic identity as printable electronics become free/cheap. This means all goods have theme songs, animation, and spoken (Chinglish?) instructions built in; and we're talking about products, not even their packaging. Early cacophony in retail (all those products talking, singing, emoting) leads to more polite sound triggers and real-time, inter-product/brand negotiation for which gets to play what when and for whom.

Lastfm will offer a service to hotels and casinos. RFID your room key cards (passports?) and we'll program the music in W's lounges, hallways, elevators, bars and lobbies. personal music prefs blended with the ever changing mix of people in each space. You're bringing your ambience with you when you enter a room; it lingers for only a short while after you leave.

Live performance regains currency, for its freshness and authenticity. Those 4-hour-workweek folks source a Lincoln, NB, string quartet for their dinner in Shanghai.

Despite Google buying out AT&T, latency remains a challenge for musicians when they play, if not when they distribute their music.

Lastfm is still around, of course, because they exploited unsold/archaic ad banner inventory to sell instant access to live music performances. Combining personal/social music profiles with realtime ad targeting let them make irresistible offers. One click on a widget and you're listening/seeing/playing-with that Nicaraguan garage band you read about.

It may be retro in 20 years (after 15 years on the market), but people still use a TV scoring/fx bot for their personal video channels, sometimes even for their voice chats. With a few cues and clues, it cleverly drops in dramatic theme music, transitions, emergency room sound effects, laughtracks, and other audio. First used to spice up decades of old audio books, the company got rich by revitalizing ancient YouTube backlists.

Google will be how you find music, as rich media, especially those with words inside, become searchable. So you'll whip out your phone, hit the Goog button, speak "most embarrassing song ever" and see a young pre-lipo Britney Spears on the 2007 MTV Video Awards.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If you'd like to meet Skype software partners, swing by Skype North America's Open House BBQ this Thursday afternoon, 27 September, in San Jose, California. Jim Courtney and I will see you there.

If you liked the Skype Mashup Contest, check out the Sylantro Mashup Contest, starting now, organized by Thomas Howe and Mashable. The Sylantro contest is open to any tools or technologies so long as you're making great demonstrations of voice technologies in mashups.

See also:

• Skype Public Platform Roadmap
• The Dawn of the Mashup World II: And the European Mashup Competition Winner Is...
• The Dawn of the Mashup World: Part Ia: What is a Mashup?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What happens when you blend Ustream.tv-style live video with facebook-like social media and a dab of iTunes-flavored commerce? You get Cornerworld. Co-founded by Kelly Larabee, former Skype publicist, and Scott Beck, Cornerworld launches today at the DEMOfall conference. More proof of life after Skype. News release below the fold.

CORNERWORLD LAUNCHES platform for original PEOPLE

Tools and Services Simplify Digital Life and Expand Image Controls

Two Guy Trio Performs For DEMOfall Audience Live From Austin, Texas

SAN DIEGO/DALLAS - Sept. 24, 2007 - CornerWorld (OTCBB: CWRL) - a free, groundbreaking business management and social networking platform that empowers independent content creators to share and profit from their skill - launches today at DEMOfall 07, the premier launch venue for the world's most promising new technologies.

"Original creators can use CornerWorld to easily distribute, promote and monetize their digital creations while controlling how their content is downloaded, sampled, and priced," said President and Co-Founder of CornerWorld Scott Beck.  "CornerWorld integrates Web 2.0's most valuable collaboration and sharing features and provides a platform for everyone to participate, and profit." 

Blogging, sharing photo, audio and video, instant messaging, subject-driven forums, e-mail and contact unification, event invitations and classified advertising are combined in one simple interface.  New technology also expands boundaries to enable live streaming and capture for global event broadcasts and/or live video chats.

"I see a magnificent change that blends distributed computing power with the social Web to fundamentally alter information creation, access to knowledge and the power that comes with both," said Chris Shipley, executive producer, DEMO.  "By uniting the best of social networking and introducing business management tools, CornerWorld is the new distribution and promotional vehicle that will inspire amateurs, professionals and entertainment seekers to push creative media to its fullest potential."  

"We are honored to be a part of DEMOfall and its long history of launching some of the world's most innovative and paradigm-shifting technology," said Beck.

CornerWorld's on-stage presentation at DEMOfall includes a sampling of a live musical performance by up-and-coming band Two Guy Trio.  CornerWorld will broadcast the band's entire studio performance live from Austin, Texas on Sept. 25 from 6:15-7:15 p.m. ET/3:15 - 4:15 p.m. PT.  Visit the DEMOfall event profile at www.cornerworld.com/demofall to catch a glimpse of the hottest new technology as previewed at the exclusive DEMOfall conference.  The Two Guy Trio performance will stream live and also be available after the show at the Two Guy Trio CornerWorld page: www.cornerworld.com/twoguytrio.

Uniting Networks

CornerWorld is joining with companies and networks to open access and spur creation.  In partnership with Napster, CornerWorld offers more than 4 million tracks and features, and provides opt-ins for its users to distribute works via Napster.  CornerWorld enables PayPal micropayments, deploys Plaxo's universal contact manager and serves a limited number of ads via Google's AdSense.  CornerWorld will expand its affiliations with other best-of-breed networks and businesses. 

About DEMO

Produced by Network World Events and Executive Forums, the semi-annual DEMO conferences focus on emerging technologies and new products, which are hand-selected from across the spectrum of the technology marketplace. The DEMO conferences have earned their reputation for consistently identifying tomorrow's cutting-edge technologies, and have served as launch pad events for companies such as Palm, E*Trade, Handspring, and U.S. Robotics, helping them to secure venture funding, establish critical business relationships, and influence early adopters. Each DEMO conference features approximately 70 new companies, products and technologies. For more information, visit www.demo.com.

About CornerWorld

Based in Dallas, CornerWorld (OTCBB: CWRL) combines social networking, content-sharing and business management tools to enable independent people to profit from their original digital works.  Cornerworld builds from the best of people-generated media and offers fine controls for professionals and amateurs to set their own prices and manage the promotion and sale of their content.  The CornerWorld platform combines live video steaming and capture, blogs, chat, interactive classified ads and invitations - all in one interactive, secure community. CornerWorld is free and easy to join. For more information, visit www.cornerworld.com. CornerWorld is an independent publicly traded company. 

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about our beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. These statements can be identified by the words, "expects," "continues," "projects," "hopes," "believes," "could," and other similar words. Forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. Because such statements are based on expectations and are not statements of fact, actual events and results may differ materially from those projected. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. While these forward-looking statements, and any assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our current judgment regarding the direction of our business, actual results will almost always vary, sometimes materially, from any estimates, predictions, projections, assumptions or other future performance suggested herein. Except as required by applicable law, including the securities laws of the United States, we do not intend to update any of the forward-looking statements to conform these statements to actual results.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Daniel Brusilovsky interviewed me for his Apple Universe podcast. In episode 54 (31 minutes) Daniel asked why we use Skype?

Off the cuff:

freedom from cost, privacy from government and employers, multiple modes of communication in one conversation, and presence for avoided voicemail. Listen.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a few pointers resulting from a day of using Skype and assisting acquaintances who run a couple of small businesses get going with Skype. The day started with three concurrent chat sessions with contacts in London, New York and Munich; why does everybody make contact at the same time and then it's quiet for hours?

In order to keep in touch with reality, it is sometimes useful to go out and help someone start their Skype experience to see what new Skype users come across as they install Skype (currently version 3.5). This was a case where my acquaintances are paying over $300 per month on North American long distance; they have been doing a number of three-party calls (telco limitation) and they do a couple of desktop sharing sessions each week via a GoToMeeting account. Here are some of the issues that arose:

• When you install Skype fresh, it seems that "Show Outlook Contacts" (in the View menu) is now turned on by default. I have never used this feature as I have over 1,000 Outlook contacts, most of whom I might contact once or twice a year at most. I don't need the Skype Contacts window clutter that would result. I would much prefer to access my Outlook Contacts phone number information via the Skype Email Toolbar installed into Outlook.
• This feature should either be left "off" at startup or be proposed as a parameter to be set during installation. Contributing to the problem is that, if you have a large number of contacts, it actually can take some time (like up to 15 to 30 minutes) before the Outlook contacts appear in the Skype Contact window as Skype needs some time to load up these contacts. And then the new user becomes very confused; "what did I do to make this happen?". So, on installation, make sure this option is turned off.
• They asked why one of them, who has a significantly more expensive (than Skype's) fixed rate North American long distance service, should buy SkypeOut credits. (I'll discuss the Unlimited Calling Plan later) We came up with four solid reasons for using SkypeOut beyond her existing plan:

  • To make multi-party calls beyond three participants

  • To make calls from the laptop while away from the home office

  • To make inexpensive calls outside North America

  • For desktop sharing, even if using GoToMeeting (they will be evaluating the Skype Partners' desktop collaboration tools in due course).

• Why not just go to the Unlimited North American Calling plan immediately? Because, in spite of the low cost via Skype, the most important criteria for this very non-technical user is reliability of service. She knows the other plan, even though it is more expensive, works. She needs a few weeks' experience with Skype to gain the confidence required to be able to use it as her primary long distance service and to drop the other "telco" flat rate long distance service. It would definitely be helpful to build this confidence if two weeks of unlimited North American calling could be provided to new North American Skype users.
• I was asked if Skype chat windows would recognize numbers for use via SkypeOut when entered as part of a Chat message. We tried "(416) nnn-7890" and did not get a link. A quick Skype chat inquiry to an expert on Skype's phone number recognition brought back the answer that you can't forget the country code; so "+1 (416) nnn-7890" is recognized just fine as a SkypeOut hyperlink within a chat window.. For the most part North Americans have no idea of what the "+CountryCode" phone number format is all about (although the presence of "+" on wireless device keypads is increasing awareness).

Upon completion of the initial installation there can be a lot of settings to review initially especially to ensure privacy. A starter wizard could set the following as the more critical parameters, phone numbers and settings for personalized Skype operation::

• Entry of mobile and office numbers (see this post for reasons)
• Basic Sounds: Classic or Modern
  • a single selection to cover all settings
  • frankly most people I encounter prefer the Classic settings to the default Modern
• "Allow calls from", "Allow chat from" settings
• Show Outlook Contacts (Yes/No)
• When someone calls me
  • {Show Skype call alert, Show Windows tray alert} (with examples)
• Automatically answer incoming calls selection
• Call Forwarding Number(s) entry
• SMS message option

And finally, doing a purchase of Skype Credits during this setup demonstrated new international economic paradigms. Whereas the Canadian dollar has traditionally tracked the US Dollar in relationship to European currencies, it now appears the Canadian Dollar is tracking the Euro and not the US Dollar's downward drift over the past few months..

And how is Skype contributing to this massive international economic change? Since the beginning of SkypeOut two years ago, SkypeOut rates to major countries were US$0.021 or less per minute but C$0.024 per minute (reflecting an earlier 15% premium for the US$ relative to the C$.). When looking at SkypeOut rates today, we found that the US rate has risen to US$0.024 per minute while the Canadian rate remains unchanged. Friday was the first time since the mid-1970's that the Canadian dollar traded above the US Dollar on foreign exchange markets. And Skype is pegging the C$ to the Euro.

By taking this direction in pricing changes, Skype is not only disrupting communications but also disrupting long standing international foreign currency trading traditions. My macro-economics prof told me that ongoing massive government operating deficits will eventually devalue a currency -- and he is getting verification during this period of high U.S. federal deficits and economic turmoil in the U.S. Proof again that there's no free lunch!

It also corroborates that Skype does most of their interconnect contracts in Euros - to be expected given both its headquarters business office location and much higher base of European relative to U.S. users.

Tags: Skype, Skype Unlimited North American Calling, Skype Credits, Skype Email Toolbar, Skype installation, Skype pricing, Skype Sounds

Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

At lunch Wednesday with investor James Seng and PhoneGnome founder David Beckemeyer, we wondered:

• Has anyone earned their money back making Skype-related hardware in the US market?

• Are mobile, embedded and hybrid Skype phones one order of magnitude too hard for the next 100 million US users? Or two orders too hard?

• Is the quality of Skype calls really degrading over time? or are customer expectations rising? Keynote research says hard-wired VoIP quality compares favorably with PSTNs. FierceVoIP comments. But no measurement of or comparison with VoIM products like Skype.

• Who is Skype's spokesperson to the US Spanish-speaking market?

• Will James' laptop still be in his car after it was towed? (yes, it was.)

Skype Japan signs up A8.net for an affiliate sales program. The better to promote Skype downloads from blogs and other web sites.

Cultural anthropologist Mimi Ito is editing a new series of ethnographic studies of digital culture. I can't wait for the deep dives into how people really use technology. 

Jean Mercier caught Skype's download counter turned off and repaired.

SIPphone launched Gizmo for mobile beta.

Read about this week's Skype for Windows 3.5.0.239 hotfix bugfixes and security improvements. Or just download it.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 04:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday (Sept. 19) was the 25th anniversary of the birth of the infamous smiley via a bulletin board message on a primitive pre-ARPA Carnegie Mellon Universtiy network. Smiley's inventor Scott Fahlman tells the story of its emergence into the public domain along with the original message's recovery from CMU's tape archives.

Given the nature of the community, a good many of the posts were humorous (or attempted humor). The problem was that if someone made a sarcastic remark, a few readers would fail to get the joke, and each of them would post a lengthy diatribe in response. That would stir up more people with more responses, and soon the original thread of the discussion was buried. In at least one case, a humorous remark was interpreted by someone as a serious safety warning.

This problem caused some of us to suggest (only half seriously) that maybe it would be a good idea to explicitly mark posts that were not to be taken seriously. After all, when using text-based online communication, we lack the body language or tone-of-voice cues that convey this information when we talk in person or on the phone. Various “joke markers” were suggested, and in the midst of that discussion it occurred to me that the character sequence :-) would be an elegant solution – one that could be handled by the ASCII-based computer terminals of the day. So I suggested that. In the same post, I also suggested the use of :-( to indicate that a message was meant to be taken seriously, though that symbol quickly evolved into a marker for displeasure, frustration, or anger

What began 25 years ago as a few emoticons to inject some basic moods -- humor, anger, wink -- into nascent text messaging has become flood of graphic innovation with emoticons reflecting wide ranges of expression; Skype chat dedicates a key menu item to a selection of 72 choices to express "a picture worth a thousand words". Pamela incorporates a Rich Mood Editor, which has been broken out as a free Skype Extra, to mix text, emoticons and hyperlinks. Entire websites are devoted to providing emoticons.

Hat tip to Jaanus Kase for pointing this one out; he shows a commerative flag displayed at CMU. And thanks, Scott, for bringing emotional life to text messaging.

Update: Peter Parkes at Skype has posted about this anniversary and provided a link to some "hidden" Skype emoticons as well.

Tags: Emoticons, smileys, Skype, Pamela, Rich Mood Editor, Skype Extra, Scott Fahlman, Jaanus Kase

Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past two years, Skype has developed, under the leadership of Peter Kalmstrom, Program Manager for Skype Toolbars, several utilities which facilitate the Skype experience when used in conjunction with email, web browsers and various Microsoft Office documents. The Skype Email Toolbar embeds Skype activity links into Outlook; the Skype Web Toolbars for both Firefox and Internet Explorer have been embedded into the Skype for Windows client installation. Finally the Skype Office Toolbar has recently been upgraded to cover the entire range of Office products: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Project and Visio. One challenge of developing the Office Toolbar has been the moving target of Office 2007 releases; however, now that it is officially released it is being reported that Office 2007 may be outselling Windows Vista.

The Skype Office Toolbar functions to:

• Identify and tag phone numbers within a document: while associating them with any phone numbers in the authors' Skype Contacts.
• Skypify Phone Numbers in an Office document such that right clicking on the document opens up a menu from which you can select an option for starting a call, sending an SMS message (the phone number is analyzed to determine if it is SMS-capable) and copying to your Outlook Contacts.

• Provide a document author's Skype Call/Chat icons in the toolbar. All documents created in Office documents incorporationg and activating the Skype Office toolbar have the author's Skype Name embedded into the documents properties. As a result when a recipient with Skype installed opens the document s/he will be provided with Skype icons in the Toolbar to immediately launch a Skype call or chat, as desired, with the author.
• Send the file directly out of the Office product to a Skype contact via Skype File Transfer via either the Skype Toolbar "Send File" Toolbar drop down item or via the File | Send To menu. This will bring up a list of Skype Contacts from which to select the recipient(s). This is a feature that will be found across all the Office documents and is perhaps the most used.

The Skype Office Toolbar is designed work with Office 2000/XP/2003 and 2007 under Windows and takes advantage of the newer Toolbar Ribbons characteristic of Office 2007.

Peter has prepared a complete 13-minute video showing all the features in action. Certainly well worth the time to review it and determine where you can use the Skype Office Toolbar in your daily routine. I think it is the "sleeper" of the Toolbars in terms of what is delivers across the complete range of Office products and documents as well as its potential for productivity enhancement.

Update: Peter has written about the Skype Office Toolbar on the Skype for Business blog.

Reference Posts

• Original Post on Skype Email Toolbar
• Skype Toolbars: Providing Contextual Access to Skype
• Eight Ways to File Transfer Using Skype
• Skype 3.0: I Don't "Dial" Phone Numbers".
• Remember "ET Call Home"? Now It's "Skype Call Home"

Tags: Skype, Skype Office Toolbar. MS Office, MS Word, Skype File Transfer, Peter Kalmstrom, Skype Email Toolbar, Skype Web Toolbar

Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)

Disparity between broadband haves and have-nots limit and focus Skype's market opportunity. 

Frank Bures' Wired magazine story looks at Internet Telecommunications Union data to compare raw prices of 100 Kbps broadband access by country. In some parts of the world, broadband costs two months' of a family's income.

Bures lays most blame on governments for high rates; artificial scarcity, censorship, and economic discrimination through tariffs only the richest afford put money and power in government pockets.

CORRECTION: Mr. Bures doesn't lay blame. I do; that's my interpretation. My apologies, Frank.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Scott Karp was a little put-off by Yahoo! Mash's treating its users like teens.

There's been some reporting of gamer culture seeping in to the workplace. Onlife, gaming and cyberculture influence players from 18 to 40 who, many assuming leadership roles in the last decade. Their notions of teamwork, intimacy/privacy, goal discovery, and measures of success change how we work and why.

Many industries are becoming adhocracies and wirearchies where personal brand and informal organization match or supersede formal hierarchy. Starting with email, blogs, and wikis, and now with twitter, Skype, and social networks, we're inventing and deploying tools for the new workplace.

So while Mash's clothing may appear goofy, put on your work hat and imagine how, with a few small tweaks you might adapt it to the new world of work.

• For example, past "my friend" and "best friend" add: my immediate supervisors, direct reports, peers, bowling team, chain of command, community of practice, customer, in-my-organization, partner, supplier (and other elements you might pluck from SAP or Salesforce).

• Imagine widgets enabling views of projects, your work schedule, internal news, what your colleagues are working on, risks/threats of the day/week worthy of your attention.

• And populate your bio with answers your community cares for: claims to fame, places you've traveled and lived, things you know / can do / understand / teach.

Innovation is as likely to start in consumer products as anywhere else, and many find their way into industry despite futile resistance. Among other nifty things, Mash brings direct manipulation to its blog/socialnet user interface, a portent of portal upgrades to come.

I'm not convinced Yahoo! particularly cares about the biz business. They got out of since they never made money sans advertising from office tools.

So I'm cruising for those capabilities that will find their way into other services, services I'm likely to smuggle into my daily work life. Yahoo!'s Pipes, Upcoming and flickr are everyday tools for me at work, as are Skype, Google desktop search, docs, mail, and calendar. Wouldn't it be interesting if Mash joined them?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 04:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Being on a SkypePro subscription I have $3.00 taken out of my Skype Credits every month; it had been occurring on the 12th of the month with an email notification received two or three days prior to the due date. Overnight I received my notification for September with the credits to be taken on the 19th. True to their word, I am receiving my "goodwill gesture" seven day subscription extension announced August 21. And my monthly withdrawal date has been moved to the 19th.

When responsible at Quarterdeck in the early days of the commercial Internet for business development activities related to (dialup) Internet Service Providers, the primary reason for failure of an ISP was an inability to get their billing systems working to collect monthly revenues efficiently without manual intervention. Great to have verified that Skype's automated back office subscription management system has the flexibility to adapt so transparently and seamlessly to these one-time situations. Congratulations to Skype's customer services team on this one.

Tags: Skype, SkypePro

Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At the Skype Developer Conference in June, Paul Amery, Director of the Skype Developer Program, committed to release a Public Platform Roadmap at the Skype Developer Days in Prague past this week. It happened.

Our mission at SDP is to enable developers around the world to bring Skype to more users and to enrich Skype users' experience. We want to open our doors to all developers, small and large. In the long run, we aim to make the entire spectrum of features and services that are available to the end users also available to the developers via client APIs and web services. And we want external developers to work not only for the end users but also for other developers, creating middleware, wrappers, and tools.

The Roadmap Wiki. Key points:

• They want to talk about the "public Skype API's - in plural", due to the variety of operating system Skype clients and wrappers (Skype4Com, Skype4Java, Skype4Py) supported.
• The Road Map has two key segments:
  • the first provides the delivery commitment for the next quarter (Q407) and
  • the second is an ongoing Idea Pool from which subsequent quarters' commitments and priorities will be determined.
• A window on the dynamics of issues being tracked in the Jira issue tracker categorized by bugs and feature requests.

The Developer Partners team at Skype is creating a RoadMappers Group who can register to contribute by editing this wiki.

For two years a Skype Roadmap has been a major request at the Skype Developers Conference, not to mention in the course of many of my discussions with developers. And web services support has been the number one outstanding feature request. Skype is now placing focus on these issues.

A key challenge to developer partners: with these additional tools coming along: can someone come up with that "innovative voice application" that meets Jeff Pulver's criteria discussed here: "Something cool. Something that truly helps to redefine communications."

Tags: Skype, Skype Developer Program, Skype Public Roadmap, Paul Amery, Jeff Pulver

Posted by Jim Courtney at 01:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype makes me so aware of my minimal foreign language skills. So I'm excited about tools that help me compensate. The first I want to mention is the Worldwide Lexicon Project. Brian McConnell's essay, The End Of The Language Barrier, starts:

The language barrier, as we know it, will be gone by 2010. Computer scientists have been chasing a Holy Grail of machine intelligence for decades, but the breakthrough that will eliminate the language barrier is social, not technical.

Like Wikipedia, the WLP harnesses collective goodwill and self-interest. In this case, the multilingual translate web pages. Because they have the power, they choose what is translation-worthy.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On Fridays we always can notice a lower number of users online. Usually concurrent users online go down by about 4.5% compared to Thursdays. And it goes even lower on Saturday and Sunday. Weekend begins on Friday for some (Muslim) countries and for a lot of other countries it starts on Saturday. Many Skypers leave their computers to do other things on the weekend.

But Friday, September 7, 2007, the number of concurrent users online went down by 8.2 % compared to Thursday. Why?

It was Independence Day in Brazil, and my “Samba, Futebol and Carnaval” friends prefer to be on the beaches. Brazil has quite a lot of Skype users!

Could I conclude (from the numbers above) that 3.7 % of Skype Users are Brazilians?

Jean's Skype Numerology blog is quantifiabley12.4% better than the average blog.

Posted by Jean Mercier at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A post a few days ago, The Dawn of the Mashup World: Part Ia: What is a Mashup, generated a heated discussion on the Skype Mashup Group Chat. Also a few comments. Glad to get some feedback onto Skype Journal; thanks Don and Thomas. (And congratulations to Don Kennedy for having MyToGo selected by ProgrammableWeb.com as August's Best New Mashup.)

Having monitored the discussion and been involved as a judge in the Skype Mashup competition, my criteria for a mashup are:

1. A solution to a user or business problem that
2. Marries two or more otherwise independent technology platforms or technology services and
3. Makes use of both the technology craftsperson's unique toolkit mix and his/her experience
4. To satisfy an otherwise unfulfilled user or business process need.