Gear

• Sungjut TangoX Nano UMPC Comes With Integrated, Detachable Skype Phone. Pretty, tiny, tablet. Upside: you always have a USB Skype phone with dial pad. Downside: it's a handset and Skype calls are usually 6-20 minutes long. Akihabara News via Gizmodo.

• Demo of Skype for the Nokia N73 on YouTube. Not generally available
  

• Skype Korea will sell Belkin Wi-Fi phones at 50 E-Mart stores in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province.

• Skype video calls via satellite from the ASUS Eee solid-state drive laptop. For mountaineers.

Software

• Ecamm Call Recorder for Skype (Mac) was upgraded to v2.3. "Adds compatibility with Skype for Mac v2.7. Adds new two-track video recording option. Enhanced recorded video quality. Includes updated Convert To MP3 and Convert To AAC utilities."

• BT launches Go!Messenger on the Sony PSP, a Skype-competitive voice/IM/video client. Only works in system now, but a "call out" service coming soon.

At work

• This anonymous security blogger warns IT to stay away from Skype. Nice list of fears, most negligible. Shows the attitudes but not the evidence.

• On the other hand, John Edwards of VoIP-News runs a side-by-side comparison of Skype vs. Business VoIP. After comparing installation, cost, features, scalability, management, reliability and support:

  "In terms of cost and simplicity, Skype beats the competition hands down. But businesses looking for guaranteed support and service, as well as a high degree of control over their IP telephony system, will want to opt for some type of business VoIP deployment."

And you missed a fun "Ekisuka" party last night for Excite and Skype users.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

To repeat: Skype Pro for North America consolidates Skype Unlimited North America and other services - same cost, extra benefits

One of the challenges for Skype's new CEO will be to position marketing, especially marketing communications, as a strategic tool for effectively communicating changes and transitions at Skype. In December Skype Journal came out with the story "Skype Pro Replaces Skype Unlimited North America Plan". But it seems that the message still needs fuller communication within Skype's own website as I have now encountered a couple of situations where this change was not readily understood.

To go over the history:

• In May, 2006 Skype announced free SkypeOut for all calls to the PSTN originating and terminating within United States and Canada. At the time they announced that this offering would end December 31, 2006.
  
• In December, 2006, Skype announced for 2007 their Skype Unlimited North America plan whereby for US$29.95 (C$34.95) U.S. and Canadian Skypers could have unlimited calling to the PSTN, again for 12 months of calls originating and terminating within U.S. and Canada. This plan again was to last to December 31, 2007 but with a review to consider what to offer in 2008. As an inducement to sign up early, all those who subscribed prior to January 31, 2007 received a 50% discount. The biggest shock at this point was having users realize they got one year, not one month, of unlimited calling for such a low price.
  
• In January, 2007 Skype announced Connection Fees - a per call fee for making a connection, based on country of call origination. This fee amounts to 3.9 cents for call originating in United States and 5.9 cents for call originating in Canada (who said there was no telecomm monopoly in Canada?). However, the Connection Fee did not apply for calls made under the Skype North America plan; as a result this change was masked from Unlimited North America subscribers unless you made calls outside North America. At the same time they announced a new Skype Pro offering for Skypers in certain European countries, involving fixed monthly cost for calls to landline phones within the home country.
  
• In August, 2007, with the release of Skype 3.5 that introduced Call Transfer (free for Skype-to-Skype call transfers), Skype announced Skype Pro for North America with the following features, for $3.00 per month - deducted monthly from your Skype Credits:

• Skype Call Transfer for SkypeIn to Skype/SkypeOut
• Skype Call Transfer for Skype to SkypeOut
• 50% reduction for annual SkypeIn number
• Free voice mail

• In December, with no press announcement, Skype consolidated Skype's Unlimited North America plan into Skype Pro such that there is again one offering for U.S. and Canadian Skypers involving, for $3.00 per month deducted from your Skype Credits:

• Unlimited calling to both landline and mobile phones where the call both originates and terminates within U.S. and Canada
• When traveling in any of 28 countries (Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Mexico, etc.) free landline calls within the country you are visiting
• A fair use policy applies to both the above features
• Call transfer: SkypeIn to Skype/SkypeOut and Skype to SkypeOut
• 60% reduction on annual SkypeIn fee for an online number
• Voice Mail
• Skype-To-Go for up to six (overseas) speed dials; connection fee applies

If you subscribed to Unlimited North America during 2007 you subscription will continue to run until the expiry date. So my friend whom I helped subscribe to Unlimited North America last November can use that plan until November, 2008. Three weeks before my UNA plan expired January 8, 2008 (extended one week due to the Skype outage) I received an email from Skype alerting me to the changes outlined above.

As a result, for effectively the same price charged for Skype Unlimited North America, Skype Pro provides additional features such as free Call Transfer for connections from/to the PSTN, SkypeIn discount and free calls within a visited country while traveling. The other difference is that Skype Pro fees are deducted monthly from Skype Credits rather than paying a one-time annual subscription fee.

So while U.S. and Canadian Skypers receive additional benefits for effectively the same price with this transition, it would have behooved Skype to make some form of press release at the time. Currently I am encountering a few instances of customer confusion (and unnecessary distress) during this one year transition period. One of the challenges and achievement benchmarks for new CEO Josh Silverman will be to introduce marketing communications 101 processes into the business operations of Skype.

Tags: Skype, SkypePro, Skype Unlimited North America, Skype Connection Fees, Skype Call Transfer, SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Skype Marketing, Skype CEO, Josh Silverman

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Privacy is basic. Yet experienced designers still break our privacy expectations when trying to add value. jaxtr launched cafe jaxtr, a new tool for exploring their social conversation space. Stuart is one of Skype Journal's founders. Stuart's angry at jaxtr for showing his online behavior to people in the cafe. Breaching trust is bad. Bad for the truster, worse for the breacher's business.

The DataPortability Project's Policy Action Group is making it easier to hit the right privacy and authorization notes every time. Join the DP Policy AG Skype chat for live conversation, the Policy mailing list, and a new team wiki.

One strategy I'm proposing: a pre-flight privacy checklist for designers. I don't know all the questions you should ask before committing a design, but maybe we can make the list together. Checklists produce results for doctors and pilots, maybe it can work for social media architects.

More on privacy from Skype Journal:

• The Bavarian Intercept Proves Skype is Secure
• Are you a human? We need to CAPTCHA IM bots
• The Skype Social Network: Three Values
• PresenceNext: Authorization by Negotiation, central to Presence 2.0
• Berjikly: Self-Disclosure in VoIM
• Rights? In Social Media?
• Five things missing in the Participation Ladder
• Privacy and Prejudice: An Interruption 2.0 Manifesto for the AlwaysOn Lifestyle
• Presence: Hidden in public view
• FT: Zennström confirms Skype filters text; questions he would not answer
• What do people put in their Skype profiles?
• What will you do to protect your webcam privacy?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Lee and I coined the slogan "The Trillion Dollar Rethink" for the Emerging Communications Conference to capture the magnitude of the changes in world communication.

It turns out a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) is only what the United States spends on telecom. Worldwide the number is really three times that. The 100 billion minutes people talked Skype-to-Skype kept money from the pockets of telephone carriers into the hands of consumers.

We're in transition to a post-telephone era.

  New modes and new media.

   Post-numeric addressing.

    Embedding of access into everyday objects.

     Immersion of talk into onlife.

      Mediated labor market arbitrage.

       Sensory fidelity never imagined when copper was laid.

eComm2008 assembles mindblowing visionaries and entrepreneurial cutthroats, telco rebels and minute-stealing traffickers, frontier architects and mad scientists, all in service to this profound change of our societies, our economies, our work, and our very lives.

You don't have to believe in change.

Just survive it.

If you're smart and lucky, maybe you can lead the change.

What's your piece of the $3 trillion pie?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 02:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While doing a broad search through an agency for its new CEO, eBay went internally to announce this morning the appointment of shopping.com CEO Josh Silverman as Skype's new CEO effective in four weeks (March 24). From the eBay press release:

Silverman, currently CEO of Shopping.com, an eBay company, brings more than nine years of experience in running hyper-growth global consumer Internet companies. Silverman will join Skype on March 24, 2008 and report directly to John Donahoe, President and CEO-elect of eBay Inc. Michael van Swaaij, who was appointed interim CEO in October 2007, will stay actively involved with Skype.

Josh is an eBay veteran, having served, prior to his Shopping.com role, as General Manager for Marketplaats.nl and been involved with building eBay's classifieds business in Europe. Prior to joining eBay in 2003, he was a co-Founder and CEO of Evite, a social event planning service that I have used several times successfully, most recently for my high school's 50th anniversary reunion.

Josh does get blogging; He's already put up his first post:

So what can you expect from me? That I’m serious about wanting to build the greatest products — and the greatest company — on Earth. That doing so means listening well, being willing to think different and take risks. And in everything we do, one thing is certain: we’ll always have the best interests of the Skype community at heart.

I’m the new guy, and have a lot to learn. To really understand Skype’s cultural and technological DNA, my number one priority is to do a lot of listening and learning. With my wife and kids about to begin their adventure in Estonia as well, I have all the support I could ever need. I want to know everything about the technology, the team and the community. And I hope to share some of my observations on this very blog and see what you think, too.

So, with their business headquarters having been in London, but the primary development team in Estonia, the question arises as to why he is planning a move to Estonia? Is this a precursor to moving out of that expensive London real estate? Update: GigaOm reports that Josh intends to place himself temporarily in Tallinn where he can get a hands-on assessment of the technology team and direction. He subsequently intends to move to London.

And my second question has to be, given you want some time to learn-and-listen,: "How many days do you have to be on board to make some significant statements on the forthcoming direction of Skype?" (Recalling, tongue-in-cheek, Jerry Yang's "100 Days" at Yahoo that eventually resulted in an unfriendly offer from Microsoft.)

Welcome, Josh! You have your challenges, but if you succeed, Skype can become one of the most powerful communications forces going for building a peaceful world as we witness power shifts from centralized enterprises and organizations to the individual. We wish you luck as you take on your responsibilities.

Tags: Skype, eBay, Shopping.com, Josh Silverman

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Peter Griffin (no relation to the fictional character) field tested Skype on the Sony PSP during a recent trip to Europe. Ends:

All up a decent, free add-on for the PSP and one that makes the device even more attractive for those with access to Wi-fi at home and out on the road. One of the best Skype implementations I've seen since the classy Netgear Skype handset that did away with any need for peripheral hardware.

Hmmm. What could Skype be like on a Wii?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Takumi Ono tells a loving story about using Skype to talk with her father.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

VoIP News has come out with a post discussing what author Jim Higdon deems are "The 5 Best Skype Extras". Jim presents a most interesting perspective on the dyslexic nature of Skype with its superb technology yet turbulent business performance in his statement:

With an unsteady performance since its purchase by eBay Inc., its founder’s costly departure, the emergence of Skype spam, significant competition, outages and poor customer service, many have speculated that Skype could be the next item for auction at eBay. Yet, despite all the bad news and crabby blog posts, more than 100 million people worldwide are registered Skype users, and 60,000 new users sign up every day.

A few comments:

• In my work I am finding that "collaboration" is a catch-all for any service providing an opportunity for a "group", whether two parties or several hundred, and whether unilaterally or interactively, to concurrently communicate together. Ranks right up there in terms of confusion and misuse with the phrase "Unified Communications". Yugma Skype Edition and Lotus Sametime Unyte are desktop sharing applications providing support for conversations, whether voice, text and/or video, while Convenos and Webex historically have provided fully-featured virtual office and virtual conferencing capabilities with voice as an embedded element of the overall collaborative experience.. Different tools for different target markets here
  
• With so many of my network of contacts acquiring Macs these days, I do find that, with Yugma's cross-platform capability which Jim highlights, I am using it as my de facto desktop sharing application in presentations and discussions.
  
• Having had a chance to see both the Sony PlayStationPortable and Sony mylo COM-2 at CES, I have to say the latter offers the more intriguing embedding of Skype. Whereas the PSP only offers voice, the second generation mylo offers both voice and IM along with use of Skype file transfer to send pictures and other files. In fact, I have seen one review where the new mylo should be considered as good competition for the iPod Touch.
  
• Hat tip to Andy for pointing out Jim's post. Note Andy's comments:

What I'm seeing with the add-ins is how Skype has really become a pipe within a pipe, something I felt was coming around the time of eBay's acquisition. With each add-in it becomes easier and easier for two way communications users to build their world around Skype for many interactive, one on one activities, like web conferencing and desktop sharing. This Top 5 list bears that out once again.

Other Skype Journal posts on Jim's Top 5:

• Skylook: A Skype Extras Success Story
• A Most Interesting Skype Mashup: OnState Expands Into Unified Messaging
• OnState CEO Provides More Background
• Brandon Holland and His Affinity for the Echo123 Girl (Skype on AppleTV)

Tags: Skype, Skype Extras, VoIP News, Jim Higdon, VoIP Watch, Sony PlayStationPortable, Sony mylo, Andy Abramson, Skylook, AppleTV, OnState Communications, OnState Unified Messaging

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Jean has pointed out the crossing of 12 million concurrent users online earlier today. And Skype finally released a number that won't help the investment analysts: Skype usage has passed the 100 billion minute mark. So what has the blogsphere said?

• Eric Schonfeld at Tech Crunch seems to have a minute-to-call converter with a 1:1 ratio. But nowhere do I see Skype giving out the average number of minutes per call.
• Villu Arak at Skype has looked up other milestones that use the number 100 billion.
• Jon Arnold notes both milestones and comments:

Skype may have its share of challenges, but they have definitely taken telephony where it's never been before, and of course are trying to do the same now with video. You only hit 100 billion once, and it's a great testament to what Niklas and Janus started only a few years ago, and I'd say it's definitely worthy of recognition. And for what it's worth, I've used Skype more today than I have in ages, so in my very small way, I'm helping the cause.

But let's get one number straight: 276 million accounts have been registered since day one, not 276 million users. There are lots of reasons to have multiple accounts and I can see more as Skype movers towards 0.2  trillion minutes of calling time.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype reached around 19h GMT 12 million concurrent users online on Monday, this for the first time ever. It went from 11 to 12 million in 42 days.This is an absolute speed record. The previous record million “speed” was 63 days in March 2006.

In the past the peaks were somewhere between 16h and 17h GMT. Now it occurs about two hours later. This shows a recent growth in the Americas. Or, in other words, they are catching up with the usage rate of the Europeans.

And when will Asia catch up? When it does, we should see lesser fluctuations of the number of concurrent users online between day and night, or at least a change in the patterns of the curve.

Posted by Jean Mercier at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My favorites of the recent Comcast commercials are the "Big Old Expensive Phone Company" television spots by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

• BOEPC Broadway picks on telco DSL providers for being big, old, expensive, slow.
• BOEPC Guitar skewers phone companies for offering television.

The words are biting and the tunes are catchy kitsch; I sang along (video and lyrics below).

Good thing they don't compare their own Big Old Expensive Cable Company to Skype, Skype delivering comparable voice services for one tenth the price. Of course Skype's multimodal communication adds encryption, free calling in a worldwide network, instant messaging, video calls (conferencing soon), collaborative chats, file sharing, presence, mobile clients, desk phones, etc. Skype is still an ankle biter with about 500 employees (vs. AT&T's 300,000; get the T-shirt). Skypes path of innovation proves demand and opportunity. 

The cable part of the ISP oligopoly picks on the telco part for voice and TV applications running on their capital intensive distribution system.

Skype is only one disrupter (more at eComm2008). Cannot wait to see what commercials get pulled out for Microsoft and Google. 

BOEPC Broadway
(in the style of an over the top production number)

You're gonna pay.
(You're gonna pay)
You're gonna pay and pay
just to keep your phone
the same old way.

cause we're big
(really big)
and we're old.
(We're so old)
we're the Big Old Expensive Phone Com-pa-ny!

We cost much more than Comcast digital voice
and we do what we please
just check out your monthly bill
and look at all those fees

if you switch to Comcast
you will miss our fees
we're the big old expensive phone com-pa-ny

BOEPC Guitar
(in the style of a country or rock anthem)

America, ain't it great to be
with the Big Old Expensive Phone Company.
We're big and old and our profits are high
High like the eagle soaring in the sky

yeah

We'll do anything
just to make you pay
so please don't switch to
the Comcast triple play

Cause we've got TV service now too
it's not really our area of expertise
but we'll sell it to you
all you've got to do is pay

We can do TV too
just to boost our revenue.
Comcast ain't right for you.
stick with us
and we'll stick it to you.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 07:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past few weeks I have been calling into Alec Saunders' daily SquawkBox where he uses iotum's Free Conference Call on Facebook to discuss (and record) the issues of the day, usually with five to ten participants. In what was the best attended (17 participants) and most lively session yet, Dan York hosted (while Alec flew home from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain) a very engaging interview with Lee Dryburgh, founder of the Emerging Communications Conference (eComm 2008). Later Dan interviewed Thomas Howe, one of the eComm speakers and threw the session open for questions and commentary.

When Alec arrived home this afternoon, he put up a post on today's SquawkBox where you can also click to hear the entire animated discussion.

At one point I had to challenge the contention that Skype usage is falling off. During the past week, concurrent online users has approached (but not crossed) 12 million around noon hour EST (GMT-5) - a long way from the sub-10 million numbers prior to Christmas. (And Borderless Communicator Hudson Barton figures there had to be 1.68 million new Skype users in the past month - I captured today's snapshot since his charts are updated very frequently.) Also, while not widely publicized, Skype accounts from North America almost doubled in 2007 using eBay's reported U.S. percentages as a proxy where US revenue increased 85%. Now if eBay would just release the same customer numbers as released by other US telcos instead of the SEC required bare minimum...

Lee and I briefly chatted about the complex issue of data portability and how it plays in this revolution on the call, but this is a huge problem that we're really only beginning to understand. The telecom industry doesn't understand it all, but the innovators are really beginning to grasp it's full import. Data, our personal data, is a resource. In the world of social media, it may be our most important personal resource. As we learn how to share it effectively with our devices, and with our family, friends and colleagues, the ability to store all this information under our own control somewhere in the "cloud" so it can be accessed any time, anywhere from any device.

Tags: eComm 2008, SquawkBox, Dan York, Lee Dryburgh, Thomas Howe, Skype, Hudson Barton, Alec Saunders, Free Conference Call on Facebook, eBay, Ken Camp, Sheryl Breuker

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype's Halina Mugame, editor of the Skype Developer Program newsletter and weblog, yesterday interviewed OnState CEO Pat Kelly and started her interview, "Less Mess with Unified Messaging", by referencing Skype Journal's recent post announcing OnState's Unified Messaging offering. Questions included:

• Tell us more about this new product. In comparison with current OnState Call Center solution, what new features will be made available via mash-up with Zimbra?
• What makes Zimbra a good solution to integrate with OnState?

But the best line is the last:

Oh, and the important bit, they do all this at an industry-redefining price point.

Read Halina's full post for more background on how OnState's Unified Messaging offering evolved out of their Call Center service.

Tags: Skype, OnState, OnState Unified Messaging, Halina Mugame, Pat Kelly

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This evening Lee Dryburgh, who took the initiative (and risk) to launch the forthcoming Emerging Communications Conference (eComm 2008) issued a "Call for Telecom Industry Wake-Up" where he states:

Communications innovation has been stagnant, in my opinion, for nearly a decade. Telecommunications and Internet communications both seem to be at somewhat of an impasse. The communications industry needs a forum to help break through the stagnancy and highlight the huge opportunity space that is emerging.

Further on Lee states:

The decade long planned protocol basis for delivering a multi-modal client into consumer play (SIP/SIMPLE) has shown little traction; it should be noted that this is the same protocol basis that operators are now hinging their future services around.

Instead four years ago a single private company (Skype) delivered a multi-modal client which was architecturally novel (peer-to-peer based), using their own proprietary protocol and which has gone on to be the most downloaded program in Internet history. So the SIP/SIMPLE vision to “re-engineer the telephone system from the ground up” is off course at best.

Over two years ago Alec Saunders issued his Voice 2.0 Manifesto, pointing out that the value-add for voice going forward will be in the applications. Thomas Howe, with many years' experience involving communications and web services, is building a business around Communications Enhanced Business Processes (CEBP). Dan York is expressing frustration in the realization of interoperability between Skype and other VoIP communications networks. In Lee's interview two weeks ago with Jonathan Christensen, one of those involved in the early days of SIP and now responsible for much of the new technology coming out of Skype, (and the leadoff keynote speaker at eComm 2008), Jonathan laments that..

the vision of the early SIP founders has been largely unrealized in the SIP world. SIP is typically just used for these very mundane trunking applications, like the one that we have, or sending calls between two networks and it's just calls. The vision of multi-modal communications and rich end points has largely failed within the same.

Interesting starting points for the conversations and presentations at eComm 2008. If you're in the telecom business responsible for future ongoing revenues or launching new services you want to attend (and participate). Register here and use "skypejournal08" as a discount code to save 15%.

Tags: eComm 2008, Lee Dryburgh, Alec Saunders, Voice 2.0 Manifesto, Thomas Howe, CEBP, Jonathan Christensen, Skype

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Nobody makes greeting cards with modern phones. No cards with kittens texting "i luv u".  Do we make our own photos and videos, shared them by phone, no longer relying on publishers to express our affections?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow, Alec Saunders will wrap up coverage from 3GSM / Mobile World Congress on Thursday's Squawk Box show. 8:00 AM Pacific, 11:00 AM Eastern, 16:00 / 4 PM London.

The Emerging Communications Conference is Friday's topic. Alec is traveling so Dan York, Thomas Howe and Lee Dryburgh will discuss EComm2008's themes, speakers, on site events. I'm sure voice mashups will be on the agenda. Tune in an hour earlier on Friday: 7:00 AM Pacific, 10:00 AM Eastern, 15:00 / 3 PM London.

You can catch up on Barcelona with half-hour episodes from Monday (mostly Nokia news), Tuesday, and Wednesday (Google search on new Nokia phones, Microsoft buying Danger of Sidekick fame, Android prototypes, AJAX on Nokia series 60).

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

Buried in the Yahoo assets that Microsoft covets is recently acquired Zimbra, "a leader in Open Source, next generation messaging and collaboration software". Amongst Zimbra's product line, the initial offering of Zimbra's Unified Messaging is based on a partnership with Asterisk, the open source VoIP provider. Zimbra has an extensive list of service provider, business and education customers; Comcast has teamed up with Zimbra to offer Comcast's Unified Messaging portal. And I have personally heard positive comments about Zimbra from a couple of third parties.

Yesterday, OnState Communications, provider of the OnState Call Center for Skype announced an expansion of their product line to add OnState Unified Messaging for Skype - a mashup of OnState, Skype and Zimbra. Basically this is a hosted service that involves, for the user, a web client along with an agent that captures Skype chat sessions, on-demand voice recording and voice mail, allows tagging of these conversations and integration with email, a calendar and an address book such as to provide one point access to all your messaging activities. An integrated and advanced search engine with a simple WYSIWYG feature allows for rapid recovery of relevant communications in any mode. From the press release:

Managed Communications
OnState Unified Messaging for Skype routes, manages, stores and archives a range of business communications to expedite business processes and drive improved customer-contact management. Features include:

• Web 2.0 Ajax client
• integrated Skype voicemail
• dynamic call recording
• online business chat logging
• enterprise-class email and calendaring
• push-mail for mobile devices
• support for Outlook™, Thunderbird and other mail clients
• cross-mailbox search and compliance features

“With this latest offering, OnState advances its charter to deliver Web-based, enterprise-class, customer-contact management solutions at an industry-redefining price point,” noted [Pat] Kelly, [CEO of OnState].

OnState is already configuring its Unified Messaging for current OnState Call Center customers. Some of the above features, such as "push-mail for mobile devices", will come with an upgrade incorporating Zimbra 5.0 in about a month. I am in the course of evaluating OnState's Unified Messaging and hope to provide a full review once the upgraded edition is released.

In closing it is important to note the value of a service provider's reliance on an Open Source application when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Being Open Source, Zimbra's source code is readily available to any third party. Zimbra is a classic example of building infrastructure and enhanced services around an open source application that can survive any consequences of a merger or acquisition.

Tags: Skype, OnState, Zimbra, OnState Unified Messaging, OnState Call Center, Yahoo

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Download Skype for Mac 2.7.0.257. 38 bugfixes, 18 new API calls for the programmers, improved "stability and quality of video",  "Improved connection speed to Skype network from restrictive network environment", new (myspace) emoticon. Biggest behavioral change: The default destination folder of file transfers changed from Desktop to Downloads. Get drivers for your webcam if you like. 34 MB download, released 13 February 2008. File name: Skype_2.7.0.257.dmg

Download Skype for Linux 2.0.0.43 beta. 68 bugfixes, 7 more languages, 11 distributions. A few UI tweaks and more "X11 overlay output support for video calls (without using Xv)."  Released 6 February 2008.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Kevin Kelly posted a great column called "Better Than Free." Kevin asks what succeeds in a market where most assets are free.

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can't be copied?

Kevin describes "Eight Generatives," market values of products that are independent of artificial scarcity.

• Immediacy
• Personalization
• Interpretation
• Authenticity
• Accessibility
• Embodiment
• Patronage
• Findability

Skype could be instrumental in helping the online entrepreneurs bring these generatives to market.

Immediacy. Now. Even Skype's basic presence services (rough availability, mood message) create immediacy, helping you get the freshest, newest, earliest from your social network. The same plumbing, beefed up to provide rich and contextual presence, can be applied to goods and services. eBay buyers are some of the biggest consumers of alerting. So are stock traders.

Personalization. Conversation. High quality conversation shapes service personalization. What language skills should we work on today? In what style should I write that report? While some personalizing conversations can be structured, many depend on rich interpersonal give-and-take.

Interpretation. Sense making. While eBay Inc. news may be free, you might pay a premium for live color commentary of the quarterly conference call. Or analysis of a song you want to perform. Skype can be a delivery mechanism for interpretation.

Authenticity. Proof. In a world of copies, and copies of copies, the original, real thing becomes precious. Skype's authentication servers won't prevent identity theft, but they have an opportunity to learn from eBay and PayPal about providing secure, verifiable, insurable ID. I've heard of at least one con artist being arrested after a potential victim recorded the Skype call.

Accessibility. Anywhere, Anytime. People will pay to have their "free" information and services backed up and accessible. In Skypeland, this starts with trusting Skype to keep copies of my contacts and conversations, my history and logs. And I value access to my Skype social network wherever I am: on desk phones, TiVos, mobiles, cars, PDAs, computers, facebook, refrigerators, blogs, clock radios. The race is on to talk-enable the web, the universe, and everything.

Embodiment. You might download a song by 50 Cent, or even a music video. Wouldn't you prefer a live song with Curtis? Will David Allen earn more by auctioning off an hour of his coaching time on Skype, or by having you buy and read "Getting Things Done"? Live webcam-to-webcam is the highest form of experience you can have short of face-to-face. Skype's high quality video and audio add embodiment value.

Patronage. Support your artist. Even though the music is free, sometimes you just want to support an artist. Did you know you can send money to someone over Skype?

Findability. Liquid Social Capital. I couldn't find my laptop power supply in my own backpack last week. How am I supposed to find the person who spoke at a conference last week? How do I find the right one in a world with billions of people and zillions of media objects? Skype's directory services (white page people search and yellow page Skype Find) are rudimentary. Services become compelling when they make strangers discoverable through chance, search, referral, social proximity, and other methods.

As Skype, and those who seek to buy from, partner with, or compete against Skype, look to the future, you could do worse than assess new products against The Eight Generatives of Value Where The Cost of Copies Is Zero.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Great designers pursue elegance, helping users do more with a lower cognitive burden. Here's Bruno putting Skype then some other software through its paces.  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From comments eComm2008's Lee Dryburgh made on a mailing list about interviewing Skype's Jonathan Christensen.

Did you notice the enthusiasm of Skype towards open spectrum?...

Now the comments about something "linear" for them (Skype/eBay) but "non-linear" outside means something they consider significant/disruptive.

• I'd be expecting a fully worked application that combines ecommerce (eBay), money (PayPal) and communications (Skype).
• And I'd be expecting this application to work on handhelds, including later on those made for open spectrum networks.
• I'd also not be too surprised to see a version running on Android quite a bit later on.

It's a terribly powerful synergy when you combine commerce (markets), money exchange facilities, and communications within the same offering. And if that can be set on the back of open networks and open handsets in addition, things are terribly exciting.

So IMHO the fruit of Skype going forwards will be in:

1. increasing voice and video quality (they are like a telco R&D lab now with their team)
2. integration of comms and commerce and
3. support and development around the emerging open handset (Android) and open spectrum ecology.

When you stack up the enthusiasm at Skype towards (3) and the Google push towards (3) expect a powerful movement on "our" side.

We'll have to wait and see. A public beta of Skype 4.0 for Windows didn't fit in Skype's usual November/December launch window. It may take until eComm in mid-March to see how well Lee reads the tea leaves.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Rising like a phoenix out of the ashes of eTel, Lee Dryburgh has taken the leadership in establishing a new conference that covers the bleeding edge of emerging communications. To be held at the Computer Museum in Mountain View, CA March 12-14, 2008, eComm2008, the Emerging Communications Conference, features sessions led by industry gurus with visions of radically altering the telecommunications industry into an open platform world.

eComm brings out the visionaries, emergent technologies, real-world startups, cutting-edge academic projects, views from the incumbent telecom players; garage based hacks and stirs required policy debates to create the ultimate three-day conversation.

The story of the decentralization of communications innovation has passed the second chapter which was VoIP. It is now regarded as a building block only. As a standalone service it is both uninspiring and unlikely to be highly profitable.

The excitement and profits will be derived from combining voice with other vectors we’re tracking ... more here.

Recently Lee interviewed Jonathan Christensen, Skype's General Manager for Video and Audio, as one of a series of interviews with several of the eComm2008 speakers, and covered several issues:

• Why eComm is so important?

I think it [Skype] really represents the first major innovation in this [telecom] space since the introduction of the telephone system. And right now, we are just at the beginning of where the possibilities are. And so, I think I see eComm is focused exactly on the right spot where there is going to be an explosion of new rich communication services on the Internet platform..

• What is the subject area of Jonathan's keynote?
• What initiatives for analyzing and improving voice quality are you helping to lead at Skype?

Suddenly with the Internet, you have the possibility to do so much more but you also lose that deterministic quality. There are so many things that we have to do to get the whole thing right and it's like a daisy chain. On the send side, you have to think about the microphone and then the sound card and the sampling and the coding. Then you have to send it correctly and you have to know something about the network when you're sending it: is there packet loss on the network? is there jitter? is there delay? What is the bit rate that is supported on the network? All those things that you have to optimize for - all of those situations. Is there jitter in the system that you're using because other applications are taking too much CPU? All those things.

• Can you comment of the evolution of Skype's wideband codecs going forward?
• Do you see something less incremental (and more revolutionary than evolutionary) coming along out of Skype?
• Can you comment on the future of voice processing technologies? Where do you see them going?

We want to continue to make the whole experience as seamless as possible, as natural and as life-like as possible. And I think, as I mentioned before, there'll be a trend towards the higher fidelity, better performance in the devices as well. So we need the help of the device manufacturers at this stage to realize that voice is not just about this old fashion PSTN-style voice. It's really about, high quality stuff. Video is a major initiative for us and making life-like video available in the mass market is a big goal for us as well.

And, we think - we hope anyway - that we're at the front of the pack. We're certainly investing very, very heavily in these areas. And we're hoping to make this stuff as good as it can be.

• When can we expect the average person to have Skype running on their mobile phone (aside from the 3 Skypephone)?
• Where do you see the future of communications going?

I just have to reiterate, I think that anybody who has not figured out that the Internet is the platform and that there isn't any such thing as walled gardens that will survive, or sub-networks [such as AOL tried] that are going to survive, those people are doomed. The intersection of these worlds is going to be chaotic. It's going to be violent. It's going to be messy for a while but it is going to happen, and the Internet will survive as the one open platform.

• Can you elaborate on why you are so excited about open spectrum?
• (re SIP) Do you see fragmentation when it comes to signaling going forward? Do you see things becoming fragmented into different signaling systems according to the application?

Read the entire interview here. It provides more insight into how Skype operates and background for where they are probably going than we have seen from any Skype executive in some time. And the last question brings out a most interesting answer re Skype's position on, and use of, SIP.

With all the recent interviews and participation in various public forums, is Jonathan becoming the successor to Niklas as Skype's visionary and public spokesperson for future technology innovations? A very good reason to attend eComm2008 and learn more!

Register here and use 'skypejournal08' for a 15% discount.

Update: Dan York comments on the interview on Voxeo's "Speaking of Standards" blog.

Additional references:

• Skype On The Go: A perspective on Skype's current state on mobile devices.
• Skype say "No" to VoIP Interoperability - *because customers aren't asking for it!* - Well I am! Dan York comments
• A SIP/Skype Gateway Is NOT In The Forecast Hudson Barton responds
• HD Voice: "Priceless"

Tags: Skype, eComm 2008, Emerging Communications Conference, Jonathan Christensen, SIP, Lee Dryburgh, HC Voice

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

We have often written about Yugma Skype, a recently Skype-certified cross platform desktop sharing Skype Extra, that complements voice and chat with desktop sharing collaborative activities. While the basic version is free and will allow up to ten participants, there is a 500 participant version that needs some robustness testing.

Yugma's COO, Karel Lukas, has put up for "public" viewing, via a 500-user Yugma Premium account, his Mac desktop; with the widgets shown and either a CNN or BBC page's refreshing often, it is somewhat dynamic. Reality desktop sharing comes to the Skype ecosystem!

Click here to view; let's see how many concurrent users it can go to. You will be asked for a user name and email address (privacy policy applies). Note that the window coming up is the Remote Viewer version that requires no software download. It will also open a tab in your browser, whether Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari; as there is no download, that tab needs to be left open to continue viewing. It will be left up over the coming weekend at a minimum.You may even be able to watch Karel at work, should he elect to use his Mac! Oh, and while Karel is based in Minneapolis, for some reason he likes the weather in San Francisco better.

The full interactive version of Yugma allows remote keyboard and mouse control, changing presenters, file sharing and several other features, including links to Skype and/or PSTN audio.

Tags: Skype, Yugma Skype, Skype Extras, Karel Lukas

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, I've been lovesick too, never getting enough of the one who's captured your heart, the one that makes you realize all those love songs were written just for the two of you.

Have I got a product for your Valentine's Day!

The i-Buddy is an MSN Messenger angel. Your lover's angel.

When your lover sends you an instant message with an emoticon, the angel on your desk acts it out. Happy face? Your robot angel acts happy. Angry? It gets apoplectic. 

Now available in Thailand, UK and Switzerland. Soon to come Skype-flavored. 

So even when you're not staring at your computer's monitor (watching Four Weddings and a Funeral, perhaps) you can still see how your true love is feeling. Right now.

See also:

• Skype Journal: Mechanical presence indicator: I'm in the mood for love

• Skype Journal: CES: All I want from hardware are mold breakers and presence makers

• Skype Journal: Presence by Example: Lessons from CES

• Cool Hunting: Availabot

• Randomfoo: Speck

• Nokia Sensor

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Millions had connectivity impaired by five cut/damaged undersea Internet cables in the last few weeks. John Robb, my guru on such things and the author of Brave New War, thinks this was probably a dry run if it was intentional.

"If this was a real attack rather than a series of accidents (the geographical concentration is interesting in this regard), then this was likely a capabilities test that yielded data on response times, impact, and duration."

Boing Boing readers are betting on monsters, see above poster.

Should sea monsters not be blamed, let's start thinking of Skype's infrastructure as high value targets, like phone, mobile and data networks. When martial law was declared in Pakistan last year, the government seized control of television, radio, newspapers, ISPs, phone and mobile phone operations. I'm betting Skype will join that media-suppression checklist in the next few years.

Skype directory census is fed by connected Skype users in the cloud. Headcounts for affected regions will fall slowly over the next few weeks, rising again as regions reconnect.

Has your connectivity been hurt by the outage? Has your work? Do you know people affected?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 02:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a little Banksy for the Year of the Rat.

Skype has a Chinese online community.

On the software side, PowerGramo makes a Skype recorder and answering machine. vEmotion makes the VoIP audio assistant, which lets you play recordings right into a call with friends or customers. Inezha's bot makes Another, the great RSS-to-Skype-chat service.

The TalkZone portal sells Skype gift cards. So does SkypeU.

On the blogging front, Andy "the drunk coder" regularly covers Skype and other VoIM clients. x-studio is an active Skyper. And the all time great is 9Skype, Skype中文观察, the Chinese Skype Watch.

Congratulations and be prosperous, Skypeland! 

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

If Skype's auto-update feature has not told you already (which you would encounter when logging out of and back into Skype anytime after 10 a.m. EST this morning), Skype released a hotfix update this morning which addresses some security and crashing issues.

In particular the cross-zone scripting vulnerability that led to closing access to the Metacafe and Dailymotion video sources for sharing via Skype Chat windows and mood message feature has been addressed. Issues such as the inability to answer a second call and to start video when plugging in a webcam during a call have also been resolved. On the other hand while the hotfix has addressed several situations that were causing the Skype client to crash, I still lost a call this afternoon where my Skype client "self-closed" when a called party answered my call. A complete list of fixes is at the link above.

This version also introduces a whitelist/blacklist feature designed to prevent malicious use of the Skype API and potential worm attacks. More details are in the January Developer Newsletter with the following article summary:

Recent attacks to Skype public API have made [it] imperative to define a solution in fighting worm and virus attacks to it. Following up a request by the Security Team to address this issue and take a preventive action, this type of attack also puts at stake Skype’s reliability and security towards our user base.

There will be two levels of White- and Blacklist - Local and Global.

Download the hotfix release here. It can also be accessed via "Help | Check for Updates" in your Skype client. Highly recommended if only for the security issues addressed.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

My first exposure to web collaboration came with my former employer Quarterdeck, who in their mid-90's days of developing applications for use on the Internet, had acquired a company that provided whiteboarding and application sharing. It was quite a feat in an era of 50 to 100 MHz Pentium-based PC's and max 33 kbps dailup modems. One morning in early 1996, at 5 a.m,, while at home near Toronto, I came down to participate in a London, UK analyst conference where we demonstrated this collaboration tool between a host in London, a colleague in Paris and myself near Toronto. Since then many collaboration applications have been introduced; they have taken on many flavors, providing different levels of support for activities such as team building, weekly internal sales and support team meetings, customer and employee training and customer relationship management applications. Personally I have had exposure in my consulting work over the intervening years to a few of these tools. Ease-of-use, adaptability into an enterprise's business' processes, the session launch process and customer support policies have become key factors in many enterprise decisions on which tools to deploy within an individual customer's business operations.

The experience and technology behind that Quarterdeck application eventually, after many twists and turns in the business infrastructure, evolved into one of the first web conferencing services: Webex, which grew to become an industry icon and was recently acquired by Cisco. But many others realized that they too could attempt to develop a suite of collaboration tools. One of the eventual web conferencing players, whom I had encountered as a client's competitor several years ago, was an offering called Convoq. They had built up a reasonable customer base but their business focus recently took a turn that went away from collaboration tools.. As a result Convoq had decided to close down their web conference service at the end of January.

Last fall I reviewed a web conferencing service, Convenos Meeting Center, which effectively provides a persistent virtual board room with a "slide projector", "full motion video display", whiteboard, cobrowsing and application-desktop sharing. With its audio options, including Skype conferencing and HighSpeedConferencing.com incorporating HD Audio, Convenos has built an enterprise customer base around its ease-of-use, range of features (including its ability to work with salesforce.com, amongst others) and customer support activities.

Convoq at least recognized they needed to close down professionally by proactively recommending a preferred provider to whom their customers could transition smoothly and continue their collaborative activities. A month before closing down, Convoq announced they had selected Convenos as that preferred Provider; Convenos has since been working with Convoq personnel and their customer base to ensure a smooth transition prior to Convoq's shutdown a week ago. From the press release:

“We selected Convenos based on their customer satisfaction ratings, feature set compatibility, and pricing relative to our products. Additionally they are an experienced, dedicated web conferencing provider that has earned an excellent reputation in the marketplace”, said Dermot O’Grady, CFO of Convoq.

The Convoq team needs to be congratulated for developing a transition process and putting their customers' interests first in executing on their decision to close down. Too many businesses "just don't show up for business" one day and leave their customers to fend for themselves. And congratulations to Convenos on their selection as the preferred web conferencing service provider; with their overall philosophy of "delighting the user", the transition process should be a relatively smooth one.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Getting your data out of applications has always been vital; it gives you the freedom to switch services. Skype is pretty good at this.

Through the user interface...

• For your buddy list, you can export your contacts to an Outlook-compatible file (Tools > Advanced > Backup Contacts to File...).

• There is no simple way to export your own profile from Skype. All the data can be copy/pasted from dialog boxes, but there is no export.

• The only way to export your chat contents is to open each one and copy/paste.

• Your history log is not exportable.  

• There is no log/history of your searches.

• There is no log/history of people requesting to become contacts.

• There is no log/history of changes to your profile, your availability (presence status), or mood message.  

The Skype for Windows API exposes most of your data to programs, much more than the user interface. The Skype Email Toolbar, and third party software like Skylook, can read most of this data and write some of it.

The sad part: even if you write a program that exports all of your data, there's no way for other programs to understand most of it.

That's where the DataPortability initiative comes in.

The folks supporting DP assert:

You should be able to see and use your data wherever you like, effortlessly.

No lengthy profile creation every time you go to a new site.

Skip the importing and exporting of contact data (and annoying your friends). 

No need to abandon your in-system conversations.

All of it is just where you need it.

At another place.

With new tools.

Now.

This is a gargantuan business opportunity for companies that make software or web sites. It means they get to add value with "verbs" (things they help you do) more than "nouns" (storing your data). So better verbs drive customers to bring their nouns, and their friends' nouns.

Many needed technical protocols exist: APML, MicroFormats, OAuth, OpenID, OPML, RDF, RSS, Atom. Relatively little needs invention, at least at the lower levels. DataPortability working groups are designing action packs, technical and policy blueprints, and other tools to plan, design, and code your DP project. 

I remember when email couldn't travel outside the firewall and was vendor specific. We're contemplating a change that ubiquitous and profound.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 01:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Last November I reviewed Yugma Skype Edition, the only complete cross platform Skype Extra that adds desktop (and now application) sharing as a complement to Skype voice, text and video conversation sessions. Recently Yugma participated in the Skype booth at MacWorld sponsored by Skype's Developer Program to recruit Mac developers into the program.

Last week Yugma SE Team Collaboration received Skype certification. Today Skype and Yugma announced YugmaSE's inclusion as a certified Skype Extra resulting from Yugma's participation in the Skype Developer Program. For Windows users, YugmaSE can be obtained and installed via Skype's Extras Manager (Tools | Do More | Get Extras | Sharing) or at the Skype Extras website. Mac users can obtain the client via the Yugma for Skype website links here; a plug-in for Linux desktops is "coming soon".

In addition to its previously reviewed ability to share across Windows and Mac platforms, the final release also:

• allows you to share either a single designated application or your entire desktop
• provides the option of inviting remote participants¹ to either a fully interactive session or to view (a) shared desktop(s) via a remote viewer.

The "Free Forever" Skype Extra allows the sharing of a designated desktop (as selected by the session host) with ten additional participants at no cost to the host². During the 15-day trial period you can also share mouse and keyboard control, schedule sessions, record and playback sessions and host a "shared file space". Monthly and annual options for a Premium subscription that provides ongoing access to these features, along with email, phone and web-based technical support, are available for hosting an unlimited number of 10, 30, 100 and 500 participant sessions. Audio support can be provided via Skype conferencing (up to ten participants) or a "free" teleconferencing server for which normal long distance access charges will apply. Independent of Yugma support, HighSpeedCoferencing.com could also be used.

As many of my contacts have been acquiring Macs and MacBooks over the past eighteen months, Yugma's Skype Edition has become a very useful tool for presentations and training sessions during the past few months.

¹ Invitations may be sent to both Skype contacts via Skype chat and participants who are not Skype contacts via email

² Note that free sessions will request all participants to register an email address and password; premium subscriptions simply request an identifier name (for the session) and an email address but no registration.

Tags: Skype, Yugma, Yugma Skype Edition, Skype Extras, Skype Developer Program

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Make your Superbowlguess - a speech recognition, voice processing, twitter mashup

1. Call 1-617-500-5331
   Skype: +990009369996072341 or
   SIP: 9996072341@sip.voxeo.net
2. Answer two questions (which team? by how much?)
3. http://twitter.com/superbowlguess 

twitter the commercials

1. Rate the commercials via twitter.
2. See the ratings on twitter.

find radio stations carrying the game

FollowTheGame.com 

Posted by Phil Wolff at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mobivox may have its VoxGirl to direct your Skype calls around the world for the cost of a "local" call from any phone set but Brandon Holland, an AppleTV afficiando and Mac developer in Kewlowna, B.C., Canada, has been trying to get a date with Skype's Echo123 girl (she who answers those Skype Test Calls). He's been calling her a lot lately but she keeps on asking him to leave a message which just gets echoed back to him.

Why this interest? Because Brandon has been demonstrating that Skype's API's have allowed him to create an AppleTV plug-in for Skype. To date he has developed it to the point where he can make Skype and SkypeOut calls (while charged against your SkypeOut credits) from an AppleTV with a USB phone added. The USB phone provides the mic (iPod Touch owners, don't get envious) while you listen to the other party on your TV's speakers via the AppleTV's Built-in Line Output. Future plans call for adding most of the other Skype features such as chat, file transfer, SMS messaging, etc.

Brandon has made lots of calls to the Echo123 Girl and has now made available a version 0.1 beta release that you can download here. Because the AppleTV has not exactly been one of Apple's hit products for which an upgrade was announced recently, I was a little calloused about such a development. But then I watched Brandon's video demonstration and found that his personal passion for developing mashups or plug-ins comes through very strongly as well as showing the stages he is taking this development through to make it a complete Skype offering. A definite 'Must Watch"!

Halina Mugame, editor of the Skype Developer Program's newsletter, interviewed Brandon last week: An excerpt:

Was it easy or difficult to develop the Skype plug-in for AppleTV? What was the most difficult part?

Most of it was pretty straightforward, thanks to Skype's easy to use and well documented API, but it did have its difficult moments. I made many calls to echo123 while testing the plug-in! I think that the hardest part was writing my SkypeBride framework which parses the results from the API and sends notifications to the plug-in. Once I had that implemented, the rest of the plug-in was easily written.

Michael Rose at tuaw.com, "The Unofficial Apple Weblog" brings up some caveats:

I can't really picture how this module is going to work for actual calling (and I don't have an Apple TV to try it out on), but if it refines into a true Skype client, and the [delayed] Take 2 update doesn't completely nuke the Apple TV development scene, and Skype gets past its current security worries, this could be a very interesting path towards our videophone-enabled, jet-pack-wearing future.

So while AppleTV is struggling to get market traction, its Mac OS base and the Skype API's have certainly been combined to demonstrate the potential and ease for developing Skype-enabled applications for the Mac world. And add AppleTV to those devices taking Skype beyond the basic telephone handset.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

At noon EST (GMT-5) today Skype had almost 11.2 million users online. This has been a relatively fast ramp up, given that the 10 million users online level was crossed just under four weeks ago at the beginning of CES 2008. Have to wonder if it's partly the impact of the MySpace implementation. Of note is that Hudson Barton figures that the number of "real users" has increased by 2.4 million in January.

Following up on a CES 2008 announcement, on Tuesday, Sony released a system software update for its PlayStation Portable PSP-2000 (version 3.90) that includes a Skype client. I had a Skype conversation with someone using this new offering and found it to have excellent quality voice. It does require that you be in a WiFi zone along with a PSP headse, the Remote Control and a Memory Stick Duo. This edition of Skype provides voice only that also allows SkypeOut calls. See the video at the link above for a demonstration. No keyboard, no chat.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Guest Post: Hudson Barton is a communications consultant whose Borderless Communicator blog not only talks about Skype and related IP communications activity but also attempts to track Skype's "real usage". According to his analysis, Skype has just cracked the 30 million real or "currently active" user number (based on tracking Users Online vs time-of-day). What follows is his post earlier this week summarizing some issues that were raised and discussed on the Skype 3.x discussion Public Chat forum following Dan York's recent guest post on SIP/Skype interconnectivity.

Skype's competitors and critics continually point out that Skype's VOIP architecture is closed and that its API is not adequate for creating a direct connection between the Skype "cloud" and the SIP "cloud". This of course is true, but there are good reasons for it.

1. The security and reliability of the Skype cloud would be seriously compromised if SIP hackers were given the tools to create direct VOIP connections between Skype and the outside world.
2. A SIP gateway to Skype might work if it were handled like SkypeIn/Out. However, I don't think there's a large enough population of SIP users out there to justify the cost of SIPIn/Out. Skype is growing at a rate of 500k-1000k "real users" per month, which is probably 10x faster than the rest of the VOIP world combined. A third party could build these gateways with the presently available API, but nobody is trying it to my knowledge... presumably because there is no demand for it. In any case, the developer (even if it were Skype) would have to justify the cost of such a gateway.
3. An IM (text-only) gateway is very possible and would not compromise Skype's security or strategic position. Look for future interconnections with major players like AIM, gTalk, Yahoo, and MSN.
4. The Skype cloud is far more complex and has far more features than the clouds of any of its competitors. It is not rational to expect any of them to create a feature-for-feature mirror of Skype even if this were something that would be good for Skype (which it is NOT). A partial list of these features: video, SMS, encryption, and file transfer.
5. Relationships between Skype and social networks like MySpace are already possible if there is a partnership agreement. It does not require a change to the Skype API. Note that MySpace is a social network... not a VOIP carrier.
6. Skype may double its revenues this year and it's already profitable. No other VOIP carrier is profitable (unless you want to count a few of the hosted VOIP services from the Telecoms and cable companies). A gateway to Skype will help Skype's competitors far more than it will help Skype, so from a strategic perspective it makes no sense to help the competitors survive. Without Skype's help, they (SunRocket and Vonage for example) are failing at a rapid rate. Meanwhile, "successful" competitors like Packet8 are monetizing themselves by selling off intellectual property. Obviously they "see the writing on the wall."

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)