Community Wishlist: Skype Chat to Email Listserv gateway

@PacificIT community leader Robert Sanzalone and I have been chatting about Skype and its use as social software. Robert penned this blogworthy bit that started about a Skype client on the iPhone. Robert:

As you saw me mention, I have literally been OFF SKYPE waiting for this client to appear from SOMEONE and it still hasn't arrived.

About half a dozen apps exist to do various basic functions of Skype such as one-to-one text and voice. A few can now also connect with the Skype Out/In services as well.

With the recent development of the latest client focusing on video, it looks once again that "sexy" wins over practicality and what is really needed to keep this service at the front line. I'm almost expecting announcements for new deals with Friendster and Plaxo any day now (yes, it's that bad).

Regardless, my hope is time, money and effort isn't being put into making a VIDEO CLIENT for the iPhone before group chat is solved. I think building community around the client is far more important and the fans keep coming even though Skype seems to be telling them to go away.

My alternative challenge to the community is to look at other common technologies which can bridge this gap.

My crosshairs are on email. Understood and common.

One of the most attractive features of Chatterous was the ability to completely interact in a dynamic IM group discussion exclusively by email. It was (and is) amazing.

BUT.. the name recognition and trust is not as well established as Skype. I PERSONALLY found out people would rather stay with the tried and true recognized name than to move a whole community to a platform or service no one has heard of or is interested in experimenting with.

How to interact with email?

Again, the lesson comes from Chatterous. Essentially, you can choose how to have digested messages sent from a group chat to your email account which you can then react to, or not.

The email sent in completely blends in with the rest of the chat. I was amazed even with the latency of tapping out an email minutes after the initial digest was sent me that the conversation wasn't completely backward (since there are frequent delays, even with real time IM chats).

Now, apply this capability to a mobile device with email capability, and you have the whole issues of a "Skype group chat client" solved. You CAN interact with a group chat even without a specific client on the iPhone, or ANY mobile device anywhere in the world. A sweet solution.

Though I'm not a developer, I'm told time and time again the API in Skype does give the ability to make these types of toys. I have no way to verify this one way or another.

All I know is, it's JUST NOT HAPPENING. I was looking for a few smart people to get on the ball and do something about it.

Turn off your darn video cams and let's get the community together first.

tags: skype, email, wishlist, listserv, mailing list, community, collaboration, chatterous, webmail, bbs, chat

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Monday reading

Business

Skype's 2008Q4 contribution falls from Q3, but still profitable. (Jean Mercier)

20% off the Emerging Communications Conference with 'skypejournal' discount code. See you at the SFO Marriott this week.

UK's O2 and Orange oppose Nokia+Skype phones, T-Mobile support them, and Vodafone hasn't said. "if you spend upwards of £40m per year building your brand, you don’t want to be just a dumb pipe do you?" Sounds like hard bargaining to me. (P.S. Wishing/Branding you're not a dumb pipe doesn't make it so.)  (Mobile Today)

AIM for iPhone comes out. AIM Free is ad supported. AIM Paid is... price TBD. Now supporting multiple accounts and free SMS to people in your iPhone contact list. (Ars Technica)

Community in action

Eurojust retracts news release attacking Skype. "NOTE: This is an update of the press release issued on Friday 20 February 2009. Some of the information in this press release was issued prematurely and is therefore incorrect, as there is not yet an official case reported to Eurojust." If only the Sopranos or The Wire were still running. (Government Technology) SJ:Eurojust coordinating anti-Skype project; SJ:Evildoers trust Skype encryption, Cops seek more power

DataPortability.org calls for volunteers to fill a steering committee vacancy. One conference call per week until elections. [disclosure: I'm on the steering committee.]

Twitter Friends and the Influence of Influentials in Word of Mouth Marketing. On research performed by the HP Social Media Lab and explained by BT's JP Rangaswami. (Skillful Minds). Attention to statistics describing social conversation behavior can improve the choice of features in software like Skype.

Future visions

Theme for Supernova 2009 is "Change Networks." Think innovation/value networks but looking at how change propagates. December 1-3 in San Francisco.

Microsoft Office Labs vision 2019. Utopian vision, clutter-free, ten years' out, all feasible, if only for the wealthy. Videos and screenshots. (istartedsomething)

Marriage beginnings and endings

Father (Poland) gives daughter (Texas) away at wedding over Skype. (Killeen Daily Herald)

Ex-Wife Haunts House over Skype. (Ask Bossy column)

Former eBay CEO and three former Skype presidents are campaigning for California governor

Meg Whitman, former eBay CEO, is running for California governor. Here's MegWhitman.com. 

"Meg 2010 - A New California" is the site tagline. Yet the language that follows is Reaganesquely nostalgic. "A New California, simply put, is returning California to the time when it ranked first among the nation in prosperity, education, and quality of life. Meg Whitman believes that, together we can rebuild our Golden State."

Henry Gomez, former eBay marketing SVP and a Skype president, is one of the people behind Meg's online presence.

The design elements are clever. The blue-green coloring taps into democrat and lefty color palettes; you cannot win statewide in California without getting some of the left and center. Meg standing by a redwood tree for the environmentalists. The masthead typefaces are very Californian, going back to our Arts & Crafts movement.

I particularly like the use of "The Power Of Many." "The Power Of Three" was Whitman's/Gomez's campaign slogan for buying Skype. The "three" were eBay, PayPal and Skype, each helping the others speed growth and profitability; it convinced shareholders to spend billions buying Skype.

The Power Of Many is a bandwagon appeal to tell personal stories; we'll see if that works. Personal storytelling is at the heart of political activation. It was a core grassroots cadre-forming technique used in the record breaking political campaigns of Dean, Kerry, and Obama. Encouraging those interested in Meg's campaign to share stories of pain and loss, of hope and inspiration, those stories bond both teller and listener to each other and to the campaign that fosters those stories. The story sharing service runs on Tokoni, of which Gomez is a director.

Tokoni, a startup funded in part by eBay, is full of eBay alumni. Alex Kazim, another former Skype president; Mary Lou Song, eBay's third full-time employee; Brian Sweeney, an eBay technology executive; Annette Goodwine, an alum of eBay's corporate communications team; and Rajiv Dutta, another Skype president. According to MegWhitman.com,

Tokoni, Inc. – Website and Online Media
Tokoni, Inc. is a company dedicated to shaping the next generation of social media by creating communities that allow anyone, anywhere, to have a voice. Founded in August 2007, Tokoni breaks down social content and connection barriers and leverages the Web’s natural ability to enable a shared understanding around issues, individuals and brands.  Tokoni is developing Meg’s Internet presence for the campaign.

The campaign site is paid for by the "Meg Whitman for Governor Exploratory Committee." In the US, exploratory committees are how political candidates raise early money before officially launching their run for office.

While Tokoni is supporting Meg Whitman's exploratory committee, that doesn't necessarily mean all its employees endorse Ms. Whitman's candidacy.

tags: skype, ebay, politics, california, gop, republican, campaigning, campaigns, campaign, story, stories, storytelling, tokoni

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The Power to Fight Eviction

Online Eviction

Jason Scott's Protection From Online Eviction? and his follow up post make the argument that services like AOL, MySpace, flickr, or Skype should be treated like landlords.

The power landlords have over tenants is overwhelming, unless restricted by law. The argument: if they want to shut down a service, essentially evicting users, they should be required to give notice and keep things running for a year.

This would allow people to safely migrate their digital objects like photos and videos and blog posts, renew relationships with people in their contacts and agree on where to move, file change of address notices for their businesses, and otherwise minimize the logistical, economic, political, emotional, and familial havoc forcible ejection can create.

Death and Taxes

Should Terms of Service (TOS) defend a user from data loss? from identity nullification? from contact list deletion? from history erasure?

The closure of the Skypecasts service is the example from Skype history that comes to mind. Skype could have given more notice, preserved the site for archival purposes, turned off commenting and new sessions, allowed people to extract contact lists.

Might Skype have designed Skypecasts services with "graceful exit" in mind?

Everything dies. Plants, animals, families, civilizations. Even businesses and web sites.

It's wise to acknowledge mortality and plan for service end-of-life. And it's prudent to build societal safeguards outside of company-issued boilerplate.

From a company's view, it's like setting aside resources for taxes you know you must pay later. Or contingency funds in a project budget.

Maybe this is green service design. Designing web products for recycling and reuse.

It was time for Skypecasts 1.0 to die. What was the right way for Skype to retire the service? How could they have preserved user equity in data and the social capital created through use of the Skypecasts services?

What is the moral thing to do?

The question is broader than the one product.

It goes to the tension between consumer rights, enterprise service rights, and the health of our society. For example, if a province decides to demolish your building, you have many rights under law to contest that decision. In the US, many cities have laws about protecting historic landmark buildings.

In my case, as a user of Google mail, I have no power over Google. If they decide to cancel my account, delete my email or spam all my contacts, that's within their power. They don't need to give notice, or offer me a chance to back everything up. Nobody outside Google will hear my appeal or listen to my concerns.

Societies, civilization and economies have an interest in protecting and preserving the intellectual work of individuals. Even family photos, business blogs, and the most idiotic of forums have value. Value to their creators, value as history, value even as part of the creative commons.

Action.

So what can be done to redress this imbalance of power? I'll suggest six things, by no means a complete or even feasible list.

First, intervene. ArchiveTeam.org is a rapid response team. They will respond to a pending shutdown by backing up as much as they can. They are a volunteer team but just starting. I can easily imagine this being a not-for-profit or a government agency.

Second, prevent. Promote exit strategies in project and product design. This is an education program for product managers. Knowledge about the issues, checklists for planning and conducting a graceful exit, forums for getting help, directories of certified Graceful Exit professionals.

Third, commit. Write model language for EULAs and TOSs. After a company implements preventive measures, give them the language for making promises legally. Plain language, lawyer approved. Even a badge to show at registration to give that safe, comfortable feeling.

Fourth, insure. Create a mutual insurance fund. Put money into a pool to pay for recovery and distribution of digital assets if you should shut down a service. Coverage is proportional to the number of clients and the size of their assets. Risk factors include the health and activity of your business, how well you've engineered preventive measures (discounts for readiness). Money may be paid to outfits like ArchiveTeam.org. Insurance spreads risk, but proper tweaking of rates can incent better behavior; fire insurance led to fire codes (prevention) and fire departments (remediation).

Fifth, advocate. The cause needs a forceful voice for consumers. When companies, large or small, threaten to willfully destroy their customer's digital works, they should be educated, persuaded, and publically shamed as needed. I'm thinking some cross between Electronic Frontier Foundation and Consumers Union.

Sixth, enforce. Teeth, if you will. I want laws that enshrine cherished principles and adapt to changing times and fluid technologies. Injunctive relief is a powerful incentive to do the right thing. Class actions in the public interest might convince the reluctant to do the right thing.

P.S. Dave Winer was the first person to bring this issue to my attention, eight or nine years' ago. His response was to create a specification to hold your structured data from his manila blogging services and features that let you backup your blog in one step.  Thanks, Dave.

tags: skype, skypecasts, archiveteam, rights, liberties, power, activism, law, regulation, backup, aol, google, dataportability, evict, evictions, eviction, evicted, evicting, tos, eula, terms, archiveteam.org, organizing, community, commons

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Collective Presence Helps Nomads Do The Right Things

Dell wanted to know about "Keeping Productivity High For On The Go Workers" for their Digital Nomads site. Here's my small contribution to the theme.

Presence is a stream of signals you give off. You've seen simple availability presence signals in instant messaging: I'm online, I'm offline, Do Not Disturb. Some of us lifestream what we're doing during the day: I'm in this meeting, I'm catching up on email, I'm making soup. We also give off contextual presence signals: I'm available for lunch on Tuesday if you're a recruiter, my dream date, or someone I know.

Disclosure like this feels strange. At first. And then something unusual happens. We get used to it. It starts to feel familiar. Like being in an open plan office where you overhear small talk, see people come and go. Or having a break room where you catch up with people a little bit here and there.

And then presence becomes useful.

People use our signals. Strangers decide if they should introduce themselves. Colleagues decide when they should interrupt, and for what. And that makes your life better, because the people around you are making better choices about when and how to engage with you.

We use many tools to broadcast our presence. Twitter, blogs, public calendars, job sites, project status systems, IM mood messages. Even simple things like IM and email. So long as the people in your world can easily see your presence and update their own, tool choices don't matter too much.

Presence is a social interaction. You share yours. You consume others'. And through this, you get to know each other in ways that may be more intimate and current than if you were in the same physical office.

Collective presence is what it sounds like. A stream or a place where you can see what a group of people are doing. Where you aggregate your group's presence signals.

Collective presence is a mix of informal, unstructured, casual talk and structured messages. The Europeans in our team are coming online now. The programmers are working through a pre-release checklist. Someone's dealing with a problem today.

Members of a team experience this collective presence through group chats, like IRC's or Skype's persistent chat rooms, or a listserv. At Skype Journal, we augment group chats with RSS aggregators and other software that pull in team member blogs, twitter updates, public calendars, public bookmarks, new photos and illustrations. So all through the day we keep in touch.

Three payoffs:

First, social media and presence tools sustain bonds that help a team know and trust each other.

Second, collective presence cultivates situational awareness. So people make better choices about what is important, what is urgent and what needs resources.

Third, collective presence means you are not alone. When those feelings of isolation kick in, it's easy to drop into the group chat and see what everyone's been up to.

The essence of productivity is choosing the right things to do and doing them. Collective presence makes remote team productivity easier and more immediate.

My toolkit:

• Skype public chats, Skype contact groups
• iGoogle and Google Reader (aggregating news and blog feeds)
• twitter, TwitterBar (so I can post from Firefox), TweetDeck (aggregating tweets), Twype (putting my latest twitter into my Skype mood),
• Yahoo!'s flickr (images), delicious (bookmarks), upcoming (events)
• Google Groups for email lists

See also: Presence evolving, Skype Journal, September 2007. Describes Collective presence, Faceted presence, Presence attributes and dimensions, Presence federation, Presence prediction.

tags: Collective presence, Faceted presence, Presence attributes and dimensions, Presence federation, Presence prediction, presence, skypeweb, social software, social media, collaboration, productivity, work, telework, distance, twype, twitter, twitterbar, tweetdeck

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Skype Public Chats: Redesign the Redirect

Recruiting people into a room from the web makes a Skype public chat useful. The pattern is:

Web badge (on a web page)
–> Skype.com redirect page 
--–> Skype client

As long as Skype is working on it, a few improvements come to mind.

Reform the blob namespace so blob-names are short, even with a dozen hosts. Very long blobs impair our ability to use those urls in email, chat, or over the phone.

Add permanence. Create public chat permalinks that don't change with time. Right now they change with time, as hosts change. We need more permanent links, even if it increases dependence on a referring server.

Preview before click-through. Rebuild the redirection service to show more information about a public chat before a person clicks through. I'd like to see for example,

• date created,
• number of people,
• title,
• description,
• tags,
• moderator name, and
• date (or days since) someone last joined via public click.

Group chat owners should also be able to end-of-life a listing by withdrawing it or by setting its status to retired-but-still-visible-for-historical-purposes. 

Directory. As long as you have the data, host a searchable directory of public chats, for chats that opt-in.

Bonus Points: The directory is an opportunity for community behavior, including comments and feedback on directory entries, integration with event sites for cross posting and updating, and embedding within group sites using protocols like OpenSocial, RSS/ping mesh. This might even become a successor to the Skypecasts service.

Platform. API for search, to extract data about public chat objects. The better to create topical directories elsewhere, and create smarter badges.

Grandfather older public chats to the new services.

tags: public chats, im, voim, skype, directory, find, prime

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Alec Saunders Twitters: "Ditching all IM Systems except Skype"!

When I started using Skype more intensively about three years ago, I had been a heavy user of Microsoft's MSN Messenger for several years. But about 18 months ago, I stopped logging into MSN Messenger; none of my contacts were there - or, if they were, they were also on Skype. As for GTalk, well I added a couple of contacts two weeks ago to test out GMail's new voice and video chat feature, so now I'm up to ten contacts on GTalk - and they are also all on Skype. One person still persists in trying to reach me on GTalk these days ... and my BlackBerry catches that - in background.
But when long time acquaintance, well respected blogger and former Microsoft employee Alec Saunders puts up a tweet as shown above, it has to be the ultimate complement to Skype's pervasive worldwide presence.
When you have 370 million accounts (yes, I know there are only 30 to 50 million using Skype over the course of a month), one would suspect that market presence and user base size wins out over any technical disadvantage, such as the lack of XMPP compliance. Sort of places XMPP right up there with SIP - an excellent protocol for interop but it's sort of like the tree falling in the forest - who hears it -at the end user level? And, both SIP and XMPP require business agreements between the linking service providers covering every connection, whether there's revenue or not.
In the IM world, it's a matter of who's available for a conversation? Which service has the highest probability of being able to determine a contact's availability and start a chat, voice call, share a file, send an SMS message or even do a (High Quality) video call? Which service has eight ways of seamlessly carrying out a file transfer?
Alec's one problem in keeping current? He'll have to go back to his BlackBerry to receive Skype IM messages via iSkoot. BlackBerry's background processing capability becomes a very distinct advantage here in the smartphone market. When attending an event in downtown Toronto last night I received an important "good news" Skype chat message on my BlackBerry Bold, while looking up a website the speaker was referencing and following the Twitter feed of one of the organizers.
A more significant challenge for Skype is to generate the marketing that will attract all those of a younger generation (such as my daughter) whose "social networks" are immersed into MSN Messenger as their IM client.
In closing have a look at some of Alec's followup Tweets:
In closing I should also mention that I like to use BlackBerry Messenger for its ability to bypass the Internet for messages that "just have to get there now!" via BlackBerry's unique method for PIN messaging.
Update: An oversight on my part: of course Skype IM also has the hooks to allow Skype chat sessions to proxy for other services. For a classic example check out Twitter4Skype.
Full disclosure: Alec Saunders is author of the Voice 2.0 Manifesto, which is proving itself out in today's dynamic mashup environment - especially when it comes to Communications Enhanced Business Processes. He is CEO of iotum, whose Calliflower Conference Call service is currently being launched. And, much earlier in his career, he was DOS product manger at Microsoft Canada at a time when DOS's memory management feature tried to compete with Quarterdeck's QEMM and the author managed Quarterdeck Canada.

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Source of Skype Growth

Borderless Communicator Hudson Barton has spent the last few years as the "keeper of the 'real users' statistic", a measure of Skype usage that attempts to understand the demographics of Skype's user base and put it into some sort of perspective so that it can be compared with other communication services.

There are only five public statistics provided by Skype in their reporting. First is the number of users online in the lower right corner of the Skype client. With each eBay quarterly report we get to see gross revenue generated by Skype, the cumulative number of Skype accounts opened as well as minutes of Skype-to-Skype calls and minutes of SkypeOut calls.

I have posted a couple of times about the fallacy of the cumulative number of Skype accounts as it gives no indication of "active" Skype usage over, say, the last quarter or, expressed more succinctly, how many accounts were really used for a Skype call of any type in the previous quarter? It's based on stale data; this particular number ranks right up there with "how many hamburgers sold".

However, by tracking the number of users online several times per day over the past few years, Hudson feels he has gained some perspective on Skype's growth.

Sources of Skype Growth
by Hudson Barton

A question was raised the other day, in a Skype public chat forum, that the raw "real user" statistic could not adequately answer. That question was "Is Skype growth coming from new users or from changes in the pattern of Skype use?" So here is a deeper analysis that answers what the raw "real users" statistic fails to fully capture.

In 2005 and 2006, the amplitude of the daily usage wave was growing. That is to say, the daily highs were growing relative to the lows (after discounting regional distortions)... 10% per annum faster in fact. Skype usage was increasing in the middle of the workday relative to off-peak hours. People were not using Skype as a general communication utility for inbound and outbound calling and presence. Rather, they appear to have been using Skype for special work-related purposes like outbound long distance calling to save money.



In 2007 and 2008, the trend reversed. The amplitude of the daily usage wave started shrinking. The lows have been growing relative to the highs ... 20% per annum faster. It appears that people began using Skype for normal, essential and basic communication, staying online for longer stretches of time or even around the clock in order to receive inbound calls and to mark their presence. Although we don't know the precise motivation for this change in behavior, it could be related to the expanding availability of unmetered broadband. Electricity is the only variable cost associated with keeping your Skype device running 24/7. So the trend is mostly due to a broadening of American and European usage.... folks in industrialized countries are staying in the Skype cloud around the clock with either computers, mobile devices or proxies such as iSkoot.

Today, the peak of the Skype usage wave is at about 14.5 million and the trough is about 7.2 million (out of 36 million total "real users"). The comparable graph for a "phone" company (or a VOIP operator like Vonage) would show a usage wave with an amplitude of zero; all users are by definition online all the time. If Skype's usage trends continue, it will begin to look more and more like an indispensable communications utility and less like a mere disruption to the communications status quo.

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Skype Becomes Platinum Sponsor for eComm 2009

Perhaps the most informative event I have attended during my two-and-a-half years of writing for Skype Journal was last spring's eComm 2008. Our of a sense of frustration organizer Lee Dryburgh took it upon himself to risk organizing this event when the former eTel Conference announced it would be no more. The 300 attendees were treated to a buffet of information about various initiatives being undertaken to deploy IP-based communications in innovative ways. From communications enhanced business processes to a garage-based operation to monitor security of abandoned farm houses, we all learned a lot. And the networking opportunity was excellent.

eComm 2009 has been announced; in fact, a call for speakers flooded Lee's email over the past few weeks. He has put together a tentative schedule and been recruiting sponsors. Last year's sponsors included many vendors we have written about since the event including iSkoot (Skypephone), Voxbone (iNum), VAPPS (HiDef Conferencing) and Brough Turner's NMS Communications. Sponsors recruited to date for eComm 2009 include, once again Voxbone, and newcomers Global IP Solutions and Voxeo.

Today we learned that Skype has added its name to the list of sponsors. This is a new initiative for Skype in that they have previously tended to maybe provide speakers but not sponsorship at this type of event. In a statement to Lee Dryburgh this evening, Skype's GM Audio and Video (and a keynote speaker last year) Jonathan Christensen said:

... thinking about why we did it.. We believe that communications is going through a major shift from hardware devices on dedicated networks to software applications. A new paradigm is emerging. As a clear leader in this new age of communications, it makes sense for Skype to sponsor the eComm event as it is all about celebrating this innovation and sharing our vision for the future of communications with those individuals and companies who are most interested in changing the way people around the world communicate.

It's been pretty quiet recently on the Skype scene. But then President Josh Silverman did tell us in our September interview that Skype was undergoing a major restructuring. And we have not heard of any layoffs. So it would only be natural to assume that development efforts (beyond the Skype for Windows 4.0 beta program) are under way and we can assume we'll see new product and service announcements in 2009.

Would any be made at eComm 2009? Speakers from Skype include Jonathan Christensen and Director of Strategy Julien Decot.

Registration for attendees opens December 2, 2008.

Note: Skype Journal editor Phil Wolff, Skype's Jonathan Christensen, Voxeo's Dan York, Brough Turner and Jon Arnold are on the eComm 2009 Advisory Board.

Tags: eComm2009, Skype, Jonathan Christensen, Lee Dryburgh, Julien Decot, Voxbone, GIPS, Voxeo

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Skype Seeking Skype Developer Community Manager

If we go back to our early September interview with Josh Silverman where we discussed "The Way Ahead - Platforms and Partners", Josh stated in response to our question about addressing ongoing partner communications issues:

What I don't want to do is over promise. Step one is, when you get somebody good in, lay out a plan and then when we're ready to announce some more forward looking things we'll do that.

I take the partner program really seriously and we're aware that we've not invested adequately behind it and want to do more. The first thing we are going to do is hire an experienced, capable leader of that organization who will pull together for me a plan for what resources do we need to invest in -- engineering, partner support, evangelism, technical documentation -- to make sure we build an organization that can support our partners robustly.

Skype is about to take "Step one" and has put up a job posting for a "Manager, Skype Developer Community".

Interested in an extraordinary opportunity to win the hearts and minds of developers all over the world? Are you passionate about the promise of rich Internet communications? If so, Skype needs you to come help change the industry. We are seeking an individual who can help provide knowledge, expertise, and charisma for partners building applications on the Skype Platform.

A comment about the Skype platform:

The Skype Platform provides developers with an open communications development environment with unparalleled richness and reach. With the Skype platform developers can build and deploy differentiated and revenue-generating communications applications, devices, and services for businesses and consumers alike. Since its launch 5 years ago, Skype has grown to over 330 [370] Million registered users across the globe. Skype provides a breadth of rich and integrated communications experiences. Now we are looking for developers to take those capabilities and experiences to another level by integrating Skype into applications, devices, and services on the web. If you are interested in voice over IP, mobile devices, audio coding, video services, rich collaboration, gaming, next generation internet / interactive TV, Location based services and experience as a leader within a community of developers... this is the role for you.

And the challenge:

Your challenge is to drive the Skype Community program that moves the new platform forward, compliments our platform product investments and ultimately delights our partner community and users. Your success will be measured by your ability to work closely with the product teams to develop a comprehensive developer marketing plan, and work with our marketing, product, and business development teams to evangelize Skype's tools, development environment, and unique value proposition to the development community.

You will be part of the newly formed Skype Platform team whose mission is to lead the adoption of Skype's Platform with developers and ISVs. The team is resourced and chartered to secure the future of the Skype Platform with developer audiences that span corporate and commercial developers, device developers, next generation developers in startups, students and social developers that writes plug-ins, widgets and mash-up applications today.

It's a senior management position with responsibilities for leading a renewed Skype Developer program - articulating the vision, analyzing the market space and established best practices, executing on building sustainable developer partnerships, driving the interface between internal Skype resource teams such as developers, business development, marketing and the external developer partners through various outreach activities.

After describing the skills and experience sought, the posting concludes with:

You will be responsible for managing a team of professionals that will support your programs and plans to create a significant and long lasting impact on the community of Skype Software developers. We are looking for a thought leader that can also motivate and raise the enthusiasm of all Skype developers. This is a position with lots of visibility outside of Skype and experience managing media and driving public events is critical.

Location: London, UK or San Jose, CA. (With lots of air miles guaranteed.)

As for Dan York's question about "the team is resourced and chartered", recall that earlier in the same early September interview, Josh mentioned:

Right now we have created the job of GM of Platform; I hope to very soon name a GM of Platform. That person is going to have to really work on what does the architecture need to look like to support this, what are the API's going to be - reference UI's, technical documentation - as well as evangelizing to the broader community forming some of our partnerships, so we have some work to do.

So, I have to ask, in the context of what we heard during the interview: Has Skype appointed the GM of Platform but not announced it yet?

Dan also comments:

For those of us watching the emerging communication/telephony space, we've seen Skype make several different attempts over the years to create a successful developer program. Given their incredible user base and platform, it's been curious to see that they haven't yet found the right formula.

The Developer Program has more or less stalled since my Primer series post last fall discussing the developer partner achievements to that point in time. Yet there remain some basic resources such as API's, a base of about 50 partner applications, and what continues to be world leading technology that gives Skype a head start in architecting and building a complete platform from which developer partners can build successful businesses.

In the meantime we have seen the evolution of the Apple Developer Program for the iPhone where, even with my bias towards the BlackBerry, I have to admit that we have seen some very interesting, innovative and impressive third party applications and mashups. They link voice, presence, location-based services, social networking, search. The results include obtaining real time information for traffic and transit, contributing to a successful US presidential political campaign and finding the nearest Tim Hortons or Starbucks. The most interesting has to be this week's launch of voice activated Google Search, often invoking location based information for assistance.

The overriding challenge for Skype's Developer Community Manager will be to create a winning environment that can foster a similar level of creativity and innovation while generating business wins for both Skype and the developer partners. Or to requote Josh's statement: "to make sure we build an organization that can support our partners robustly."

From my viewpoint, it's the position that will ultimately make or break the restructured Skype. Partner innovation and successful business development are key to the sustainable and increasing revenues required to justify eBay's investment in Skype.

Hat tip to Dan York who first pointed this out in a Twitter tweet.

Tags: Skype, Developer, Skype Extras, Josh Silverman, iPhone, Dan York, Skype Partner Program

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The cable connecting Gore to Kerry to Obama

I'd like to make two points.

First, the Democratic party learned grassroots organizing on W's watch. There's an exponential curve moving:

• from nothing in the 2000 Gore/Bush election,
• through substantial roots activity in the 2004 Bush/Kerry campaign,
• to overwhelming in the 2008 Obama/McCain victory.

Second, the elements that made campaigning so lively, engaging, social and meaningful may show up in Obama's governance.

You may not know this about me but my gig before Skype Journal was volunteering on the John Kerry presidential campaign.

Ten of us met in Berkeley a few months after the first Howard Dean meetups in San Francisco's East Bay. We became five thousand full time volunteers over 18 months until election day 2004. Our two-county grassroots operation made more than one million phone calls to swing states. 1,000,000.

We had no control over the candidate and his campaign staff, so we focused on what we could do ourselves. Using an American football analogy, we thought of East Bay Kerry as the ground game and the national campaign as the air game. 

We modeled many of the practices used today in the Obama campaign.

• Communications and coordination
• Local blogs. Feed aggregation. CMS. All with free/cheap technology.
• National event directory. Developed locally, adopted by the campaign, used to drive activity.
• Yahoo mailing lists.
• Focus on organizing, not policy/issues.
• Managing
• Grassroots organizational structures that scaled and split.
• Professional guilds (writers, coders, designers, speakers, lawyers) ran service bureaus for grassroots orgs in swing areas.
• Netroots fundraising.
• Meetups for recruiting volunteers.
• Operations
• Mobile phones for instant phone banks.
• Ambassador roles connecting local groups.
• Involving electeds in roots activities.
• 50 state strategy.
• 58 California county strategy (the fast growing eastern part of the state votes for conservatives).

Lots of peopleware with just a touch of technology to

• speed things up,
• keep costs down,
• push activity out to the edge, and
• help more people make smarter decisions.

We also revealed many problems.

• How grassroots fund themselves without violating campaign finance law (or not).
• Web applications absurdly hard to learn and use.
• National message management vs. local enthusiasm.
• Strangers instead of locals in GOTV efforts.
• The speed and efficiency of offline missing the disconnected and offline.
• Difficulty pairing union efforts with grassroots efforts.
• Inability to activate and motivate stale and tired Democratic Party organizations at the state and local levels.
• Costly voter and geographic data sets that grassroots couldn't afford. Weak geomapping software for precinct walking.

Most of these problems were tackled by the Democratic National Committee in the 2006 races.

The Obama crew really built on those basics, applying four years of advances in

• social media,
• GIS,
• cogsci,
• smarter/mobile phones,
• VoIM (like Skype),
• streaming video,
• agile methods,
• creative commons and open source licensing,
• emergent organization design,
• more reliable and scalable server hosting,
• SMS/texting (thank you American Idol),
• internet sousveillance and surveillance,
• flat rate long distance,
• cheap conference bridges,
• real estate 2.0,
• and all the rest.

Near the end of the 2004 campaign we hoped to bring the Democratic netroots into the new administration.

• Would there be a Chief Blogging Officer (CBO) as part of the white house communications office?
• Would local groups be able to meet and have a say on national policy with a channel not just to their safe congressman but to the cabinet and to the white house policy advisors?
• Would the conversation started in San Francisco's East Bay with 10 people sitting in a coffee shop, ending with 5000 full time volunteers in liberal Berkeley and Oakland and conservative Walnut Creek and Danville, continue into the new year?

We lost then. But what about now, after the Obama-Biden win?

Today, the hundreds of thousands of people who gave up work, family time, and school to volunteer want to continue the experience of being connected civicly with each other and of influencing their nation.

Chris Hughes posted Moving Forward on My.BarackObama on Friday.

Over the past 21 months, millions of individuals have used My.BarackObama to organize their local communities on behalf of Barack Obama.  The scale and size of this community and its work is unprecedented.  Individuals in all 50 states have created more than 35,000 local organizing groups, hosted over 200,000 events, and made millions upon millions of calls to neighbors about this campaign.  There can be no question that these local, grassroots organizations played a critical role in Tuesday's victory.

What has made My.BarackObama unique hasn't been the technology itself, but the people who used the online tools to coordinate offline action.  My.BarackObama has always been focused on using online tools to make real-world connections between people who are hungry to change our politics in this country.

And the site isn't going anywhere.  The online tools in My.BarackObama will live on.  Barack Obama supporters will continue to use the tools to collaborate and interact.  Our victory on Tuesday night has opened the door to change, but it's up to all of us to seize this opportunity to bring it about.

In the coming days and weeks, there will be a great deal more information about where this community will head.  For the moment, let's celebrate this victory and know that the community we've built together is just the beginning.

More than 1400 comments on that thread.

We'll see what the election laws permit. The Obama Administration is already creating tools for change that may become a vital part of the national discourse, a force for good in our little-d democracy.

Competition fuels innovation. The pursuit of power, the struggle to help millions of people climb ladders of engagement and participation in your cause. These are a crucible with real consequences, measurable results, and strict fitness tests. How many lessons can we draw for the private sector, for education and for governance from what politics invents? Let's pay attention and dive in.

tags: skype, politics, campaigning, organizing, roots, grassroots, netroots, barackobama.com, barackobama, change.gov, eastbaykerry, eb4kerry

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MA	SR	Edward M. Kennedy (D)	202-224-4543	617-565-3170	Contact Form
MA	JR	John F. Kerry (D)	202-224-2742	508-677-0522	Contact Form
MA	01	John W. Olver (D)	202-225-5335	413-532-7010	Contact Form
MA	02	Richard E. Neal (D)	202-225-5601	508-634-8198	Contact Form
MA	03	James P. McGovern (D)	202-225-6101	508-677-0140	Contact Form
MA	04	Barney Frank (D)	202-225-5931	617-332-3920	Contact Form
MA	05	Niki Tsongas (D)	202-225-3411	978-459-0101	Contact Form
MA	06	John Tierney (D)	202-225-8020	978-531-1669	Contact Form
MA	07	Edward J. Markey (D)	202-225-2836	781-396-2900	Contact Form
MA	08	Michael Capuano (D)	202-225-5111	617-621-6208	Contact Form
MA	09	Stephen Lynch (D)	202-225-8273	508-586-5555	Contact Form
MA	10	Bill Delahunt (D)	202-225-3111	800-870-2626	Contact Form
MD	SR	Barbara A. Mikulski (D)	202-224-4654	301-345-5517	Contact Form
MD	JR	Benjamin L. Cardin (D)	202-224-4524	301-777-2957	Contact Form
MD	01	Wayne T. Gilchrest (R)	202-225-5311	410-838-2517	Contact Form
MD	02	C. A. (Dutch) Ruppersberger (D)	202-225-3061	410-628-2701	Contact Form
MD	03	John P. Sarbanes (D)	202-225-4016	410-832-8890	Contact Form
MD	04	Donna Edwards (D)	202-225-8699	301-987-2054	Contact Form
MD	05	Steny H. Hoyer (D)	202-225-4131	301-843-1577	Contact Form
MD	06	Roscoe G. Bartlett (R)	202-225-2721	410-857-1115	Contact Form
MD	07	Elijah E. Cummings (D)	202-225-4741	410-685-9199	Contact Form
MD	08	Christopher Van Hollen, Jr. (D)	202-225-5341	301-891-6982	Contact Form
ME	SR	Olympia Snowe (R)	202-224-5344	207-764-5124	Contact Form
ME	JR	Susan Collins (R)	202-224-2523	207-622-8414	Contact Form
ME	01	Thomas H. Allen (D)	202-225-6116	207-283-8054	Contact Form
ME	02	Mike Michaud (D)	202-225-6306	207-942-6935	Contact Form
MI	SR	Carl Levin (D)	202-224-6221	517-377-1508	Contact Form
MI	JR	Debbie A. Stabenow (D)	202-224-4822	231-929-1031	Contact Form
MI	01	Bart Stupak (D)	202-225-4735	231-348-0657	Contact Form
MI	02	Peter Hoekstra (R)	202-225-4401	231-722-8386	Contact Form
MI	03	Vernon J. Ehlers (R)	202-225-3831	616-451-8383	Contact Form
MI	04	Dave Camp (R)	202-225-3561	989-631-2552	Contact Form
MI	05	Dale E. Kildee (D)	202-225-3611	810-239-1437	Contact Form
MI	06	Fred Upton (R)	202-225-3761	269-385-0039	Contact Form
MI	07	Tim Walberg (R)	202-225-6276	877-846-6407	Contact Form
MI	08	Mike Rogers (R)	202-225-4872	877-333-6453	Contact Form
MI	09	Joe Knollenberg (R)	202-225-5802	248-851-1366	Contact Form
MI	10	Candice Miller (R)	202-225-2106	586-997-5010	Contact Form
MI	11	Thaddeus McCotter (R)	202-225-8171	734-632-0314	Contact Form
MI	12	Sander M. Levin (D)	202-225-4961	586-498-7122	Contact Form
MI	13	Carolyn Kilpatrick (D)	202-225-2261	313-965-9004	Contact Form
MI	14	John Conyers, Jr. (D)	202-225-5126	313-961-5670	Contact Form
MI	15	John D. Dingell (D)	202-225-4071	313-278-2936	Contact Form
MN	SR	Norm Coleman (R)	202-224-5641	218-477-3106	Contact Form
MN	JR	Amy Klobuchar (D)	202-224-3244	218-287-2219	Contact Form
MN	01	Tim Walz (D)	202-225-2472	507-206-0643	Contact Form
MN	02	John Kline (R)	202-225-2271	952-808-1213	Contact Form
MN	03	Jim Ramstad (R)	202-225-2871	952-738-8200	Contact Form
MN	04	Betty McCollum (D)	202-225-6631	651-224-9191	Contact Form
MN	05	Keith Ellison (D)	202-225-4755	612-522-1212	Contact Form
MN	06	Michele Bachmann (R)	202-225-2331	651-731-5400	Contact Form
MN	07	Collin C. Peterson (D)	202-225-2165	218-253-4356	Contact Form
MN	08	James L. Oberstar (D)	202-225-6211	218-828-4400	Contact Form
MO	SR	Kit Bond (R)	202-224-5721	417-864-8258	Contact Form
MO	JR	Claire McCaskill (D)	202-224-6154	573-651-0964	Contact Form
MO	01	William Lacy Clay, Jr. (D)	202-225-2406	314-383-5240	Contact Form
MO	02	Todd Akin (R)	202-225-2561	314-590-0029	Contact Form
MO	03	Russ Carnahan (D)	202-225-2671	314-962-1523	Contact Form
MO	04	Ike Skelton (D)	202-225-2876	816-228-4242	Contact Form
MO	05	Emanuel Cleaver, II (D)	202-225-4535	816-842-4545	Contact Form
MO	06	Samuel B. Graves (R)	202-225-7041	816-233-9818	Contact Form
MO	07	Roy Blunt (R)	202-225-6536	417-781-1041	Contact Form
MO	08	Jo Ann Emerson (R)	202-225-4404	573-335-0101	Contact Form
MO	09	Kenny C. Hulshof (R)	202-225-2956	636-239-4001	Contact Form
MS	SR	Thad Cochran (R)	202-224-5054	601-965-4649	Contact Form
MS	JR	Roger F. Wicker (R)	202-224-6253	228-863-1988	Contact Form
MS	01	Travis Childers (D)	202-225-4306	662-844-5437	Contact Form
MS	02	Bennie G. Thompson (D)	202-225-5876	662-335-9003	Contact Form
MS	03	Charles W. (Chip) Pickering (R)	202-225-5031	601-932-2410	Contact Form
MS	04	Gene Taylor (D)	202-225-5772	228-469-9235	Contact Form
MT	SR	Max Baucus (D)	202-224-2651	406-449-5480	Contact Form
MT	JR	Jon Tester (D)	202-224-2644	406-365-2391	Contact Form
MT	00	Dennis Rehberg (R)	202-225-3211	406-443-7878	Contact Form
NC	SR	Elizabeth Dole (R)	202-224-6342	828-698-3747	Contact Form
NC	JR	Richard Burr (R)	202-224-3154	800-685-8916	Contact Form
NC	01	G. K. Butterfield, Jr. (D)	202-225-3101	252-823-0236	Contact Form
NC	02	Bobby Etheridge (D)	202-225-4531	888-262-6202	Contact Form
NC	03	Walter B. Jones, Jr. (R)	202-225-3415	800-351-1697	Contact Form
NC	04	David E. Price (D)	202-225-1784	919-859-5999	Contact Form
NC	05	Virginia Foxx (R)	202-225-2071	336-778-0211	Contact Form
NC	06	Howard Coble (R)	202-225-3065	704-209-0426	Contact Form
NC	07	Mike McIntyre (D)	202-225-2731	910-815-4959	Contact Form
NC	08	Robin Hayes (R)	202-225-3715	910-997-2070	Contact Form
NC	09	Sue Myrick (R)	202-225-1976	704-362-1060	Contact Form
NC	10	Patrick McHenry (R)	202-225-2576	828-327-6100	Contact Form
NC	11	Heath Shuler (D)	202-225-6401	828-252-1651	Contact Form
NC	12	Melvin L. Watt (D)	202-225-1510	336-275-9950	Contact Form
NC	13	Brad Miller (D)	202-225-3032	336-574-2909	Contact Form
ND	SR	Kent Conrad (D)	202-224-2043	701-258-4648	Contact Form
ND	JR	Byron L. Dorgan (D)	202-224-2551	701-239-5389	Contact Form
ND	00	Earl Pomeroy (D)	202-225-2611	701-235-9760	Contact Form
NE	SR	Chuck Hagel (R)	202-224-4224	308-236-7602	Contact Form
NE	JR	Ben Nelson (D)	202-224-6551	402-441-4600	Contact Form
NE	01	Jeff Fortenberry (R)	202-225-4806	402-438-1598	Contact Form
NE	02	Lee Terry (R)	202-225-4155	402-397-9944	Contact Form
NE	03	Adrian Smith (R)	202-225-6435	308-633-6333	Contact Form
NH	SR	Judd Gregg (R)	202-224-3324	603-622-7979	Contact Form
NH	JR	John Sununu (R)	202-224-2841	603-577-8960	Contact Form
NH	01	Carol Shea-Porter (D)	202-225-5456	603-743-4813	Contact Form
NH	02	Paul Hodes, II (D)	202-225-5206	603-579-6913	Contact Form
NJ	SR	Frank Lautenberg (D)	202-224-3224	973-639-8700	Contact Form
NJ	JR	Robert Menendez (D)	202-224-4744	973-645-3030	Contact Form
NJ	01	Robert E. Andrews (D)	202-225-6501	856-546-5100	Contact Form
NJ	02	Frank A. LoBiondo (R)	202-225-6572	800-471-4450	Contact Form
NJ	03	Jim Saxton (R)	202-225-4765	609-261-5800	Contact Form
NJ	04	Christopher H. Smith (R)	202-225-3765	732-350-2300	Contact Form
NJ	05	E. Scott Garrett (R)	202-225-4465	973-300-2000	Contact Form
NJ	06	Frank Pallone, Jr. (D)	202-225-4671	732-571-1140	Contact Form
NJ	07	Mike Ferguson (R)	202-225-5361	908-757-7835	Contact Form
NJ	08	Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D)	202-225-5751	973-523-5152	Contact Form
NJ	09	Steven R. Rothman (D)	202-225-5061	201-646-0808	Contact Form
NJ	10	Donald M. Payne (D)	202-225-3436	201-369-0392	Contact Form
NJ	11	Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R)	202-225-5034	973-984-0711	Contact Form
NJ	12	Rush Holt (D)	202-225-5801	609-750-9365	Contact Form
NJ	13	Albio Sires (D)	202-225-7919	201-823-2900	Contact Form
NM	SR	Pete V. Domenici (R)	202-224-6621	505-526-5475	Contact Form
NM	JR	Jeff Bingaman (D)	202-224-5521	505-622-7113	Contact Form
NM	01	Heather A. Wilson (R)	202-225-6316	505-346-6781	Contact Form
NM	02	Steve Pearce (R)	202-225-2365	505-622-0055	Contact Form
NM	03	Thomas Udall (D)	202-225-6190	505-454-4080	Contact Form
NV	SR	Harry Reid (D)	202-224-3542	775-882-7343	Contact Form
NV	JR	John Ensign (R)	202-224-6244	775-686-5770	Contact Form
NV	01	Shelley Berkley (D)	202-225-5965	702-220-9823	Contact Form
NV	02	Dean Heller (R)	202-225-6155	702-255-1651	Contact Form
NV	03	Jon Porter (R)	202-225-3252	702-387-4941	Contact Form
NY	SR	Charles Schumer (D)	202-224-6542	585-263-5866	Contact Form
NY	JR	Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)	202-224-4451	315-376-6118	Contact Form
NY	01	Timothy H. Bishop (D)	202-225-3826	631-259-8450	Contact Form
NY	02	Steve J. Israel (D)	202-225-3335	631-951-2210	Contact Form
NY	03	Peter T. King (R)	202-225-7896	516-541-4225	Contact Form
NY	04	Carolyn McCarthy (D)	202-225-5516	516-739-3008	Contact Form
NY	05	Gary L. Ackerman (D)	202-225-2601	718-423-2154	Contact Form
NY	06	Gregory W. Meeks (D)	202-225-3461	718-738-4200	Contact Form
NY	07	Joseph Crowley (D)	202-225-3965	718-320-2314	Contact Form
NY	08	Jerrold Nadler (D)	202-225-5635	212-367-7350	Contact Form
NY	09	Anthony Weiner (D)	202-225-6616	718-520-9001	Contact Form
NY	10	Edolphus Towns (D)	202-225-5936	718-855-8018	Contact Form
NY	11	Yvette Clarke (D)	202-225-6231	718-287-1142	Contact Form
NY	12	Nydia M. Velazquez (D)	202-225-2361	212-673-3997	Contact Form
NY	13	Vito Fossella (R)	202-225-3371	718-630-5277	Contact Form
NY	14	Carolyn B. Maloney (D)	202-225-7944	718-932-1804	Contact Form
NY	15	Charles B. Rangel (D)	202-225-4365	212-663-3900	Contact Form
NY	16	Jose E. Serrano (D)	202-225-4361	718-620-0084	Contact Form
NY	17	Eliot L. Engel (D)	202-225-2464	845-735-1000	Contact Form
NY	18	Nita M. Lowey (D)	202-225-6506	914-428-1707	Contact Form
NY	19	John Hall (D)	202-225-5441	845-291-4100	Contact Form
NY	20	Kirsten Gillibrand (D)	202-225-5614	518-581-8247	Contact Form
NY	21	Michael R. McNulty (D)	202-225-5076	518-843-3400	Contact Form
NY	22	Maurice D. Hinchey (D)	202-225-6335	845-331-4466	Contact Form
NY	23	John M. McHugh (R)	202-225-4611	518-563-1406	Contact Form
NY	24	Michael Arcuri (D)	202-225-3665	607-756-2470	Contact Form
NY	25	James T. Walsh (R)	202-225-3701	315-423-5657	Contact Form
NY	26	Thomas M. Reynolds (R)	202-225-5265	585-663-5570	Contact Form
NY	27	Brian M. Higgins (D)	202-225-3306	716-484-0729	Contact Form
NY	28	Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D)	202-225-3615	716-853-5813	Contact Form
NY	29	John R. (Randy) Kuhl, Jr. (R)	202-225-3161	607-776-9142	Contact Form
OH	SR	George Voinovich (R)	202-224-3353	614-469-6697	Contact Form
OH	JR	Sherrod Brown (D)	202-224-2315	513-684-1021	Contact Form
OH	01	Steve Chabot (R)	202-225-2216	513-684-2723	Contact Form
OH	02	Jean Schmidt (R)	202-225-3164	800-784-6366	Contact Form
OH	03	Mike Turner (R)	202-225-6465	937-383-8931	Contact Form
OH	04	Jim Jordan (R)	202-225-2676	419-423-3210	Contact Form
OH	05	Robert E. Latta (R)	202-225-6405	419-668-0206	Contact Form
OH	06	Charles Wilson (D)	202-225-5705	740-376-0868	Contact Form
OH	07	David L. Hobson (R)	202-225-4324	740-654-5149	Contact Form
OH	08	John A. Boehner (R)	202-225-6205	513-779-5400	Contact Form
OH	09	Marcy Kaptur (D)	202-225-4146	419-259-7500	Contact Form
OH	10	Dennis J. Kucinich (D)	202-225-5871	440-845-2707	Contact Form
OH	11	Vacant ()	202-225-7032	216-522-4900	Contact Form
OH	12	Patrick J. Tiberi (R)	202-225-5355	614-523-2555	Contact Form
OH	13	Betty Sutton (D)	202-225-3401	330-865-8450	Contact Form
OH	14	Steve C. LaTourette (R)	202-225-5731	800-447-0529	Contact Form
OH	15	Deborah Pryce (R)	202-225-2015	614-469-5614	Contact Form
OH	16	Ralph Regula (R)	202-225-3876	330-722-3793	Contact Form
OH	17	Tim Ryan (D)	202-225-5261	330-373-0074	Contact Form
OH	18	Zack T. Space (D)	202-225-6265	740-452-6338	Contact Form
OK	SR	James M. Inhofe (R)	202-224-4721	918-426-0933	Contact Form
OK	JR	Tom Coburn (R)	202-224-5754	918-581-7651	Contact Form
OK	01	John Sullivan (R)	202-225-2211	918-336-6500	Contact Form
OK	02	Dan Boren (D)	202-225-2701	918-341-9336	Contact Form
OK	03	Frank D. Lucas (R)	202-225-5565	580-256-5752	Contact Form
OK	04	Tom Cole (R)	202-225-6165	580-436-5375	Contact Form
OK	05	Mary Fallin (R)	202-225-2132	405-273-1733	Contact Form
OR	SR	Ron Wyden (D)	202-224-5244	541-431-0229	Contact Form
OR	JR	Gordon Smith (R)	202-224-3753	503-326-3386	Contact Form
OR	01	David Wu (D)	202-225-0855	800-422-4003	Contact Form
OR	02	Greg Walden (R)	202-225-6730	800-533-3303	Contact Form
OR	03	Earl Blumenauer (D)	202-225-4811	503-231-2300	Contact Form
OR	04	Peter A. DeFazio (D)	202-225-6416	541-465-6732	Contact Form
OR	05	Darlene Hooley (D)	202-225-5711	503-557-1324	Contact Form
PA	SR	Arlen Specter (R)	202-224-4254	570-346-2006	Contact Form
PA	JR	Robert P. Casey (D)	202-224-6324	570-941-0930	Contact Form
PA	01	Robert A. Brady (D)	202-225-4731	610-874-7094	Contact Form
PA	02	Chaka Fattah (D)	202-225-4001	215-387-6404	Contact Form
PA	03	Phil English (R)	202-225-5406	814-456-2038	Contact Form
PA	04	Jason Altmire (D)	202-225-2565	724-378-0928	Contact Form
PA	05	John E. Peterson (R)	202-225-5121	814-238-1776	Contact Form
PA	06	Jim Gerlach (R)	202-225-4315	610-376-7630	Contact Form
PA	07	Joe Sestak (D)	202-225-2011	610-892-8623	Contact Form
PA	08	Patrick Murphy (D)	202-225-4276	215-348-1194	Contact Form
PA	09	Bill Shuster (R)	202-225-2431	717-264-8308	Contact Form
PA	10	Christopher Carney (D)	202-225-3731	570-327-1902	Contact Form
PA	11	Paul E. Kanjorski (D)	202-225-6511	570-895-4176	Contact Form
PA	12	John P. Murtha (D)	202-225-2065	724-543-3607	Contact Form
PA	13	Allyson Schwartz (D)	202-225-6111	215-335-3355	Contact Form
PA	14	Michael F. Doyle (D)	202-225-2135	412-664-4049	Contact Form
PA	15	Charles W. Dent (R)	202-225-6411	215-541-4106	Contact Form
PA	16	Joseph R. Pitts (R)	202-225-2411	610-444-4581	Contact Form
PA	17	Tim Holden (D)	202-225-5546	570-622-4212	Contact Form
PA	18	Tim Murphy (R)	202-225-2301	412-344-5583	Contact Form
PA	19	Todd R. Platts (R)	202-225-5836	717-249-0190	Contact Form
PR	00	Luis G. Fortuno (R)	202-225-2615	787-723-6333	Contact Form
RI	SR	Jack Reed (D)	202-224-4642	401-943-3100	Contact Form
RI	JR	Sheldon Whitehouse (D)	202-224-2921	401-453-5294	Contact Form
RI	01	Patrick J. Kennedy (D)	202-225-4911	401-729-5600	Contact Form
RI	02	James R. Langevin (D)	202-225-2735	401-732-9400	Contact Form
SC	SR	Lindsey Graham (R)	202-224-5972	864-888-3330	Contact Form
SC	JR	James DeMint (R)	202-224-6121	864-233-5366	Contact Form
SC	01	Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R)	202-225-3176	843-445-6459	Contact Form
SC	02	Joe Wilson (R)	202-225-2452	843-521-2530	Contact Form
SC	03	Gresham Barrett (R)	202-225-5301	864-223-8251	Contact Form
SC	04	Bob Inglis (R)	202-225-6030	864-582-6422	Contact Form
SC	05	John M. Spratt, Jr. (D)	202-225-5501	803-327-1114	Contact Form
SC	06	James E. Clyburn (D)	202-225-3315	803-854-4700	Contact Form
SD	SR	Tim Johnson (D)	202-224-5842	605-341-3990	Contact Form
SD	JR	John R. Thune (R)	202-224-2321	605-348-7551	Contact Form
SD	00	Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D)	202-225-2801	605-626-3440	Contact Form
TN	SR	Lamar Alexander (R)	202-224-4944	731-423-9344	Contact Form
TN	JR	Bob Corker (R)	202-224-3344	731-424-9655	Contact Form
TN	01	David Davis (R)	202-225-6356	423-317-7459	Contact Form
TN	02	John J. Duncan, Jr. (R)	202-225-5435	865-523-3772	Contact Form
TN	03	Zach Wamp (R)	202-225-3271	423-756-2342	Contact Form
TN	04	Lincoln Davis (D)	202-225-6831	931-473-7251	Contact Form
TN	05	Jim Cooper (D)	202-225-4311	615-736-5295	Contact Form
TN	06	Bart Gordon (D)	202-225-4231	615-451-5174	Contact Form
TN	07	Marsha Blackburn (R)	202-225-2811	901-382-5811	Contact Form
TN	08	John S. Tanner (D)	202-225-4714	731-885-7070	Contact Form
TN	09	Steve Ira Cohen (D)	202-225-3265	901-544-4131	Contact Form
TX	SR	Kay Bailey Hutchison (R)	202-224-5922	210-340-2885	Contact Form
TX	JR	John Cornyn (R)	202-224-2934	903-593-0902	Contact Form
TX	01	Louie Gohmert (R)	202-225-3035	866-535-6302	Contact Form
TX	02	Ted Poe (R)	202-225-6565	877-218-1997	Contact Form
TX	03	Sam Johnson (R)	202-225-4201	972-470-0892	Contact Form
TX	04	Ralph M. Hall (R)	202-225-6673	972-771-9118	Contact Form
TX	05	Jeb Hensarling (R)	202-225-3484	903-675-8288	Contact Form
TX	06	Joe Barton (R)	202-225-2002	936-544-8488	Contact Form
TX	07	John A. Culberson (R)	202-225-2571	713-682-8828	Contact Form
TX	08	Kevin Brady (R)	202-225-4901	936-439-9532	Contact Form
TX	09	Al Green (D)	202-225-7508	713-383-9234	Contact Form
TX	10	Michael T. McCaul (R)	202-225-2401	281-255-8372	Contact Form
TX	11	Mike Conaway (R)	202-225-3605	432-331-9667	Contact Form
TX	12	Kay Granger (R)	202-225-5071	817-338-0909	Contact Form
TX	13	Mac Thornberry (R)	202-225-3706	806-371-8844	Contact Form
TX	14	Ron Paul (R)	202-225-2831	361-576-1231	Contact Form
TX	15	Ruben Hinojosa (D)	202-225-2531	361-358-8400	Contact Form
TX	16	Silvestre Reyes (D)	202-225-4831	915-534-4400	Contact Form
TX	17	Chet Edwards (D)	202-225-6105	979-691-8797	Contact Form
TX	18	Sheila Jackson-Lee (D)	202-225-3816	713-227-7740	Contact Form
TX	19	Randy Neugebauer (R)	202-225-4005	806-763-1611	Contact Form
TX	20	Charles A. Gonzalez (D)	202-225-3236	210-472-6195	Contact Form
TX	21	Lamar Smith (R)	202-225-4236	830-896-0154	Contact Form
TX	22	Nick Lampson (D)	202-225-5951	281-240-3700	Contact Form
TX	23	Ciro Rodriguez (D)	202-225-4511	432-336-3975	Contact Form
TX	24	Kenny Marchant (R)	202-225-6605	972-556-0162	Contact Form
TX	25	Lloyd Doggett (D)	202-225-4865	512-916-5921	Contact Form
TX	26	Michael Burgess (R)	202-225-7772	972-434-9700	Contact Form
TX	27	Solomon P. Ortiz (D)	202-225-7742	361-883-5868	Contact Form
TX	28	Henry Cuellar (D)	202-225-1640	956-631-4826	Contact Form
TX	29	Gene Green (D)	202-225-1688	281-999-5879	Contact Form
TX	30	Eddie Bernice Johnson (D)	202-225-8885	214-922-8885	Contact Form
TX	31	John Carter (R)	202-225-3864	512-246-1600	Contact Form
TX	32	Pete Sessions (R)	202-225-2231	972-392-0505	Contact Form
UT	SR	Orrin G. Hatch (R)	202-224-5251	801-625-5672	Contact Form
UT	JR	Robert F. Bennett (R)	202-224-5444	801-625-5676	Contact Form
UT	01	Rob Bishop (R)	202-225-0453	801-625-0107	Contact Form
UT	02	James D. Matheson (D)	202-225-3011	435-627-0880	Contact Form
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VA	SR	John W. Warner (R)	202-224-2023	804-739-0247	Contact Form
VA	JR	James Webb (D)	202-224-4024	276-679-4925	Contact Form
VA	01	Robert J. Wittman (R)	202-225-4261	804-443-0668	Contact Form
VA	02	Thelma Drake (R)	202-225-4215	757-787-7836	Contact Form
VA	03	Robert C. Scott (D)	202-225-8351	804-644-4845	Contact Form
VA	04	J. Randy Forbes (R)	202-225-6365	757-382-0080	Contact Form
VA	05	Virgil Goode (R)	202-225-4711	434-392-8331	Contact Form
VA	06	Bob Goodlatte (R)	202-225-5431	540-432-2391	Contact Form
VA	07	Eric I. Cantor (R)	202-225-2815	540-825-8960	Contact Form
VA	08	James P. Moran (D)	202-225-4376	703-971-4700	Contact Form
VA	09	Rick Boucher (D)	202-225-3861	540-980-4310	Contact Form
VA	10	Frank R. Wolf (R)	202-225-5136	800-850-3463	Contact Form
VA	11	Tom M. Davis, III (R)	202-225-1492	703-590-4599	Contact Form
VI	00	Donna M. Christensen (D)	202-225-1790	340-778 5900	Contact Form
VT	SR	Patrick J. Leahy (D)	202-224-4242	802-229-0569	Contact Form
VT	JR	Bernie Sanders (I)	202-224-5141	802-223-2241	Contact Form
VT	00	Peter Welch (D)	202-225-4115	888-605-7270	Contact Form
WA	SR	Patty Murray (D)	202-224-2621	206-553-5545	Contact Form
WA	JR	Maria Cantwell (D)	202-224-3441	509-353-2507	Contact Form
WA	01	Jay Inslee (D)	202-225-6311	206-361-0233	Contact Form
WA	02	Rick R. Larsen (D)	202-225-2605	360-733-4500	Contact Form
WA	03	Brian Baird (D)	202-225-3536	360-695-6292	Contact Form
WA	04	Richard (Doc) Hastings (R)	202-225-5816	509-452-3243	Contact Form
WA	05	Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R)	202-225-2006	509-353-2374	Contact Form
WA	06	Norman D. Dicks (D)	202-225-5916	360-452-3370	Contact Form
WA	07	Jim McDermott (D)	202-225-3106	206-553-7170	Contact Form
WA	08	Dave Reichert (R)	202-225-7761	206-275-3438	Contact Form
WA	09	Adam Smith (D)	202-225-8901	253-896-3775	Contact Form
WI	SR	Herb Kohl (D)	202-224-5653	608-264-5338	Contact Form
WI	JR	Russell D. Feingold (D)	202-224-5323	715-848-5660	Contact Form
WI	01	Paul Ryan (R)	202-225-3031	608-752-4050	Contact Form
WI	02	Tammy Baldwin (D)	202-225-2906	608-258-9800	Contact Form
WI	03	Ron Kind (D)	202-225-5506	715-831-9214	Contact Form
WI	04	Gwen Moore (D)	202-225-4572	414-297-1140	Contact Form
WI	05	F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R)	202-225-5101	262-784-1111	Contact Form
WI	06	Thomas E. Petri (R)	202-225-2476	920-231-6333	Contact Form
WI	07	David R. Obey (D)	202-225-3365	715-842-5606	Contact Form
WI	08	Steve Kagen (D)	202-225-5665	920-437-1954	Contact Form
WV	SR	Robert C. Byrd (D)	202-224-3954	304-342-5855	Contact Form
WV	JR	John D. (Jay) Rockefeller, IV (D)	202-224-6472	304-262-9285	Contact Form
WV	01	Alan B. Mollohan (D)	202-225-4172	304-232-5390	Contact Form
WV	02	Shelley Moore Capito (R)	202-225-2711	304-925-5964	Contact Form
WV	03	Nick Joe Rahall, II (D)	202-225-3452	304-325-6222	Contact Form
WY	SR	Michael Enzi (R)	202-224-3424	307-261-6572	Contact Form
WY	JR	John A. Barrasso (R)	202-224-6441	307-672-6456	Contact Form
WY	00	Barbara Cubin (R)	202-225-2311	307-261-6595	Contact Form

tags: skype, us, usa, congress, activism, politics, senate, house, representatives, senators, call

Follow Phil Wolff on Twitter or FriendFeed or on Skype. Follow Skype Journal on twitter

yucky hookers

"I keep getting these women that sound like hookers trying to contact me through skype. They think I'm a guy. Yuck." - skinner

tags: skype, hookers, spam, sex, gender, privacy, identity

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Please send photos from Skype Beta Days in Greece

"el martes me voy a Grecia por los Beta Days de Skype, pero lo de Alitalia podria impedirlo... Y dejarme tirada en Roma. Interesante."

(The Skype beta tester community convenes in the Mediterranean to meet each other and Skype's new leadership team)

(Part of a methodical campaign of stakeholder relations)

tags: skype, developers, devrels, beta, betatesters

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cataclysm

"I'm signed in to Skype but it looks like everyone is offline. Makes me worried about some cataclysmic event I may have missed." -- Rian

A nod to collective presence?

why the frack not

"i thought everyone uses skype. and if you don't, why the frack not?" -- Kiran Denniz

(life from inside a happy social network)
(driving force for virality)

creepy chick

skype is dead

Uh, in a good way!

peer pressure

Wesley Fryer: What Skype means to me

On the occasion of Skype's fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com.

Wesley Fryer is an educator, a digital storyteller, a technologist, and an innovator in bringing the three together. He is an alumnus of AT&T, lives in Oklahoma City, and is completing his doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University. Wes started Moving at the Speed of Creativity, his edutech blog, the month before Skype's second birthday in 2005.

Skype is one of the most valuable communication tools I have. Every week I now meet with different educators around the United States, and sometimes in different parts of the world, using Skype. As a co-convener for the free K-12 Online Conference it is impossible to imagine my life without Skype. Skype is the lifeline which connects us as conveners for our weekly meetings as well as many others in our K12Online learning communities.

In addition to these professional uses of Skype, I frequently use it to videochat with my family when I am traveling, and to connect my own children with their grandparents who live in other states.

Skype is one of the most powerful, transformative technology tools I've ever used. I can't imagine living my life and doing my work now without Skype.

tags: skype, whatskypemeanstome, oklahoma, ok, us, edutech, education, k12online, community

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Evgeny Gorbarsky: What Skype means to me

On the occasion of Skype's fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com.

Evgeny Gorbarsky is my counterpart at Skypeclub.ru, Russia's top, independent, Skype portal.

Skype means a lot in my life these days. Since skypeclub.ru was opened, Skype became not only my job, but the best hobby. It's great that our news and reviews help thousands of Russian Internet users get to know Skype and its potential.

The most pleasant part is to hear thanks from people that now can call their friends in other cities and abroad, from businessmen that can cut phone expenses and implement new means of communication at their enterprises.

I like to watch the development of Skype and watch new gadgets appear.

I like to test any Skype-device in my lab and present the results on my personal blog.

My partners and I do our best to deliver the most popular Skype accessories to the Russian users.

In Russian, Евгений Горбарский says:

Сегодня Skype играет в моей жизни огромную роль. Со времени создания skypeclub.ru, он стал не просто моей работой, но и лучшим  увлечением.

Я рад, что ежедневно наши новости и обзоры помогают тысячам российских пользователей  узнать о программе Skype и всех ее возможностях.

Особенно приятно слышать слова благодарности от людей, которые, благодаря Skype и моей помощи, смогли  свободно общаться  со своими близкими за рубежом или в других городах, от бизнесменов, сэкономивших средства на телефонных звонках и внедривших новые схемы связи на предприятиях.

Мне нравится следить за развитием Skype, за появлением нового интересного оборудования.

Нравится испытывать  Skype устройства в моей лаборатории,  и рассказывать о результатах на страницах личного блога.

Я и мои партнеры постарались сделать все, чтобы российским пользователям стали доступны самые популярные Skype аксессуары со всего мира.

tags: skype, russia, skypeclub, ru

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Dmitrii: What Skype means to me

On the occasion of Skype's fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com.

Dmitrii is a psychology student at a Bulgarian university, sells advertising for a British newspaper, and is soon to be a father.

So, for me Skype is something very very special. It is the easiest way to talk with friends. For example, you are working all day and you don't have the possibility to go out with friends, but you are interested in what they are doing and how they are, you use Skype. You talk with them for free, you can see them, it's virtual of course, but it's not a big deal. :)

With Skype we can send and receive everything that you imagine: photos, files, music, film, everything. On Skype you can play some very funny games. In only two days, I was able to send fax by Skype.

And one of the privileges of Skype is that this is the best way to make business, the best program for companies. And nothing can be lost in Skype, because all the chat conversations are written because there is chronology.

tags: skype, whatskypemeanstome, bulgaria, bg, friends, memory

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Phweet bypasses airline VoIP blockade

I want to build on Jim Courtney's post about Phweet on an airplane. Two social observations, a societal one, and a strategic one. But first,

• Air Skype, Skype Journal, April 2005. Skype on a transatlantic flight, with voice. Skyping to the International Space Station.

• Skype Air Heads, Skype Journal, June 2005. Plane-to-plane Skyping.

• Stratosphere Puffery, Skype Journal, July 2005. Boeing shows off their Connexion service. (RIP Connexion).

Bah. Humbug.

Hububaphobia (a fear of other people talking) is an anxiety not rooted in reality. Volume's not a problem if people talk to each other on the plane/train, so talking to someone who's not there shouldn't add to noise.

There is no social obligation for silence waiting in line. Don't hold up the line when you get to the front and you'd done your part.

The same is true on transport: don't interfere with our collective purpose by making us wait for you to stow your electronics before taking off or landing. This shouldn't be confused with talking around such events.

Excessively loud talking is transitional; we'll adjust our expectations and our headphones. Don't be afraid of talk.

Airlines should encourage inflight talk.

Talking to other passengers rocks. Well seated strangers who share travels in the spirit of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Heck, partner with matching sites so we can go speed dating for social, political, sports, and other mutual interests to find seat partners.

Talking to people who aren't on the plane has value too.

• It shares the flight experience with people who aren't there.
• It sates passengers who need to feel productive.
• It lets people coordinate their next steps without the "radio silence followed by a burst of catching up upon landing" now imposed on most flights. 
• It keeps people connected to those they leave behind at a time of stress and separation. 

As the world enters a state of default connectedness, the airline is breaking a social norm when they force disconnection.

Don't Muzzle Me

Disrupting my ability to talk is hurtful.

Technology and safety aside, this is a censorship, blocking, and net neutrality issue. Once you open the digital speech floodgates, be neutral with regard to software, modes of communication, and end points.

Like air, we need connectivity, and all our modes of talk to survive.

Depriving us of access to air? Waterboarding.

Phweet breaks through

The real story: Skype was blocked. Five years' old, with millions of users, millions in cumulative revenue, advanced p2p, networking, and video technologies, hundreds of engineers.

Meanwhile, Phweet just worked. A ruthlessly simple, two person, few months' old, browser-to-browser, flash voice-only, moderate audio quality app.

All the hallmarks of disruption. And a strong signal that download-free talk, web-centered talk, over-the-top talk is a sweet spot.

tags: skype, flight, airplane, boeing, airline, connexion, aircel, phweet, voip, voice, blocking, censorship, fear, anxiety, talk

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