April Fools ideas for next year

Skype announces the return of the 1MB windows client. An end to bloat.

Skype HQ phone number auctioned on eBay.

Tencent Buys Skype, Moves HQ to Shenzhen. Now with free spyware.

AT&T and Comcast start bidding war for Skype.

Skype now translated into Na'vi, Klingon, Elvish, Ancient Greek, Latin, Babylonian Cuneiform, Esperanto.

Meg Whitman crashes Skype when friending 20 million California voters.

Skype for Cars: Speech UI. Video calls projected on windshield. Dashboard sharing. p2p augmented by car-to-car networks.

Chinese government improves filtering technology; dubs out forbidden phrases from Skype voice calls in real time. Instead of Tiananmen Square you're heard to say Toffee Square.

Iron Man 2 suit to feature Skype mobile. Problems with vertical roaming outside of Verizon 3G zones.

Skype for Musicians. Now embedded in keyboards, guitars, wind instruments. tricky dialing. MusicXML, midi. emoticon generator from music. licensing deals with record labels.

Skype mobile for futbols. In time for FIFA world cup.

Skype for IMAX. The audience speaks. (Take that, THX)

l'shanah haba'ah b'AprilFools

eBay buys back Skype; UPDATE: Skype to lead eBay

"We missed them. We haven't been as cool, or as profitable, since they left" said an eBay spokesman of Skype Ltd. "Since we own a swap meet, a mall, an ad network, a ticket agency, a car dealership, and a bank, a phone company should fit right in. It's about harmony, not about synergy."

UPDATE: 0630 Pacific, 1 April 2010. Conf call.

Skype management taking over eBay, and their plans for the first 30 days.

Business integration

• eBay stock listed on London stock exchange, denominated in euros
• Engineering moves to Estonia, headquarters moves to London

Harmony strategy

• eBay.com features auctions with emoticons
• Skype sports new emoticons: (sold), (sniped), (Elvis bobblehead), (powerseller)
• All eBay users can use eBay ID to automatically log into Skype
• eBay now available in 50 languages and 104 countries
• Every eBay seller and category now has own infomercial channel
• Skype acquires OnState and furnishes free Skype call center to every eBay and Half seller
• Skype acquires Pamela so buyers can fax bids and get fax auction results
• Webcams and headphones category now at top of all search results
• All phone numbers to have Skype links
• eBay apps now preinstalled on Samsung, Panasonic and LG smart TVs, Verizon smartphones
• PayPal opens in Russia, India, China
• eBay Motors installs Skype with every car
• Skype for Windows 5 adds tab showing contacts sorted by eBay activity and trust rank; search window lets you find things to buy

tags: skype, #aprilfools, ebay

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

The Skype Song

The Skype Song by Eric Ng, Mhae Rempillo, Carlo Puche.

tags: skype, eric, ng, music, ericngmusic, ukulele, green, pineapple, song

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Glee TV Show music team follows the sun with Skype

Mix Online interviews the music team behind the musical television show Glee (Wikipedia, TV.com, IMDB).

[Adam] Anders and his partner in Sweden, super-producer Peer Astrom (Celine Dion, Madonna), work on an intense timeline, with about seven days from music approval to show taping to producing songs. Their teams work across time zones, around the clock, arranging, tracking and mixing — multitasking to produce up to 11 songs in a single week. “We use the time change to our advantage, so when I go to bed he keeps working, and vice versa — basically, 24 hours a day, six days a week,” says Anders.

The team communicates via Skype and transfers files over the Internet. “At one point, I had three studios in Sweden going, I had three here and one in New York, at the same time,” says Anders, who records vocals at Chalice in Los Angeles. “I'm recording, then checking in every half hour on Skype, with all of the other things going on at the same time. It's pretty crazy.

Our worldwide creative class follows the sun the way large companies position teams across the globe. Unlike large institutions, creatives assembles their teams as needed, through personal and professional connections.

And they sing, too.

The next original U.S. TV airings are in April.

tags: skype, glee, music, recording, producing, record, producer, adamanders, peerastrom, chalice, followthesun, creativeclass

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Phil Wolff's 67 Reckless Predictions for 2010

In 2010...

1. A hot stranger will IM something inappropriate to you.
2. Skype's SilverLakeification will be complete, with a very short leash on strategy and operations at first.
3. Skype will serve 125 billion minutes of calls.
4. Second Life will serve 20 billion minutes of calls.
5. Oprah's television show will end as scheduled in 2011; lots of Skype calls in 2010 leading to the finale as former guests make cameo appearances, holding out for a spot on Oprah's last (highest-rated-ever) episode.
6. "The Tyra Banks Show" will end as scheduled in 2010. Nobody will Skype in.
7. UK police will allege terrorists use Skype (like everyone else). Parliament will demand the PM bring Skype under control.
8. Skype 5.x will offer multiparty video.
9. Skype 5.x will offer team features.
10. Someone will attend a family funeral via Skype video. And forget they are on camera.
11. Skype will release a "naked Skype" public beta. This Skype engine, no user interface, will be free/cheap. Hardware developers will like it; web developers won't.
12. Skypecasts will still be offline.
13. Facebook will add voice to chat.
14. Skype for Business will account for ten percent of Skype sales.
15. Nortel changes its name to Avaya. Or avice aversa.
16. The world economy will continue to suck. An American commercial real estate crisis will reinvigorate the Great Recession. Good news for Skype as more people work from home.
17. 24's eighth season will feature Cisco's new midrange video conferencing.
18. Skype won't offer a "Login with Skype" service.
19. Vampires still won't Skype.
20. Tencent will buy ICQ for its non-China userbase. Skype won't.
21. Google Talk will add multiparty video with On2 inside, and become a standard part of the Google office suite.
22. Skypers post thousands of videos of Skype calls on YouTube, thanks to recording software. Jeremy Hague's Vodburner outpaces Pamela as the bestselling Skype add in.
23. The US student loan crisis ($700 billion outstanding) strains consumer lending.
24. Skype starts a post-SIP standards discussion about communications protocols for the 21st century.
25. Avaya will make Skype for SIP the default setting for new switches they sell.
26. Skype manages to get a television commercial on the air.
27. China's troubled economy will boost Skype usage when families can't afford to travel home for the Lunar New Year.
28. A team will talk for 200 hours in an uninterrupted Skype-to-Skype call.
29. Wi-Fi phones will ship with Skype SILK inside.
30. Six former Skype employees will become CxOs.
31. Someone dies, unable to Skype for emergency help.
32. You'll be able to make iSkype voice calls on Verizon 3G before AT&T 3G.
33. 100 handsets will run on Google's Android.
34. Skype will release their homemade COTTON video codec, so they don't have to use the ones from Google's On2. Higher quality. Easy, free license. Independence.
35. Skype.com still won't let you log in with OpenID.
36. Windows Live Messenger gets a huge boost in new user signups from Bing, Office2010, Office Live, and Windows 7. Microsoft will rock in 2010.
37. LG ships a television with Skype inside.
38. Mobiletelco 3 ships its third generation Skypephone.
39. An angry entertainer tweets to a million followers her PC crashed and lost all her Skype history. So she's switching to...
40. Skype opens a mobile research lab in India.
41. Gizmo5 features migrate to Google's plumbing and Google Voice.
42. A Harvard Business Review case will feature a Skype-related issue.
43. A Fortune 500 company (not eBay) will provide Skype for Windows for their employees.
44. Volunteers phonebank using Skype on behalf of a national EU political candidate's campaign's.
45. A lobbyist slips a Skype-hostile measure into a US law on behalf of incumbent telcos before Skype can muster opposition.
46. The Skype store will sell a netbook with Skype preinstalled.
47. The BigTelco industry pressures Nokia, so it never preinstalls Skype on its Series 60 line for the US market.
48. Skype relaunches its software platform developer program mid-year.
49. Skype's unreasonable Broadcast Terms of Service keeps it off new dramatic television programs and out of movies all year.
50. A court will find Skype guilty in a class action suit related to collecting small sums of money from customers but not offering service or prompt refunds.
51. Skype will offer to buy Tokbox for its browser-based video.
52. Skype revenue per minute called will continue rising from $0.06 as Skype trunking starts to contribute.
53. Skype will top $900 million in revenue.
54. Skype will sell small businesses pricing plans making it easy to budget and buy.
55. An IETF working group publishes avatar portability protocols.
56. 23 million people will log in to Skype at the same time.
57. 180 million new Skype accounts, about 500k daily.
58. Someone Skypes from a Virgin Galactic space flight.
59. Skype loses juicy US government contracts over the TOM-Skype security compromises. You don't know when someone you're talking with is using a TOM-Skype client with monitoring software from Chinese security agencies. An audit will show Skype on 500K federal employee computers anyway.
60. Skype relaunches Skype for Android. Android Skypers have more dialtone per user than the iPhone or Skype Lite.
61. Zombies become the new Vampires.
62. Tom Green Show's corps of Skyping fans will continue to Skype into the show while he is on the road with his new Standup Comedy Tour.
63. Skype-like features become generic, included in every communications and collaboration product shown at Demo, TechCrunch50, Telephony Startup Camp and similar product launchpads.
64. BT/Ribbit adds video support to its platform for programmers.
65. Voicemail to email transcription becomes a standard feature in most markets for mobile and home phone service.
66. United Nations rescue and recovery teams standardize on Skype.
67. Skype sponsors a Festivus site for the public "airing of grievances" and videos of your "Feats of Strength."

Hudson Barton predicts a 2010 peak of 27,695,335 Skype users online, Total "real users" will be 67,596,505.

What are your predictions? Can you do better? Prior years' predictions: Phil Wolff's 26 incriminating 2009 Skype Predictions, Phil Wolff's 37 Sketchy 2008 Skype Predictions, Predictions? Wish List? What's In Store for 2008 (Jim Courtney).

tags: skype, future, predictions

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Gifts for the Skype crowd

Gear: The Better to Hear and See All Year Long

Cute 3-D Webcam from Minoru. For the friend who wants even more than Skype's High Quality and considers 3D glasses the height of fashion. Cheerful, stereoscopic, and works wonderfully with Skype. Minoru videos on YouTube (and wear your 3D specs). Review. Amazon. $89/£50/€80.

Point 2 View (P2V) USB camera. Skype in-focus close-ups in your video call. You show the grandkids your stamp collection, they show you the bugs they found in the back yard. Armature stand included. Review, Overview, Gallery, FAQ, Tech specs, Downloads. Ipevo Store. Amazon.

Touch Screen Videophone from ASUS. The ASUS SV1TS gets the PC out of the way of Skype video. You drop it in the kitchen or living room, plug in the power cord, connect the Wi-Fi, touch the screen, and talk. Large, clear picture. Amazon. $230.

MXL AC-405 USB personal computer speakerphone. Absolutely the best audio quality anywhere near this price from Maxell, world experts in microphone engineering. The AC-405 shares technology with their high-end music and television studio microphones. Amazon. $55.

Freetalk Wireless Stereo Headset. Still one of the best for looks, quality, comfort and ruggedness. More than five hours of talk time and even then it works while recharging. I use it daily without tripping over cables. Review. Amazon. Skype store. $80.

Software: To Record and Share

Vodburner records Skype video calls on Windows. The Vodburner Beta includes easy editing software (see screenshot below) that automatically switches the shot between the two of you depending on who is speaking. Publish meetings, interviews, and training sessions on the web. A subscription runs $9.95 (USD) monthly.

Pamela Professional Edition, the Skype Assistant. Proven software with built in voice mail, birthday reminders, and in-call sound effects. Like Vodburner, it records calls but without an audio or video editor. An all around utility kit for Windows Skype users. I've been using Pamela for many years. PamSoft. €19,95.

Skype Journal Video Grooming Kit:

Teeth: Rembrandt 2-Hour Whitening Kit. Whiter teeth take years off. Feel free to smile.

Hair: Kent White Bristle Hair Brush for those stray hairs. (Ah, I remember the days when I had hair on the top of my head worth brushing.)

Inspection: Jerdon First Class Mirror so you know you look good and bounce a little light your way. See yourself the way others see you.

Skin: Avon mark Cheat Sheet Shine-Blotters to remove oils from your face that shine in the light. (I always thought it was a reflection off my eyeglasses that blinded viewers, but it was the glare from my forehead. )

Wardrobe: Everyone looks better on camera in a clean, dark blue shirt: Soffe Men's Base Layer Long Sleeve Crew Tee. White clothing creates glare and throws off your camera's sensors. Keep a clean, dark and solid top by your desk for the unexpected Skype call.

Lights: Natural light makes you look marvelous. I use the Verilux Original Natural Spectrum Deluxe Desk Lamp, so the camera can see my face. (Despite requests to turn it off.)

Lens: Keep your webcam lens clear with the Nikon Complete Lens Cleaner Kit or the LensPEN Lens Cleaning System. (This doesn't seem to help me: I always turn out smudged no matter how clean the webcam.)

Collaboration Lego Style

Creating a shared vision, talking through it until it becomes a plan they both understand, then dividing up work between them, troubleshooting together and adjusting the plan, until it's done. Collaboration builds relationships, not just houses.

tags: lego, collaboration, family, commercial, house

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private technologist roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Moving out: the post-eBay checklist

1. Lose the eBay toolbar on Skype installation. Are users asking for it? 

2. Was there ever "an eBay company" text on Skype.com? Find it. Kill it.

3. Turn in your eBay badges.

4. Move out of Skype Inn in San Jose. Leave the eBay campus behind.

Tell us where you land so we can send a housewarming gift.

tags: skype, eBay, $eBay

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Beyoncé's Video Phone

Does this need explanation? Really? NSFW: Skype, sex, and the sex industry. do people use it for other things too? 

tags: beyoncé, beyoncéknowles, mtv, videophone, skype, sex, position

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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How much gold do you pay pirates?

They came for fortune but were keelhauled and made to walk the plank. Now Skype's founders are back in a small fast ship, ready to sink her if they don't get paid. Do you fight to defend the S.S. Skype? Can you bribe the scoundrels and trust them to leave? Or do you bend, take them on as partners, and suffer them so you can put back to sea?

What do the two sides bring to the parley?

The Captain Z and Mister Friis wield barristers and silver. They sued Skype over the software license, swearing oaths were broken, blood is due, and Skype should be dry-docked until treasure is paid. They sued the new investment team, claiming keys to Joltid's treasure were smuggled from Joost's lockbox to key investors. And they lugged a treasure chest of cash and promises for outright ownership.

eBay and the Capitalists race to safer waters. Skype's quartermasters slaved for months to replace Skype's sails with sheets of their own making. Skype's lawyers dispute each scurvy claim and denounce them. It looks like prevailing winds for Skype's lawyers but fate, the courts, and codemongers are uncertain. 

Can eBay buy their absence cheaply this winter? Are you better off swashbuckling until a verdict comes next summer? Would you throw the Index Capitalists overboard, making room for the Dane and Swede at the Captain's Table? Could you ever turn your back once they were aboard?

The tale comes to this. Would you make a deal with the Devil himself to save your ship a battle? Or can you chart a course for open seas that leaves the pirates adrift in your wake?

Bonus Clue: Are the pirates on retainer in a grander scheme? Who benefits if Skype fails? Who would pay two billion dollars to shut Skype down?

tags: skype, joltid, joost, pirates, piracy, litigation, ebay, $ebay, $skype

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Pop quiz: What kind of Pirate are you?

BusinessWeek Book review: Piracy as Innovation Strategy: Can illegal copies provide inspiration? "Matt Mason, a former London deejay and the founder of RWD, a popular British magazine, argues for piracy as a business model rather than a threat. In his new book, The Pirate's Dilemma, he discusses the history of piracy--and how it drives innovation"

Wish For A Custom Skype App Contest

Skype developer Don Kennedy will write a Skype program for you. Free. In two weeks. Just ask for what you want in the comments below. "Dear Don, I wish Skype could..."

Don built a Skype bot that translates live Skype chats in 43 languages. An app that monitors your subscription use. A tool that lets you make Skype calls from your mobile through your PC with Skype using a normal mobile phone.

So I challenged Don to build for the #lazyweb. For a random stranger with a clear need.

And it's up to you.

Rules:

1. Post your requests as comments to this Skype Journal post or as tweets to @SkypeJournal by Saturday, 31 November 2009, midnight Pacific (GMT-8).
2. Multiple requests are fine.
3. You may request anonymously, however you won't win a prize. You can DM contact info to me @SkypeJournal or in email to the editor at Skype Journal dot com.
4. I will select and announce Don's project 1 November 2009, Sunday.
5. Don will post his solution, ready or not, on 15 November 2009. Not for Mac, Linux or iPhone.
6. Should Don fail to deliver on time, the winner, if in the US, will also get an Everyman freetalk headset courtesy of In Store Solutions.
7. The application will be free for everyone to use.
8. All contest decisions are mine and are final.

So be creative.

What new feature would you like in Skype?

tags: skype, free, contest, hacks, lazyweb, #lazyweb

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Concept Art: The FuriousTeam Skype fish

Ever have problems with your Amoi (夏新) Skypephone? Furious Team makes a Furious Gold product that claims to repair, direct unlock, disable OTP check, reset phone code and factory settings to default, fix Bluetooth address and IMN, and read phone info. Haven't used it so I cannot say if it works or not. This eight year old GuangZhou company says the QCOM Smart Tool works on the AMOI SkypePhone WP-S1, AMOI SkypePhone WP-S2, and the AMOI SkypePhone 3 INQ. Here's a video of unlocking an AMOI S1.

So here's the Skype version of the FuriousTeam puffer fish, part of a whole school of FuriousTeam fish tailored for different jobs and communities.

tags: skype, skypephone, amoi, furiousteam, fish, guangzhou, china, cn, design, logo

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Skype Concept Art: "Free to Roam" Tee Shirt

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Skype Concept Art: "Free to Roam" iPhone wallpaper

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Skype Concept Art: "Free to Roam" laptop skin

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Skype Concept Art: "Free to Roam" poster

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Is there a cure for Skype Syndrome?

Chris from Vancouver suffers from Skype Syndrome. No word yet on treatment or a cure.

tags: skype, syndrome, humor, fun, addiction, boisestate, toothbrush, psychotherapy, skypesyndrome, youtube

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Melrose Place Skypes off camera

Ella:

"Yesterday I took a building-wide poll after the murder and we all agreed we'd feel a lot safer in the courtyard if there was some sort of security camera. So with Jonah being the building's resident film school grad slash A/V geek, we figured you could hook us up."

Jonah:

"Yeah, I mean, I guess. Sure. I have a camera I use for Skype."

From the "Melrose Place" Nightingale episode.

tags: skype, productplacement, tv, melroseplace, melrose place, webcam

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The 134 Year Long Skype Call

1178315:33:42. 134.5 years. So this call started in 1875, the year of the Metre Convention. A strange bug between Windows and Skype, considering Skype is less than six years' old. You'd have to be a vampire to stay on a call this long (see: Time: a Skype Red Software Design Challenge).

So you have two bugs. One that sets the duration incorrectly and another that doesn't present time with years and days. Hat tip to Toni from Germany for the screenshot.

tags: skype, bug, bugs, windows, time, duration

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The Skyping Housewives of New Jersey

The Real Housewives of New Jersey with Jamie-Lynn Sigler from Jamie-Lynn Sigler shows how Skype helps best friends sustain their close relationships. Jersey style. NSFW. Hat tip to Chaim.

tags: skype, fun, newjersey, funnyordie, jamielynnsigler

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From Russia with Love: Hitler and Skype

33x3sketch published Гитлер и Скайп (Hitler and Skype) two weeks' ago. Over 800 thousand people have seen it since. This blog post has hundreds of comments.

The mostly German overdub of "Der Untergang" (2004) parodies Russia's major mobile operators lobbying to ban Skype.

I'd love an English transcript or highlights, but it looks hilarious.

tags: skype, hitler, video, youtube, untergang, parody, comedy

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Skype for Vampires: Making the business case

[Editor: From an internal report.]

Is there a market?

There is clearly an underserved market with different needs.

Can Skype serve that market?

Vampires use phones. Here are some shots of Bill pulling a mobile from his pocket in True Blood, Season 2 Episode 1. Stands to reason that if they talk and use phones, they could use Skype.

Will these users spread Skype faster than the Skype average?

Vampires are persuasive.

With so many still in-the-coffin, they value trusted and private connections. Like other underground subcultures, tools that help them stay connected help them survive.

Will this segment use Skype more than average?

We don't know. We suspect most of their communications are short, frequent, and bursty vs. long, occasional, and regular. The challenge will be to uncover sub-subcultures and patterns of use within the vampire communities.

Will this improve our brand?

Skype's brand is so happy, cheerful, laughing, blue skies. A hint of smoke, a touch of dark, might make Skype a more vivid, cutting brand.

How will rivals respond?

Microsoft: Ballmer will re-launch Live.com by buying and launching Dead.com. 

Google: Android and iPhone apps that blend Wave and Maps with GPS to find the nearest blood banks, Trublood retailers, vampire bars, graveyards, and college campuses. Starting with Stanford. 

AT&T: Lawyers and lobbyists to criminalize VoIP (Vampire over Internet Protocol).

Deutsche Telekom: New fees for calls to dead people.

What's the cheapest way to test our assumptions?

We tried focus groups, but we kept getting goths from Whitby.

We tried ethnographers to live among vampires and report their behavior, but they kept getting turned. or disappeared.

Maybe we should just put something out there and see what happens?

tags: skype, s4v, vampires, skype for vampires, branding, strategy

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Trueblood photo credit: copyright HBO.

Time: a Skype Red Software Design Challenge

Skype for Vampires is Time Aware.

Making the most of every night is not enough. Vampires want to make the most of every day too.

German Skype partner PamConsult announced Pamela V software that turns on automatic voice mail and IM attendants before dawn. You never need to miss a daylight message from humans or from vampires in other time zones.

A new clock counts down the minutes until dawn, with alerts at the –60 and –30 minute marks. For early risers, the clock also reports the wait until dark.

Because sunrise and sunset times depend on longitude, Skype now gathers location information from IP addresses on laptops and desktops and more accurate GPS data for S4V Mobile users.

Five Digit Years

S4V resolve bugs that bothered vampire Skypers for years. Skype now holds birth dates going back 100,000 years. The big change was changing age in profiles to support five digits, complying with IETF RFC 2550.

Still on the wishlist: Century. Many senior vampires were raised in eras when calendar dates were less standardized and education less common. You should be able to pick your origin century as an alternative to Julian calendars dates.

Skype restores birthday alerts. Adds death day alerts.

The first release of Skype for Windows 4 left out contact birthday reminders. Skype for Vampires restores them. Skype added two new fields to profiles. First Death Date is your date of conversion to vampire status, or a rebirth as some call it. Last Death Date is when you are really, truly, completely dead. So now Skype helps you celebrate two lifecycle milestones with your friends.

Last death date turns out to be very useful in managing your relationships but hard to get people to fill out.

tags: skype, s4v, skype for vampires, skypeforvampires, pamconsult, time, years, centuries, ui, ue, ux, vampire, vampires, skypered

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Skype Red: The Hardware Story

Skype for Vampires creates new opportunities for Skype's hardware partners. As with any (in)human factors design, Skype certifies gear to meet the particular needs of its demanding customers.

Skype's Jonathan Christensen said the new certification standards inspired hardware to use every drop of power in Skype's SILK and NYLON Superhuman Wideband Codecs. "Our partners, like Logitech, Panasonic, Toshiba and Sony, are creating a Skype call fidelity so high you can mesmerize humans as though you were in the same room."

Different Abilities	Technical Response	Products Upgraded
Heightened Vision	High frame rates Higher resolution Wide spectrum (into the infrared) Higher color depth	Webcams Displays NYLON lossless video compression
Visual Sensitivity	Filtering out frequencies found in sunlight that trigger allergic reactions	NYLON codec
Heightened Hearing	Higher audio frequency response range and sensitivity Noise reduction to drown out distracting sounds picked up with sensitive ears	Microphones Speakers

Logitech webcam, Vampire Red edition. Certified for Skype for Vampires.

tags: skype, vampires, skype4vampires, logitech, panasonic, toshiba, sony, fun

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Skype Red: Ground Penetrating Wi-Fi

Just because you're dormant doesn't mean you're offline. New advances in Ground Penetrating Wi-Fi (802.11gp) let your mobile phone or laptop stay connected to Skype and the rest of the Internet while you're six feet under. Your persistent Skype chats and voice mails will be all queued for you at dusk.

Cemeteries are a growing market for Skype partners Linksys, Cisco, and others making routers supporting the new technology. The gold standard is the D-Link Red, above, able to deliver 100Mbps two meters under soil at a distance of 25 meters.

Coffin makers are also equipping their products with batteries and uninterruptable power supplies. Laptop and smartphone batteries still have trouble making it from sunrise to sunset without a charge.

Cemeteries are racing to zone plots with Wi-Fi coverage, hoping to charge tenants a premium.

On the down side, privacy advocates urge caution, warning most graveyards have lax security, even online. 

cc-by: TheeErin

The Social Vampire: A Skype Red Design Challenge

When vampires tweet, follow, friend, and bite

Vampires vary more than humans in the degree of social connectedness and styles of social interaction. Skype for Vampires brings several features built on their social behavior.

Groups in Groups. Groups of vampires are called different things in different countries and subcultures. Depending on size and strength of ties, they have been called nests, clans, families, tribes. Skype "contact categories" now let you nest contact categories.

Unflattening Social Graphs. Skype contact groups are flat and democratic, unlike pecking orders among vampires. S4V lets you define hierarchy within contact groups. So you know who's the master.

Instant Cabal. A Skype preference automatically form groups by clan/bloodline affiliation. This can be a big time saver and better models real vampire-vampire relationships.

People Rank. S4V can sort your contacts using bloodline social proximity calculations. Social proximity shows how close you are to someone within a social graph, answering the questions "how many contacts do you share?" "how strong/active are those connections?" LinkedIn shows social proximity in a business context; Skype in the vampiric context. 

My Vampire(s). With a nod to twitter, Skype now lets non-vampires "follow" a vampire, and a vampire "claim" a non-vampire. Vampire affiliation and custody of non-vampires now shows up in search and search results, profiles, and automatic contact lists. Unclaimed humans can set their profile to the "BiteMe!" option in the My Species field.

Dating. Skype partnered with Lovebitten, a portal partnership for interspecies dating. The bitecurious can launch Skype chats and voice/video calls from the Lovebitten site. 

tags: lovebitten, bitecurious, biteme, skype, sociology, social, linkedin, twitter

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Skype Red: The Skype name origin

You've heard several stories about how Skype's founding team conjured the name. A Chuvash word meaning "the whole word can talk for free." Short for "Sky peer-to-peer."

Now for the simpler truth.

skype is the sound of a vampire bite.

Two teeth
sliding into warm flesh
lips surrounding the wound

Which founders knew this?

We're not telling.

Technorati tags: skype, vampires, skypeforvampires, s4v, bite, teeth, origin

Skype for Vampires – Top 5 wishlist

5. Video: Sparkle correction.

"I brake for vampires who sparkle"

— bumper sticker

I keep getting requests for help with webcams from those few vampires who tolerate daylight and who glow brightly in full spectrum sunlight. I don't know if this is a request for Skype Certified webcams, for Skype partner On2 which makes most of Skype's video codecs, or for Skype itself with its NYLON and DUSK supernatural wideband codecs. 

4. Video: Blood filter.

A few drops on the collar can put people off. So please remove blood on the face, or the walls.

3. Blood Sounds.

What the Skype acoustic palette sounds like to people without supernaturally enhanced hearing

Skype already makes that great "blood droplet dripping into a pool" sound. How about the sounds of blood splashing? The cap coming off a bottle of Trublood? The beep of a microwave after warming some Trublood to body temp? During file transfer, how about a throbbing pulse?

2. Video: Coppertone® Suntan filter.

"Can you make us look less pale?" If you can add a golden or tan skin tone in Photoshop, why can't Skype give us a golden skin tone?

1. Emoticons.

New vampire emoticons, please!

 

Bonus: Extend the promotion of free Skype credits with Trublood purchase. The word is still bleeding out.

tags: skype, video, coppertone, emoticons, vampires, skypeforvampires, s4v, trublood, trueblood

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.