Download Skype for Windows 4.1.0.136. File size 22 MB. Official release. Release date: June 30, 2009. File name: SkypeSetup.exe. No features added from the 4.1 beta, launched a month ago, but it fixes bugs.
Skype's continued belief in a fragmented, fractured, siloed platform-specific product strategy is still a path of monumental stupidity, in my opinion. I've ranted about this before. It's still the same.
In contrast, Mozilla comes out with Firefox 3.5 on the same day across all three operating systems. For any given Firefox release, there is tons of attention and interest because everyone can download, try it out, write about it, tweet about it and generally use it. There's a good buzz that can happen.
Send a fax for €0,09 per page (US$0.13) to Singapore, Israel, Aland Islands, Malaysia, Finland, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, Venezuela, Cyprus, Argentina, and Estonia. PamFax Pro subscribers pay €0,06. (Seems to be part of a larger trend. Skype cut rates to Turkey.)
There's still room to grow: no voice or video chat, no making or taking phone calls, no chat rooms or multichat, no gateway to Yahoo!'s IM partners (Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Lotus Sametime), no file transfer, no Yahoo! address book.
Yahoo!'s mobile messenger line also includes Y!IM for Sidekick, BlackBerry, and other phones.
The INQ¹ is the third generation of phones from the “3” network (Hutchison 3G) that has Skype integrated into it. The INQ1 is designed and made by a division of 3, so the handset is currently for 3 only, and more handset models are expected to follow this year. On 3, Skype calls are free, which means that INQ1 to Skype (on a PC/Mac) calls are free as well as INQ1 to INQ1. 3 also offer flat-rate data (even for prepay customers), and this gives a lot of freedom to use IM and social networking without the bill worries.
Brushed, Bright and Vibrant
The INQ1 comes beautifully packaged in a cuboid box with a Japanese painting design. Opening the box you see the handset itself (in my case silver, there is also a matt-black version), with all the cables, power supply and so on underneath. The handset itself has a brushed metal case and feels strong and substantial; the screen is bright and vibrant, and the sound is good and loud. The handset is quite thick because it has a slider that reveals the keypad underneath. The slide action is strong, and tactile. The keylock is automatic when you shut the handset.
I won’t go in to the full specs, as they’re available on the 3 website [editor: inserted following this review], but it has an adequate camera for still/video (with comparable quality to my Nokia E71, although without flash).
A stereo headset is provided for hands-free and music listening, although unfortunately this has quite an ugly connector that goes into the side, making the phone less easy to put in a narrow pocket. There’s one connector for everything, a mini-USB that accepts the power supply, data cable and the headphones. It has 3G data (HSDPA) and can be used as a PC modem (tether), via cable or Bluetooth.
It also has a micro-SD slot, so you can store quite a bit of music or photographs/videos.
Social Mobile Software
The key feature of this handset is obviously the integration of Skype and other social networking features. 3 have been pushing this hard with the Skype (S1, S2) phones, and the INQ1 is offered with the same free calling to Skype contacts. The Skype client in this phone works well, and offers presence, IM and calling as you would expect. The only niggle I had was in the implementation of Skype chats, which seemed to want to open a new chat window every time someone posted to the chat.
Once you have logged-in with your Skype credentials, the client offers to integrate the contacts into your address book. In fact it does this trick for Facebook (FB) too, and this turns out to be a very compelling feature of the INQ1. Once done, all of your contacts appear in the same contact directory, with an icon to show which social network each contact comes from. There is also a ‘favourites’ list; so it is possible to make a preferential list of your ‘real-life’ friends, so that you don’t get swamped by FB and Skype contacts if they number in the hundreds. When you receive a call, caller ID is used to match up with the FB list, so the handset can display the photo of your friend downloaded from FB.
A further integration feature is that all the messaging inboxes also appear in a single list. The Messages screen shows you inbox (= texts), FB inbox (also pokes and requests), Skype chats, Windows Messenger chats and email. It’s great to have that all in one place. The email is slightly schizophrenic, in that 3 offer an email aggregator (to pull emails out of existing accounts), but there is also the separate Gmail application.
There are other useful applications too. In addition to Gmail, there is Google Search and Google Maps (a cut-down version with no location features). The music player is quite useable, and can log-on to your Last.fm account and ‘scrobble’, i.e. tell the world in real-time what music tracks you are listening to. The web browser works well, and I find that I use it a lot in ‘landscape’ mode, as turning the phone sideways does switch the display. This landscape trick also works in the music player.
Navigation between applications uses a side-button (the ‘switcher’) that controls a horizontal app ribbon at the bottom of the screen. You can quite happily run multiple apps (e.g. browser, Skype, music player) and switch between them quickly and efficiently.
Most of my criticisms of the handset are really trivial: The FB font is incredibly tiny and (unlike the browser) couldn’t be changed using the +/- buttons; the landscape mode screen should work in all apps; the volume control wasn’t granular enough, and jumped to fast from quiet to “too loud”. Also, because I’ve been using Twitter a fair bit recently, it would have been nice to have a built-in app for that.
All in all, it’s a well-made phone with a lot of features of a smartphone for much less money (£80). I imagine this handset appealing most to people in their teens and twenties, and with these kind of features built-in to a prepay handset, I'm sure there will be a lot of interest. 3 is the smallest of the five UK mobile phone networks, but they’ve already seen that the Skypephones help retain the notoriously fickle prepay customers. What 3 are trying to do in this area of Skype/social software integration is still unique, and kudos to them for creating their own path among the mobile operators.
The INQ¹ handset is the next device to feature in our internet category and is designed exclusively for 3. It takes the principle of easy-to-use internet to new levels and is the world’s first fully integrated social networking phone. Purpose built for 3 customers in the UK this handset is designed to get the best out of the biggest and best 3G network in the UK.
Highlights
Internet services such as Facebook, Skype, Windows Live Messenger and Last.fm are deeply integrated into the handset, transforming the mobile internet experience that consumers are used to.
But rather than constrain internet usage with artificial caps on downloads we’ve created a new tariff which, for only £15 a month, provides UNLIMITED mobile internet access, UNLIMITED texts, UNLIMITED 3 to 3 calls and 75 cross network minutes. Or for £20 a month you can get the same deal, but with 200 cross network minutes.
Pricing Info
£79.99 on PAYG
Free on Mix & Match tariffs
Free on the INQ¹ £15 and £20 tariffs
Key features:
Advanced integration of Skype, WLM, Facebook and Last.fm, plus home screen widgets
Integrated phonebook with Facebook status & profile picture, Skype and WLM presence
Switcher key and menu carousel for easy navigation to major internet sites
3.2MP camera, 2.2” screen, and auto-landscape browser
HSDPA 3.6Mbps technical spec, and pre-loaded with modem drivers making it a plug and play dongle
Picture blogging; upload photos directly to Facebook
Full Specifications
Size: 97 x 47.6 x 14.4 mm
Weight: 110g
Battery: 329 hrs (standby) 324 mins (talktime) application dependent
Ping.fm is a synch service in the social stack, mostly in microblogging and rich presence. Set up on Ping.fm:
Enable posting with Skype
To enable posting through Skype, request to add the bot "pingdotfm" by searching for the username and add it as a contact. When the bot appears on your contacts list, send it an IM with your verification code.
The ping.fm page will show your verification code once you log in to the site.
Help > Check For Updates or download to get the 40 bugfixes, some to serious UI and device problems.
Known issues:
Accessibility features still not complete. Download 3.8.
Still incompatible with several Creative brand webcams and digital video cameras.
Skype slows on launch when you have many contacts and slows when your hard disk is busy.
Skype's backup feature doesn't restore manually-added phone numbers. Those same numbers aren't available when you log in on another computer.
Skype's Outlook integration won't import phone numbers without proper country codes but it won't show you the problems. So you have to identify the number problems and fix them in Outlook.
The SkypeSync desktop utility imports your contacts into Skype from other platforms. The new SkypeSync 1.8 adds sources supporting the Portable Contacts API. The standard is supported by Plaxo, so SkypeSync supports import of Plaxo contacts into Skype.
Skype's own Contacts > Import Contacts... wizard in Skype for Windows 4 imports from Yahoo! web mail and Outlook desktop mail. SkypeSync steps in to fill gaps in Skype's coverage.
SkypeSync suffers from a few limits beyond its control.
Searching the Skype p2p user directory is so slow it makes looking up Skype names difficult.
Backward compatibility means I now have six "Alec Saunders" contacts instead of one with his five phone numbers. UPDATE: Skype limits max number of phone numbers per Skype contact to three.
Skype does not permit programmers to search the Skype Find/Prime business directory.
And there is no place for SkypeSync to store medata from other sources (address information, emails, employers) as notes about my contacts.
On my wishlist for future releases:
Dozens of other sources.
Offer intermediate steps before adding contacts.
Push Skype contacts into Plaxo and other services.
Step by step...
Pick your source. Today you can choose from SyncML mobile phones, Outlook, GMail, Yahoo! mail address book, and Plaxo.
I chose Plaxo, where I have more than a thousand contacts pulled from my Google, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts.
Skype is picky about phone numbers: they need a "+" in front, in the US a "+1".
So you've defined your source and set your numbering.
Now you can start your importing. Trial mode limits you to 15 names from any source.
And go...
Whoops. I need to give SkypeSync permission from my Skype client.
So, trying again, SkypeSync adds 15 contacts to Skype.
Results
I buy the software and, with a "full license", import all 3970 of my Plaxo contacts.
They are labeled "SkypeSync" so you can see who's been imported.
Most of my contacts don't have Skype names, just phone numbers: the green phone icon. Some of them have two phone numbers. SkypeSync creates two contact entries, one for each phone number. Inconvenient, but needed for compatibility with older versions of Skype. Skype for Windows 4.0 supports multiple phone numbers for each Skype name, but this hasn't always been the case.
Looking at the screenshot above, some people are offline. They have Skype names in their Plaxo profiles.
Sadly, SkypeSync automatically sent these people an invitation to connect in Skype. Should this be opt-in? Should SkypeSync offer you the chance to not-add a former girlfriend, someone suing you,
Strangely, Skype sent an email notifying the new invitees. This is new to me.
XandrospreviewedPresto last week, a light operating system that boots your laptop quickly so you can be running Skype (for Linux) in about 8 seconds instead of minutes. Firefox, Skype, your Windows files and thousands of other apps and media are available through the presto application store.
Unlike Splashtop, which is installed at your notebook's factory (with Skype included), you download Presto onto Windows computers. It will cost $19.95, but those who sign up for the beta after 16 March will get a discount when it goes on sale 13 April 2009.
Presto could make netbooks even better portable Skype devices.
The Karaka libraries manage Skype farms (many instances of Skype running in a data center) and bridge chat users to the Skype network through XMPP applications.
Skype farming is part of building a gateway. Fring, iSkoot, Eqo, Ribbit, IM+ and anyone else who wants to offer Skype chat, Skype presence, Skype profiles and other Skype data must have a gateway. Karaka helps you build your farm management system.
Neil Stratford, Vipadia's CEO, said "we needed the gateway to support our ClackPoint service - as a building block it seemed that it would be more widely useful, so we decided to release it publicly."
Scope of a generic Skype gateway?
Instance lifecycle management: creating, monitoring, and closing instances of Skype.
Instance virtualization: running your Skype instances on many servers/blades so you scale to meet demand.
Multisite hosting: minimizing latency (speeding up round trips) by routing conversations to the closest server with available resources
Skype client configuration: streamlining instances to avoid using a computer's memory, cpu and bandwidth, and to avoid memory leaks.
Session management: mapping outside clients to sessions in your gateway, even when they have flaky connectivity.
Security: the usual, but more so.
Modeling: associating Skype's data models for people, groups, chats, calls, to your own software and APIs.
What Karaka does and doesn't do:
Instance lifecycle management: Yes.
Instance virtualization: Yes.
Multisite hosting: No. You can use DNS SRV record load balancing to different sites.
Skype client configuration: Defaults to a basic config, but you can script your own.
Session management: Yes.
Security: Up to you. "We have an API to enable encrypted transmission of credentials, but otherwise we rely on the security of the associated XMPP infrastructure."
Modeling: Yes for those elements in the XMPP definition, No for SIP call elements.
In English:
Look at Vipadia's GPL'd libraries when you want to build a gateway to Skype, to have Skype inside your product or service.
The news release.
Vipadia is pleased to announce the release under the GPLv2 of Karaka, the open-source XMPP-Skype Gateway.
Existing Skype interconnect solutions focus on bridging voice even though the primary use of Skype is for instant messaging and associated presence data. Interconnecting with Skype messaging and presence has been a major stumbling block for many who wish to offer Skype interconnection to their network. Karaka bridges the XMPP and Skype clouds, removing this stumbling block by converting Skype messaging and presence to the popular XMPP protocol as used by, e.g., Google Talk.
Karaka is a scalable distributed XMPP transport that bridges instant messaging and presence between a user's XMPP and Skype accounts. In addition to full presence and instant messaging exchange, it also automatically detects Skype multi-party conversations, elevating them into XMPP conference rooms.
Karaka implements the XMPP standards XEP-0100 for gateway support, XEP-0045 for multi-user chats and XEP-0144 for roster exchange.
Vipadia <http://vipadia.com/> is a Cambridge, UK based startup that creates and innovates in the field of IP communications, specialising in Voice, Video, Messaging and Presence over IP.
Karaka uses the Skype API but is not endorsed or certified by Skype.
Codec Evolution and Industry Proposal (Plus Skype Announcement)
The PSTN has been bandwidth limited from its inception. This was done to keep equipment costs down. But is 3kHz really enough to get your point across? Wideband audio has emerged in services like Skype and with today's low cost, silicon based manufacturing and the move to all IP transmission there is an opportunity to finally break through the POTS bandwidth barrier. Jonathan will discuss the complex audio codec landscape and put forth a proposal for how we [the Industry] can make wideband audio ubiquitous.
Let's parse this and madly speculate where Jonathan's going.
The PSTN has been bandwidth limited from its inception. This was done to keep equipment costs down.
The public switched telephone network (PSTN) cuts off your speech's top (high notes) and bottom (low notes). While some microphones and speakers, like those used by musicians, capture everything, most equipment in mobile phones, landline phones, speakerphones, or even Skype phones captures just enough of your sound to be understood.
But is 3kHz really enough to get your point across? Wideband audio has emerged in services like Skype
Wideband audio restores the lifelike quality of sound by capturing and playing more of your sound's natural highs and lows. Skype's new SILK codec, which moves sound between Skype and your computer, and between Skype and other Skype users, is a wideband codec. Incredibly vivid sound.
and with today's low cost, silicon based manufacturing
Putting software into a chip... SILK codecs as semiconductor "cores"? A core is a readily usable bit of software already rendered in the software language of chip programming. Everything electronic has some sort of chip in it, from radios to cars. Pre-built cores make it fast, cheap, and easy to drop new features into your product. "SILK Inside"?
and the move to all IP transmission
Most mobile and landline phone companies have switched their plumbing from analog to digital to Internet Protocol.
there is an opportunity to finally break through the POTS bandwidth barrier.
POTS (plain old telephone service) is basic phone service, the one with the 3kHz bandwidth limits. Could the breakthrough be offering SILK Inside in the routers PSTN services use? In mobile phones?
Jonathan will discuss the complex audio codec landscape
Ummm. I haven't a clue. But Jonathan should know; he's been working in the codec business for years.
and put forth a proposal for how we [the Industry] can make wideband audio ubiquitous.
If you want something ubiquitous, you have to take away cost and risk. Sounds like open source to me.
So, again, this is me guessing what Skype will announce and all errors are mine:
Skype will release SILK with an open source license.
Skype will partner with an ASIC semiconductor manufacturer to release SILK in VHDL (or another chip design language).
Skype has partnerships with Cisco, Motorola, Nokia and other companies to use the chips in networking products and mobile handsets.
Let me make another assumption. Skype will announce a public platform in 2009. So people could make their own Skype clients or build Skype into their own products/services. To make that work, Skype needs to share codecs and encryption with developers. Licenses could be for packaged software or for open source libraries. I'm betting on open source for the codecs and shrinkwrapped for the encryption.
Skype Growing by 380,000 Users a Day. "The number of its users is growing by the population of Singapore (more than four million) every 12 days and nearly a third of its registered subscribers now use it for business purposes."
Pamela 4.5 shipped Wednesday. The new Call Scheduler and Conference Call Manager look handy. Still the best for recording Skype video calls.
Windows users can do this too. The Nyanyan Virtual Desktop Camera for Skype (2006.05.29 edition) is a free download. I've used it for years. Works great. Skype thinks it's a webcam. Enjoy.
Columnist David Pogue in a New York Times article reviewing Skype 4.0 starts by going back to the AT&T video phone demonstrated at the 1964 New York World's Fair and user experience from then. Not a lot of calls due to technical and psychological issues. He talks about why Skype has been so widely accepted (did he remind us it was "free"?) and why Skype has been a survivor when up against iChat, MSN Messenger, SightSpeed and others.
He goes on to mention several issues that have inhibited video calling in the past but then says:
The video quality still varies when you use Skype. Fast Internet connections and fast computers still work better than slow ones. But if you do have a good setup — wow. With certain Logitech or Philips webcam models, Skype 4.0 can deliver a picture that’s as big and sharp and smooth as a TV picture (30 frames a second, 640 by 480 pixels), with almost no delay.
In my test calls to friends in California, New York and Virginia, we were amazed at what a difference it makes when the delay goes away. (Maybe, for its next trick, Skype can lend its technology to the world’s cellphone carriers.)
He then went on to make calls using iChat, ooVoo and SightSpeed: "None of them matched Skype’s immediacy or video and audio quality." He discusses Skype's new level of audio quality (with the SILK codec) and reduced network bandwidth speed requirement. He mentions some features that he would still like to see and mentions what differentiates services such as SightSpeed. His closing comment places Skype video calling into a historical perspective:
..... Will we one day adjust to the idea of being on camera every time someone calls?
Nah.
In the end, video chatting isn’t a replacement for phone calls, but a supplement to them, a perfect way to check out someone’s new place, check in with distant family and friends or show off a new talent (or baby). They saw the possibilities back in 1964 — they just didn’t realize that we wouldn’t always want to use them.
Go read David's post (free registration may be required); it's an excellent yet objective review of the personal video calling space from the end user perspective. I guess David doesn't watch Oprah; she seems to be using Skype High Quality Video almost daily according to reports from my wife.
... Starting from this version we've included the new Super Wideband Audio codec. This is our second in-house built audio codec especially designed for calls over the internet with superb quality. The Super Wideband Audio codec will help you most on lousy network conditions and when you have lower bandwidth available, although it also improves quality in normal conditions too.
SILK is basically a significant improvement on Skype's previously acclaimed HD Voice performance. I have now experienced a couple of calls where this SILK codec was available at both ends of the call; it certainly provides a clearer, crisper audio experience. (For those unfamiliar with the term "codec" they are algorithms engineered into the voice communications network for converting audio waveforms into digital streams for transmission over the communications network and then converting them back to an audio waveform at the receiving end.)
Last week I had the opportunity to interview Jonathan Christensen, Skype's GM for Media Platform to learn more details about this "SILK" codec. This codec is the outcome of a three year development process with a focus on:
improving the audio bandwidth out to 12,000 KHz
providing bandwidth management to deal in real time with degraded network conditions
balancing the codec optimization between voice, music and background noise, each of which can have an impact on the overall user experience
overall robustness to provide a more consistent user experience, regardless of network conditions and an individual caller's voice signature.
While the human ear can hear sounds up to 22 KHz the actual sound produced by human vocal chords has a frequency range of 20 Hz to 14 KHz; however, sounds below 70Hz are not what you would call "pleasant" (as experienced with those "thump, thump" car speakers). Skype's SILK codec is optimized for the transmission of audio between 70 Hz and 12 KHz. Compare this to the bandwidth of the PSTN's standard G711 codec of 400 Hz to 3.4KHz; wider band codecs, such as AMR-WB and iSAC cover the range of 50 Hz to 7 or 8 KHz respectively. And, as indicated in both the AMR-WB and iSAC Wikipedia entries, there is a major licensing cost consideration:
AMR-WB has been standardized by a mobile phone manufacturer consortium for future usage in networks such as UMTS. Although its speech quality (similar to Skype, including glitches) makes it likely that older networks will have to gradually be transformed to support wide band, its high legal costs may limit its uptake.
However, in order to deliver on this audio bandwidth, Skype also had to consider getting the voice stream across the Internet. SILK interacts with Skype's redeveloped (network) bandwidth manager that uses a feedback algorithm to provide "adaptive bandwidth management". SILK is a "variable bitrate" codec that can scale the bitrate (amount of data being transmitted as voice packets) up and down as necessary. The key network parameters governing this adaptation are packet loss and jitter changes. Fundamentally, to the end user, this means incorporating a level of call robustness that results in improved consistency of call quality, especially for lower speed Internet connections (below 3Mbps) with no user intervention required.
Another factor to be considered are accommodations for differences in perception of audio quality depending on whether there is voice, music or random background noise involved in the audio signal. Suffice it to say that Skype's engineers have been involved in a balancing act amongst these factors in the development of the SILK codec.
The bottom line is that Skype has set new barriers for voice call quality and and the associated user experience. Since there needs to be SILK at both ends of a call, the number of calls I have experienced with SILK has been limited but, as mentioned above, those I have made had a very crisp, clear audio quality. With Skype's launch today of Skype for Windows 4 Gold release almost all my Skype-to-Skype calls will be able to achieve this performance level. Going forward expect to see SILK incorporated into Skype for Mac in the near future. But the the SILK codec has been modularly designed for embedding into silicon; we can expect future Skype-enabled hardware platforms to be able to take advantage of SILK's performance.
And finally note that, in order to keep costs low while improving call quality, Skype has no licensing costs associated with their proprietary codec. Is there a potential for a new Skype revenue stream by licensing this codec to other communications service providers as well as hardware vendors?
We've built this brand new Skype so you can have the conversations that make a difference to you, every day. It's easy to use, plus step-by-step guides help you get started.
While most of the new features have been revealed during the beta period, Skype's marketing will focus on three key features:
New user interface; with over 25% of Skype-to-Skype calls involving video this new release has been designed with a focus on improving the video call user experience.
Bandwidth management: a new bandwidth manager has been developed with the goal of improving overall call performance by adapting, in real time, to degraded or low speed network conditions, such as those caused by excessive packet loss and/or jitter.
The new user interface also has taken into account factors that encourage users to explore Skype beyond voice calling. Incorporating beta user feedback Skype has found that the new UI is driving up adoption rates for Instant Messaging, file transfer and video. When you open a contact window launching a voice, chat or video conversation requires a single click on the respective voice ("Call"), chat or video button. The associated text pane tracks not only chat messages but also voice and video call detail information (launch time, end time) as well as file transfer information. And, as in the past with chat, the entire record is all archived on your local PC for future recall.
Other features: You can choose to view your Skype activity in one larger window or in individual "conversation" windows. During a call a drop down menu on the "call audio control bar" provides quick access to making any necessary audio or video settings. Single click buttons allow you to quickly change or add conversation modes to adapt to the context of the conversation. A wizard provides assistance with testing audio and video settings. During their testing they found that these features drove new users to more quickly experience chat and video while there was an increase in usage of these modes by legacy users.
On-the-fly the bandwidth manager can adjust both video and audio transmission by making real time adjustments to parameters such as video resolution, frames-per-second or audio bandwidth. to ensure an ability to maintain a basic level of communication while enduring these conditions. When combined with SILK's reduced network bandwidth requirements, the overall goal is to improve the overall user experience with minimum or no user intervention required.
Two changes;
The SkypeMe! status button has been removed as a result of its tendency to be used for spamming and other forms of unwanted calls. (Of course you also still have the option to only allow callers in your Contact list to call you.). Along with this Skype has introduced "abuse reporting" which is monitored by Skype personnel for dealing with undesirable calling activity.
While you can still participate in Public Chat sessions launched or joined from Skype 3.8, there is still no ability to launch or join a Public Chat from Skype 4.0 for Windows. This is my primary complaint about the new user interface. We have had a Skype 4.x Public Chat discussion ongoing since May, 2007; it has provided an interesting dialogue amongst Skype users and Skype personnel, including some feedback on features in Skype 4.0. And it has supported many other informal "water fountain" conversations amongst special interest communities of Skype users. Skype for Windows Product Manager Mike Bartlett claimed yesterday, during an interview, that Skype was reviewing how to embark on "public conversations" in today's messaging world where services such as Twitter and Friend Feed also provide ongoing dialogues. However, Skype Public Chat has its own "space" in terms of user community; it needs to be brought back as soon as possible.
Over the next few weeks, with more experience using Skype 4.0 for Windows we may cover some features in more detail. In the meantime you can download it here. We look forward your feedback in the Comments.
Of course, the best news is that Skype-to-Skype calls (including multi-party calls), chat and video calling remain free. And there are calling plan subscriptions available for low cost calling to landlines worldwide.
Josh Silverman joined Skype as President early in the spring of 2008; since then he has been reviewing Skype's opportunities and building a team of experienced executives who can bring to Skype the products, programs and team building expertise required to operate a business with a run rate of $600MM per year, 20% contribution margins to eBay and growing at 380,000 new account registrations per day (with "real user" growth also increasing significantly).
Summarizing the past executive appointment announcements we can clearly start to see the evolution of a business structure, along with each unit's responsibilities:
Operations: Product, Marketing, Customer Care, Support
Technology: Engineering, Platform, Development Community
During our interview at CES 2009 with Skype COO Scott Durschlag, he outlined details of his restructuring of Skype's Operations team along two axes: product and geography under the mantra of providing "Skype Everywhere".
Global product offerings will encompass three divisions: consumer, business and mobile, each responsible for developing products. Each of these groups will be interacting with members of CTO Daniel Berg's technology teams to convert their technology developments into marketable global product offerings and to adapt the technology to meet product marketing needs.
Consumer will involve the current Skype client desktop offerings along with hardware, such as Skype phones.
Business starts with the current Skype Business Control Panel but intends to expand well beyond this starting point into a range of offerings, such as Skype for Asterisk and the recently announced IBM LotusLive developments, addressing the small-to-medium business market.
Mobile involves current products such as Skype for Windows Mobile, Skypephone (in conjunction with iSkoot), the recently launched Skype Lite (including Skype for Android) as well as any upcoming offerings for the iPhone and BlackBerry
In addition each of these divisions will be responsible for developing appropriate customer care and support programs appropriate to market demands. For instance, the business unit will come up with ongoing support programs relevant to supporting sustainable business operations of its products' users. Ideally these programs would follow the model of Red Hat for Linux or Digium for Asterisk and build up a network of resellers and VARS who would provide relevant and timely end user support. While Dan Berg's technology team will be responsible for third party developer partner support, an additional challenge for the Business products group will be to assist with marketing of business applications offered by these developer partners.
While Skype veteran Stefan Oberg is heading up the Business unit, announcements re appointments to head up Consumer and Mobile are pending.
Along the geography axis is a recognition that, while the Products divisions have a global mandate, there are different market needs within different regions of the world. For instance, in many Asian market wireless carriers do not subsidize mobile phones as is the North American practice. This requires a differentiated approach to these markets with respect to how easily innovations, especially around reduced calling costs, can be introduced to these markets.
The geographical market responsibilities are:
Americas: Don Albert becomes General Manager, Americas. Don has had North America responsibility for a couple of years and will now be responsible for both North and South America. With respect to the latter he is looking forward to building on all the Skype activity in Brazil, for instance. (And, yes, once again at CES Don was made aware we are awaiting SkypeIn and a Skype Store for Canada)
Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA): appointment pending
Level 1: Static Storing Skype names and Skype-linking Phone Numbers
Storing and linking people’s Skype names is one part. The other is to offer SkypeOut links for PSTN phone numbers.
Tech: Skype’s “skype:” html protocol to launch Skype from a browser link.
Level 2: Dynamic Integrating Skype Presence
Is this person available for a call now? You can show a person’s Skype presence in a web page.
You can also use presence information to inform other site behavior. For example, you might aggregate presence data for a team to create collective presence scores.
Tech: Polling Skype’s web presence services
Level 3: Peering Syncing Skype Profile, Social Graph, and History Data
Skype clients are information rich. You can use that data to enrich profiles, enhance your site’s social graph (who knows whom, how, and how they interact), collect communication histories (who talked to whom, when, for how long), and import chat archives.
You can keep your site's data synced with Skype's by refreshing active connections with your Skype client.
Tech: Using Skype’s client APIs to log in on behalf of a user. With that access you can both read and write to the client, and trigger conversations. At large scale, you will need to operate a Skype client farm.
Skype offers some access to its payment services. PamFax is an example of this, where customers pay with Skype credits for sent faxes.
Tech: Skype publishing and DRM client and web service APIs.
The LotusLive product falls smack dab into Level 1: Static. Just to be clear, although you can associate a Skype name with a colleague, partner, or customer within LotusLive, and while you can launch a Skype call from a LotusLive web page, LotusLive and Skype are not integrated. Repeat: Not Integrated.
The Skype call happens outside of LotusLive.
You cannot add people to an ongoing call from LotusLive.
You cannot trigger a LotusLive session from within a Skype call.
You cannot mix LotusLive callers and Skype callers.
If you want a Skype call, all users must have downloaded Skype, created Skype accounts (not the same as your LotusLive account), and be logged in to the Skype network.
You cannot use LotusLive media assets (presentations, documents) within a Skype call.
LotusLive has no record that the conversation occurred. No institutional memory, unlike conversations that use LotusLive tools and channels.
It is excellent that you can launch a Skype call or conference call from a LotusLive web page. That's enormously useful, a great first step. But that click passes call-starting data to desktop Skype clients; it's a one way trigger.
We'll have to rewrite the model to include new capabilities Skype Journal expects to emerge from the Skype platform by 2010 year end, including elements of the Social Stack.
Login Interop. So you can log in to LotusLive using your Skype ID/password (think OpenID).
IM and file transfer Gateways. So you can participate in a Skype chat even if you don't have Skype installed.
Voice Gateway – Low Def and Hi Def. So Skype users can talk with non-Skype users.
Voice Conferencing Gateway – Low Def and Hi Def. Multiparty, using Skype and non-Skype experiences
Video Conferencing Gateway. So Skype users can join video conferences with people using LotusLive.
Video Messaging Interop. So you can use Skype video to record messages to people in a LotusLive directory.
Contact (address book) data sharing, syncing, creation - bidirectional
Contact Group (team list) data sharing, syncing, creation – bidirectional
Calendar/Schedule Sync.
The SJ SSMM helps us assess current Skype readiness and plan a Skype strategic roadmap for our consulting clients.
Question: with IBM pursuing excellence on a service that comprises voice, video, chat and file transfer in a secure, encrypted environment, and with the stated goals of "working with their partners", would this not result in a situation where IBM would be licensing Skype technology to provide a comprehensive real time multi-media communications infrastructure?
With announcements this week, including some at IBM's annual Lotusphere 2009 event in Orlando, FL, it seems like that question is starting to get some answers..
.... it will integrate Skype™ functionality with LotusLive (www.lotuslive.com), IBM’s new cloud services which are designed to help individuals build communities to work smarter, more effectively and more efficiently across and beyond their own companies. Skype’s voice and video calling will add rich, real-time communications capabilities to LotusLive, making it even easier for enterprises to collaborate in the cloud.
At Lotusphere 2009, IBM demonstrated the new Skype integration into LotusLive Engage, "an integrated suite of tools that combines your network [of contacts] with Web conferencing and collaboration capabilities like file storing and sharing, instant messaging and chart creation."
Today we interviewed Peter Kalmstrom, Skype's Program Manager for Toolbars, who had been attending Lotusphere to assist with the demonstrations. Peter made several points:
This announcement covers only the first step of what will be a series of Skype integrations into the LotusLive offerings.
The integration into LotusLive Engage is targeted at "businesses looking to collaborate inside and outside the organization to easily expand their networks..." In other words for businesses that need to include, say, sub-contractors, third party consultants, suppliers and buyers within their business operation processes.
Within a LotusLive Engage contact profile, "Skype" fields have been added such that when a user clicks on a a name to bring up a profile card, the user can launch a Skype conversation and transfer files with a single click.
The only additional requirement for engaging in a Skype conversation is that the initiating user must have a Skype client open.
In addition to Skype-to-Skype calls, SkypeOut calls can also be made.
Where several contact profile cards have been opened, a user can launch a Skype multi-party call to host a conferencing session.
Due to the nature of LotusLive Engage's web architecture, the resulting Skype access is cross-platform; it does NOT require that the user have a Skype web (FF or IE) toolbar installed.
A session can then also launch a Lotus Web Meeting (also known as a Lotus SameTime Unyte meeting).
Sounds like the Lotusphere demonstrations got the brainstorming going between Skype and IBM. In a concluding statement Peter said:
"We are enthusiastic about the partnership with IBM and we see a lot of areas where we can collaborate and help each other improve our services. We met with a series of executives at IBM during Lotusphere and the general feeling was highly positive."
With the IBM offering, we are seeing one more example of "Skype Everywhere", in this case, being embedded into an offering that is key to IBM's future success in delivering cloud-based outsourced business services.
Phil will have some comments on the technical aspects of this integration along with where he feels there are "deeper" integration opportunities.
During our conversations with Skype COO Scott Durschlag last week at CES, Scott outlined Skype' criteria for its software development going forward.
First was the emphasis on "liquid communications" through statements such as "Skype Whenever, Wherever". Just as today you can pick up any PC or mobile platform and find all the Google Tools (Search, Maps, News, Reader, etc.). Skype wants to be on virtually any platform or device.
Pick up a smartphone, find the Skype button. Turn on the TV, find a Skype button, have a conversation. Open a web browser; start a Skype session. All this to complement Skype on the desktop. Today, besides on the desktop, you can find Skype on over 200 mobile phone handsets, several (Sony) mobile devices, Skypephone and Apple TV. But Scott emphasized, this is only the beginning. It will only start to get real when we see Skype on higher profile devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry or when we start to see Skype seriously back into the hardware device business with vendors such as Philips and iPevo.
Then Scott outlined four benchmark criteria that every implementation of a Skype on any platform or device must meet:
A key reason for Skype's rapid and widespread adoption has been associated with its ease-of-use. Yet Scott says the Skype conversation user experience needs to be even easier to encourage adoption by a broader user base. Developing a more effective user interface has certainly been a focus of the Skype for Windows 4 beta program. At the Skype CES press conference Scott reported that, in a recent survey of users, 88% preferred the new UI to the previous Skype for Windows 3.8. But I'm still wondering if the Skype for Windows team could take a look at Skype for Mac and implement a "drawer" type interface to manage and select the active conversation. For the longer term evolution of Skype clients hopefully Skype also has a look at Dan York's post on Skype's fragmented product strategy.
Security is an issue that I'll leave to Dan York and others who are able to cover this issue more knowledgeably and effectively. Suffice it to say that we would expect security to continue to be a feature of all Skype products, including those that use the mobile voice channel for placing calls from mobile phones.
Two take-aways from these statements:
Fundamentally we should expect Skype, going forward, to be a provider of real time conversation-enabling software on desktop, web, TV and mobile platforms. To use an old telegraphy term: Full Stop! For instance, rather than developing their own social network, we should expect Skype to seek out agreements with other social network service providers, such as the MySpace agreement. Skype is an enabler of real time conversations; it is not in the community building or social networking business. Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, amongst others have already captured that space and done an excellent job at it.
These benchmarks also provide a basis not only for deciding what product offerings Skype will develop but also when they are in a position to release a product.
The new Skype executive team is finally starting to set some benchmarks and guidelines against which we can not only measure executed performance but also have a better understanding of where Skype wants to go.
"With Splashtop, you can access the Internet and your favorite applications seconds after turning on your PC."
"Be online seconds after you turn on your PC. Why wait for Windows to load when you could be surfing the web right away!"
Whether it's Windows 7 or Android, people launch Skype on startup. Connecting to the network gets you "Skype dial tone," so you can make and take Skype calls and chats and sync your history. I want Splashtop on my next laptop.
There's a "new sheriff in town" when it come to running Skype; CES 2009 was a "coming out" event for the new executive team.
CES 2009 provided an opportunity to catch up personally with many of the vendors we have covered in Skype Journal including Skype, Truphone, SlingMedia, Philips and Research in Motion (BlackBerry). I also had a chance to attend a most informative afternoon session of Jeff Pulver's Social Meia Jungle event. Unfortunately Palm closed their suite after only two days of CES; thus, I missed an opportunity to learn more about the Palm Pre on Saturday. As Palm had just been awarded a CES "Best of Show" award, that was a "Huh?" moment when there was only a security guard at the suite's door.. I also wanted to catch iPevo and Nokia but did not have time to get to their booths.
With respect to Skype we had three activities: the Skype press conference, an interview with new COO Scott Durschlag and Skype's first reception event Friday evening. It was our first opportunity to observe the new Skype executive team in action. While I will be providing some more detailed posts, here are a few observations:
For the first time, a senior C-level Skype executive personally acknowledged Skype Journal's participation as a playing a significant role in the Skype ecosystem. Scott thanked us for our loyalty to Skype through all the challenges of the past two years. (That does not mean we'll always be cheerleaders; it's important that we maintain a skeptical and critical viewpoint within the context of the overall IP-based communications space.)
While we have had co-operation in the past, usually via Skype's public relations agency, from many Skype employees at an operating level, it's important for the media to be able to communicate regularly and openly with those at the C-level who are providing overall direction and developing high level strategy. Josh has initiated such openness through his blogging and interviews; now we are seeing it on a person-to-person basis.
On the other hand many times, last week in both the press conference and our discussions, Scott acknowledged the existence of several previous controversial issues, such as technical support, platform development, the role of partners and internal management structure issues as requiring attention by the new management team. The newly recruited management team will be introducing a new level of experience and maturity to address these issues; execution over the next few months now becomes critical.
One future post will cover Skype's new operating and management structure focused on products and geographical markets.
Another will cover Skype's overall focus as a software platform developer and the standards being set for these developments. Within this context I'll provide my perspective on what is meant by "liquid communications".
We'll soon have a follow up post about our discussion with Scott of what Skype's new executive team learned from the TOM-Skype privacy breach last fall and how it became a bonding exercise within Skype as well as establishing some new operating parameters to avoid a repeat.
Most of all, Skype is not sitting back. The are pushing the envelope, but at the same time sending mixed messages externally to partners and developers. But that too will change. Some recent hires have brought maturity to the table.
Finally, for the first time since I have been writing about Skype, we can see some well-articulated high level vision for where Skype is heading, where they need to focus and how they want to play in the real time communications market space at a strategic level.
Looking forward to writing about the evolution of Skype as it grows from a $500MM per year operation with 500 employees into a business with a revenue level and valuation that finally justifies eBay's initial investment in Skype.
This is our second in-house built audio codec especially designed for calls over the internet with superb quality. The Super Wideband Audio codec will help you most on lousy network conditions and when you have lower bandwidth available, although it also improves quality in normal conditions too.
In the Skype 4.x Discussion Public Chat Raul Liive goes on to say: "it's superior over SVOPC in every usage area, but it comes best out in the low bw or loose internet conenction cases". However, the legacy SVOPC codec remains available to address backward compatibility requirements.
Other new features include;
MySpaceIM with Skype (functionality carried over from 3.8)
Option to disable uPnP and Nat-PMP
eBay browser highlighter bundled
Added Philips SPC 1330 NC as High Quality Video camera
along with an improvement in the Instant Messaging layout and numerous bug fixes listed in the release notes.
As I am at CES where my laptop still has the last released version 3.8 of Skype for Windows in order to access features such as Public Chat creation, I will not be able to try this hotfix out until I return home this weekend (where my desktop has the 4.0 beta 3). But if you have a PC running the beta version, it's definitely worth checking out this hotfix. I am curious to see if they also fixed the "flashing technical call info" problem.
Obviously feedback about :"hidden mysteries" should go back to Skype's forum for reporting issues; however, if you have experience with the new codec, tell us about it in the Comments.
Skype's bundling free screen sharing into Skype's software will popularize the feature to hundreds of millions of people. This makes the market for online conferencing bigger.
The bundling will also kill the freemium business model (try our free version, upgrade to our posh version) conferencing companies use to get customers. This will hurt the following Skype developers directly:
Back in mid-2005, Bill Campbell asked "Does Skype eat its children?" when Skype competed with presence developers with Skypeweb. Those developers abandoned Skype. Since then Skype competed with video developers, who've abandoned Skype. And with Outlook integration developers. And with Salesforce integration developers. And with mobile developers.
Skype's ecosystem is littered with the bleached bones of third-party software developers. They filled gaps in Skype's product line. They made Skype's network more valuable. They bet their jobs on Skype's partner program being safe from Skype itself.
Clearly, a bad bet.
Skype desktop sharing will be wildly successful. Building it into Skype clients and putting it one or two clicks to add sharing to a call makes it 10 to 100 times more convenient than other systems. Ubiquity will change the way people think about desktop sharing the way ubiquity is changing how people think about video calling.
WebEx-style meeting, sales, training, tech-support, and webinar services comprise a multibillion dollar industry. Skype desktop sharing will be disruptive to the industry: vastly cheaper, more convenient, more social. We'll hunt for market share stats this year.
So while this announcement is great for Skype, the choice will chill investment by software development partners. Platforms must be safe, trusted, with manageable risk. And platforms must foster creativity, innovation, and opportunity.
Skype's choice subverts developer trust. That's one hell of a brand note.
Tonight out at the "ShowStoppers" event at MacWorld in San Francisco, Skype announced the new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version will apparently be available for download tomorrow, January 6, 2009, from Skype's website. [NOTE: I will update this post with the download link when it becomes available.]
Continuing Skype's rather fragmented product strategy, they have rolled out some new features in this 2.8 beta release that will at least stop us Mac users from whining about Windows users always getting the good stuff first. Here's the quick list of what Skype notes is in this release:
Skype Access
Screen Sharing
Improved chat management: ability to sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats
Quick Add: much easier to add people to chats
Mood message chat: mood message updates from your friends as chat messages
Large avatars: 256x256 pixels
Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests
Ability to add your own notes to contacts
Courtesy of Skype's PR team, I've had a chance to play with the 2.8 beta for a couple of weeks and have these thoughts below...
SKYPE ACCESS
Probably the largest "new" feature is "Skype Access", a service that lets you go to any of the 100,000 Boingo Wi-Fi hotspots and - using Skype - connect to the Boingo hotspot. When you connect, you pay on a per-minute basis and the fee (roughly 20 cents per minute) is deducted from your Skype Credit. You do not have to pay the Boingo monthly fee. You do not have to pay any hourly or daily fees.
Judging from the news release and pre-release info, Skype is immensely proud of this feature but I will be honest and say it does little for me. I just don't use Wi-Fi hotspots as much while traveling (especially now that I'm paying for a wireless broadband adapter). However, I can see how this could be of value. If all you wanted to do was crack open your Mac and send some email, this gives you a great way to do that on a per-minute basis. If I were a heavy user of Wi-Fi hotspots, I'd want to do the math to figure out if it would just be cheaper to buy a monthly Boingo access.
Regardless, it's an interesting move for Skype to get into the business of connecting you to Internet access.
SCREEN SHARING
The coolest feature of the 2.8 beta is a "screensharing" feature where you can share either your entire screen or just a portion of your screen with the Skype user on the other end. Now, this works with all other versions of Skype because it replaces your video stream with the screen sharing. So a Mac Skype user can share their screen with Windows and Linux users.... which is pretty cool.
It's hard to show in a blog post, but if you watch my screencast about the 2.8 beta, you can see it in action:
You can share either your entire desktop or just a section of your screen. You can also resize the section you are sharing while you are in the middle of sharing. When you stop sharing, you just flip back to showing your video.
CHAT PRIORITIZATION
By far the most useful feature I've found in the 2.8 beta is the ability to set the "priority" of a chat session - and then sort your chat sessions by priority in the Mac's "drawer" way of displaying chat sessions. I can just control-click a chat (either a private or public chat) and then go down to the "Set Priority" menu choice:
You can then sort the chats based on their priority using the drop-down menu at the top of the "drawer":
You can also sort based on title or date. Personally I've found the Sort by Priority to be very useful when you have, as I do, a zillion chats open at any one time. (And yes, I report to RJ, our CTO, so his chat gets the highest priority! ;-) )
MOOD MESSAGE CHAT - AND FOLLOWING (like Twitter)
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the 2.8 beta is the new "Mood Messages" pseudo-chat that you can enable in the Advanced part of the Skype Preferences:
Once you enable the "Mood Message Chat", you get a new chat window that opens up that shows you the mood messages of all of your contacts:
It also very nicely lets you set your mood message simply by typing in the window as you would to any other chat window. This is quite nice for someone like me who almost never changes my mood message in the regular window.
This actually makes Skype mood messages useful to me.
However, because of that other option that says "Show iTunes song in my mood message", you rapidly wind up seeing that a whole lot of people have that option checked and your Mood Message Chat rapidly fills with updates of music people listen to. What if you don't want to see their updates? Well, Skype has made it so that you can "follow" updates from your contacts through a simple menu choice:
The down side here is that if you enable the Mood Message Chat, you are following all your contacts by default and have to go through and "unfollow" (i.e. uncheck the menu choice) people you don't want to follow. It would be great if Skype had a "follow by default" or a "stop following all contacts" choice... something along those lines to let you control who you are following.
The intriguing aspect here is that this enables you to turn Skype mood messages into the kind of status updates that you typically have in Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other zillion services offering status updates. The great thing here is that it is simply another Skype chat window like all your other chats. (Of course, you can get a Skype chat for Twitter using "twitter4skype", but this is now with Skype mood messages.)
I think, though, for it to reach any kind of real usage, you need more people to enable this feature (it is off by default) and actually start using it - and for that it also needs to be on more platforms.
[As a tease, I'll mention that there is a way to integrate this mood message chat with Twitter, so anything I type there also shows up in my Twitter stream... but I'll write about that in a separate blog post as it's not directly tied to the 2.8 beta release. Soon...]
QUICK ADD
Another nice feature is the ability to quickly add someone to a chat through a button at the top of the chat window. You click on the window and start typing in a contact's name:
Before you could always drag-and-drop a contact from your main Skype window into a chat, but now you can use this quick add button. It is particularly useful if you have a large number of Skype contacts.
NOTES ON CONTACTS
Another useful feature is the ability to add private notes to each of your Contacts. So you could store information about how you know the person... their interests... basically anything you want as it is a free-form text field:
What's not yet clear to me is where these notes are stored. Are they accessible through multiple Skype clients if you were logged in on multiple machines? Or are they tied to the machine where you create the Notes? I'm guessing that they are stored with the local client like chat histories are.... but I'd need to have multiple installations of the 2.8 beta to really know this.
OTHER FEATURES
Skype also added a few other features:
New set of icons
Large avatars: You can now have images up to 256x256 pixels in size.
Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests - so you aren't exposed to images that might be offensive.
There are undoubtedly other features that we'll find as we work with it more.
CONCLUSION
So with this 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X, Skype provides some interesting new capabilities. I can see the screen sharing being quite useful to show people what's on my screen. The chat prioritization is great for heavy chat users like me. The possibilities of actually making the Mood Messages useful intrigue me. Frequent Wi-Fi hotspot users may find the Skype Access feature useful and economical.
All in all, it's a great evolution of the Skype client for Mac OS X.
I do wish, though, as I've discussed before, that Skype's product strategy weren't so fragmented. Sure, as a Mac user, it's fun for a few minutes to have some features that Windows users don't have... but that fun rapidly fades when I can share my desktop with a Windows user but they can't share their's. And they almost never use the Mood Messages because it's not convenient to do so.
Perhaps most annoyingly, I am currently in a position where I am helping some Windows users get started with Skype and so I'm trying to help them with their Skype client... when mine is markedly different. It's a frustrating experience. I do hope Skype's new management can help converge the product streams so that the user experience (and technical support experience) is closer between platforms (while, yes, acknowledging that platforms have UI/behavior differences). We'll see.
In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy using this new beta on my Mac and seeing what else might be inside the release.
Again, Skype indicates that the 2.8 beta will be available tomorrow, January 6, 2009, for download for Mac OS X users.
I'll look forward to reading what you all think...
At MacWorld's Showstoppers event this evening Skype announced Skype for Mac 2.8 beta, with two major new features as well as several minor ones. Screen Sharing
The most impressive feature is a form of basic screen sharing. Either a segment of your screen or the full screen is converted into a virtual webcam such that the screen can be viewed in any Skype client via the Skype video channel. While only a Mac can currently be a source for this screen sharing it can be viewed on any Windows, Mac or Linux client as video.
Skype for Mac's screen sharing feature is sufficient to support discussion issues as a complement to a voice and/or chat conversation; it is NOT by any means a replacement for fully featured desktop or application sharing offerings such as Yugma, InnerPass or IBM's Lotus Sametime Unyte. It's "just" screen sharing. In fact, it is one of two options on the Skype for Mac's "Share" button, the other being file sharing/transfer.
Below is an example of a full screen image of a shared MacBook screen as seen in a detached Skype video window on my Windows laptop.
Skype Access
The second major feature, Skype Access, provides WiFi access for your MacBook or MacBook Pro via any Boingo access point. While I'm told it has been tested at many of the over 100,000 Boingo hotspots worldwide, I could not get it to work at a local Canadian Starbucks listed as a Boingo hotspot location. But then, this is still beta (and the problem may be with Boingo's interface with Bell Mobility).
More importantly is to look at the "use case" for Skype Access. Cost for using Skype Access over Boingo is US$0.22/€0.16/C$0.23 per minute using Skype credits.
Within a user's home country, Skype Access is probably more expensive than local alternatives; this is certainly the case in Canada. However, I can see the value if I am outside the home country and wanting to make Skype/SkypeOut calls, check email or do some web browsing at airports, restaurants, coffee shops and other Boingo hotspots as an alternative to much higher cost roaming wireless calls (for instance roaming U.S. to Canada on Rogers runs at $1.75 per minute) or $40 per day Internet access charges at some European hotels.
With unlimited use Boingo subscriptions at $21.95/month for North America or $59/month Global, Skype Access is more appropriate for the occasional traveler as opposed to the hardened road warrior.
It reminds me of the use case for PamFax where you can send faxes directly from, say, your hotel room for about $0.20 per page while avoiding a hotel's much higher $1.00/page charge for faxing. One other common feature between Skype Access and PamFax: both use Skype credits as the primary currency. Other features in Skype for Mac 2.8 beta:
Skype for Mac 2.8 continues the use of a "drawer" attached to a Skype chat window; from the list of active chat sessions shown in the drawer you can select which session you want to view. But now there are three levels of prioritization available for those chat sessions. In addition chats can be sorted by name or date/time.
The process for adding contacts to a chat session now simply involves clicking the "Add a Contact" button and entering the added contact's name.
Your Contacts' Mood Messages can be tracked via a "Mood Message" chat session. While this can currently only be initiated on Skype for Mac 2.8, your mood message chat session will show up as a chat session on, say, a Windows client logged into the same account. Neat for keeping up-to-date on mood message changes, especially when a mood message provides location or reference URL information; it provides a Twitter-like experience.
Add notes to contacts: when you go into a Contact's profile there is a separate tab for entering personal notes about that contact.
Dan York, with a lot more Skype for Mac experience than I have had (I just acquired a MacBook ten days ago), has provided a much more detailed review of all the new features He has also produced an excellent You Tube video for his Emerging Tech Talk series:
SyncMood and Twype copy your twitter updates into Skype for Windows. I’ve had great success with Twype for a while. Now I’m trying SyncMood, happily so far. Thanks, Andrej.
This is part of a few broader patterns.
Open Platforms. Skype’s and Twitter’s APIs are public, free, and easy. So people can build apps that work with them.
Social Sync. Update once, see it everywhere you want it seen. As a category, this is getting smarter. I’m seeing useful features like
Deduplication. Your update gets caught in feedback loops among networks, creating echoes. Deduping dampens the feedback loops.
Time stamp preservation. Assures an update’s original date/time is passed through, not the time it was last passed along.
Accurate provenance. Keeping metadata about an update’s original system/service source.
Lifestream Shaping. Setting up filters and agents so you and others see only what matters, at the best times, in the best media, in the right contexts. One response to social network overload.
Data Portability. The social platforms, and the sync and lifestreaming tools which use them, put some power in user hands. It puts a little proof behind a promise that your-data-is-really-yours.
We have just learned that Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta 3 is now available. Once we have had a chance to install and review it, there will be more to say. But for now:
change: Extras Manager updated to version 2.0.0.65
change: Removed AMR-WB audio codec
Remember this is a beta release and should not be used in "mission critical" situations where you require the full Skype 3.8 for Windows feature set. Check it out and provide your feedback to Beta Feedback, Skype Forums or the Jira public issue tracker or in comments to this post below.
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.
Skype is changing the way users download and install software.
Starting with your next full update to Skype 4.0 Beta 2 for Windows, you'll download a quick 2.5MB "light installer." It will then download the full Skype client, around 24MB. From the Skype FAQs:
"It manages the download for you so if you have any hardware or network issues, the download can be resumed. It serves the purpose of a download manager for Skype, allowing pause/resume and recovery from failures. It also gives information about features as it is downloaded and installed."
This is a common strategy.
Users get more immediate gratification from downloading (about ten times faster) and a greater sense of control over installation.
Skype gets more and better information about the desktop to configure what gets downloaded and from where.
UPDATE: Pondering that last point… What will the experience be for TOM-Skype users? Will they be given a choice of clients (monitored/filtered vs. private/free) at first download? at update?
The new G-1 phone based on Google's Android platform is slowing getting out to market this week through T-Mobile stores in U.S. locations where T-Mobile supports the 3G wireless protocol. At launch there appear to be about 50 third party applications available for download to the G-1 via Android Market.
One of those applications is iSkoot for Skype. From iSkoot's description at Android Market:
iSkoot for Skype puts the features of Skype in your Android handset. Acess your Skype contacts, make & receive Skype calls, chat, and place SkypeOut calls to phone numbers all over the world. iSkoot delivers unsurpassed mobile Skype call quality and does not require a WiFi connection.
iSkoot for Skype makes it easy and affordable for people to keep in touch with friends, family and contacts with an always-on-the-go lifestyle. iSkoot for Skype leverages the voice-optimized circuit-switched wireless networks of mobile carriers, allowing for full operation even without access to WiFi or 3G networks and ensuring the best possible call quality. Normal carrier voice and data charges always apply.
Make SkypeOut calls? Seems like T-Mobile is the first North America carrier to tolerate SkypeOut calling from a mobile handset over a 3G network. (3 recently added SkypeOut calling to the various Skype/iSkoot-enabled services they support, including Skypephone; Truphone for iPhone only works over a WiFi connection.) T-Mobile will make their revenue through the "local" minutes required to place a Skype call via iSkoot.
VoIP over 3G? Not really, recall that the iSkoot model is to use the data channel for chat messaging and call setup information. The voice call itself is handled over the much more robust and voice-friendly GSM voice channel.
And why iSkoot on the Android platform before on the iPhone? Seems that the Android platform fully supports the background multi-tasking requirement of any Skype-enabled product where you want to have Skype chat sessions running in background - while using any other Android application - and only want to bring them forward when a new message appears. That's my experience when using iSkoot on my Blackberry Bold.
It's the TR-10 for Skype but with reprinted buttons and software for your Mac. IPEVO's software lets you control iChat from the trio and record your iChat calls. $79.90 MSRP.
Gee. Apple? For a company created to build products for Skype in North America?
Apple, on the other hand, has stores. These are shots of the merchandise on Cupertino and New York City shelves.
Skype had the potential for a large and healthy hardware ecosystem. Sadly, hardware partners from Skype's early days have burned through so much cash, talent and goodwill, that most have walked away from Skype.
The few remaining, like IPEVO, are eager to partner with companies that help them demonstrate design leadership or even simple distribution support. They may love Skype, but relationships are two-way streets.
Mikogo spun off in July 2007, from BeamYourScreen.com, a Mannheim, Germany, company. Since then, fifty thousand users registered for free desktop sharing.
They publish a Mikogo Skype extra, a small plug-in program, so you can start screen sharing sessions from within Skype, using Skype contacts. Nearly ten thousand downloads of the extra.
People use Mikogo for poker training and other live distance education. Companies use Mikogo for technical support, using the remote controlled desktop and file transfers. Sales people host presentations. Small companies and freelance workers are the early adopters.
Features:
Up to ten participants in a meeting
Switch presenter
Access remote keyboard and mouse
Pause/resume session
Select applications
256-bit AES end-to-end encryption
File transfers up to 200 MBs within a session
More features are available for a BeamYourScreen subscription. Up to twenty participants, whiteboard, recording and playback, live support. Their browser viewer is pure dhtml without ActiveX, Java or Flash required.
Skype made a promise to its users from the very start. Here's a page on their web site, No adware, spyware or malware, where they make that promise to this day.
No adware, spyware or malware
Skype is totally safe from these pesky blighters.
Skype protects and maintains your online security and peace of mind. This means that it will not display unwanted and intrusive advertising, or allow any malware or spyware to operate.
No adware – no intrusive adverts.
No spyware – nothing logs your online activity.
No malware – no programs that could adversely affect your computer.
What is adware?
Adware is a type of software that makes money by automatically delivering unwanted advertisements usually as pop-ups. Normally it is very hard, if not impossible, to turn off the adware causing the problem.
Because you always have the ability to turn advertising messages off on the Skype software, we believe Skype is free of adware.
What is spyware?
Spyware is a type of software that automatically installs itself on your computer, usually without your knowledge, and covertly collects and transmits data about your computer use. For example, spyware may monitor a user’s behaviour and pass on details of a their online activity (for example, their usernames or passwords) to a third party for use in identity theft and fraud.
Skype does not allow any spyware to be included.
What is malware?
Malware (or malicious software) relates to software that is designed to infiltrate or damage a computer operating system or other programs. These are often described as computer viruses, worms, or Trojan horses. They sometimes come combined with other software and load in the background.
Skype never allows any other programs to be installed unless you are clearly informed of their presence.
Fring is clearly tapping pent-up demand for access to Skype on mobiles. The enthusiasm for rejoining your Skype network is infectious.
The biggest limits for me: no multichat support (a big part of my onlife), no background processing (like I only live in Skype?). Jim Courtney's hands-on test may dampen your enthusiasm for fring on the iPhone. Have you had a good experience with fring?
Earlier today Fring, known for aggregating various IM and VoIP services onto a mobile phone, announced Fring for iPhone had become available on the Apple App Store. So I gave it a tryout this evening, exchanging chat messages and then a couple of voice calls to Skype destinations.
My quick comment:
the other party's voice was both a bit fuzzy and somewhat weak in volume.
both other parties complained of some echo; I did not hear echo at my end.
The call appeared to be going out over the iPhone's WiFi connection.
Calls went out over the WiFi connection.
The benchmark in call quality would be my experiences earlier this week where twice , when my home office cable was disconnected due to "cable plant" improvements in my neighborhood, I used iSkoot on the Blackberry Bold to call into SquawkBox via the CalliFlower voice conferencing service over the Rogers 3G network.
Let 's just say in the iSkoot calls, the technology was transparent to the discussion and I could lay the phone on my desk while still actively participating. Whereas my Fring calls would not have been of sufficient quality to carry on natural dialogue participation in a conference call. While Fring has shown to be a leader in demonstrating the potential to make such a call, it has some work to do to achieve business grade call quality.
My other comment, now having used Skype IM chat on both devices. It's much easier to have a text conversation via the Blackberry with a QWERTY real keyboard. Thick thumbs on a "touch" keyboard many errors make; as I said in my brief Fring-enabled IM Skype chat session with Dan York - I was sending these IM messages "under duress" (and with about a 25% typing error rate).
Note that during registration I encountered a bug whereby Fring would not recognize my email address, which includes a "dot" between first and last name. This is a known bug which we hope they will fix quickly, especially due to the privacy issue raised in the linked Fring forum discussion.
More to follow once I will have had a few days' experience in its use.
Other posts: Mac Rumors
.... We have tested it and found it to be already stable enough for day to day usage. It has less rough edges [than] Beta 1 and a lot of the Beta 1 feedback has been incorporated in this release. So if you are a bit computer savvy you will definitely want to give the Beta 2 a go.
.... Again, this Beta 2 is a great step forward. It is noticeable that Skype are listening hard to their users and I think the end product will really reshape the way people look at “messenger” applications. Just compare this beta release with the Live Messenger 2009 release - wow, does the Live Messenger look outdated ;).
Removed links to Klonie Avatars (seemingly abandoned by provider Comverse) and Emotive Ringjam ringtone (Emotiveapparently out of business chose to discontinue RingJam on Skype) UPDATED
Updated Firefox plugin to version 2.2.0.102
Updated Internet Explorer plugin to version 2.2.0.205
Bugfixen:
Video devices with non-Latin characters in name did not display correctly
Phil has already pointed out the Skype for Asterisk news announced at Stefan Oberg's AstriCon keynote this morning along with links to several blog postings and the news release. This afternoon I spent fifteen minutes talking with Stefan, Skype's Vice-President and General Manager of Telecom, and Digium CEO Danny Windham to get more details.
First I asked who would benefit from the Skype for Asterisk announcement?
Danny and Stefan responded that the primary beneficiary would be the end user, especially small-to-medium businesses who have installed an Asterisk PBX. In particular:
A generic SkypeID, say "acmesales", could be setup for inbound calls to the PBX; think of this SkypeID as a "global 800 number".
It will also be Skype-accessible via a click-to-call web button.
The Asterisk PBX would then be able to hand off the call, as appropriate, to a call center, voice mail, IVR, a voice conference and call transfer, amongst other Asterisk-based services and functionality.
Each employee or agent can also access the PBX via individual SkypeID's for taking inbound calls (including calls directed from the generic SkypeID) or placing outbound calls.
Outbound calls can be placed to any location worldwide, either to a Skype destination or, via SkypeOut, to the PSTN in any country.
Outbound calls can be to customers anywhere worldwide
Also the PBX with its Skype inbound/outbound call handling can serve to provide internal company communications amongst offices worldwide. Remote employees are simply at "extensions" of the Asterisk PBX.
As with any VoIP-based service, agents can be located in remote offices, work from home or be available in any location where they have set up a Skype-enabled PC with broadband access.
Asterisk PBX already can be programmed to handle least cost routing of international calls; the Skype cloud will be added as an option for least cost routing.
Calls that involve Skype at both end points will have the full HD (wideband) audio bandwidth of Skype, providing clearer, more readily understood calls than those that involve a PSTN connection at one end.
Naturally the major benefit to end users is the cost savings; Skype to Skype calls are free; calls involving SkypeOut have the normal SkypeOut charges as low as US$ 0.021 or €0.017 per minute. (On SquawkBox this morning Jim Kohlenberger, Executive Director of the VON Coalition, estimated full implementation of VoIP throughout the U.S. could result in savings of up to $110B per year.)
I then probed about the extent of Asterisk installations. It turns out that there were over 1 million downloads of Asterisk via Digium last year; this year is on a run rate of over 1.5 million downloads. Danny estimates there are over 4 million active Asterisk servers worldwide that have been implemented and/or supported by Digium's various services. Since Asterisk itself is open source, it is speculated there are many more installations out there that are not supported through Digium.
Product: Skype for Asterisk will involve a software module, developed in conjunction with Skype, that is downloaded and compiled onto an Asterisk server. Premium packages will also be available from Skype; these will be comprehensive packages tailored for various business functions and include an enhanced Skype Business Control Panel. There may be opportunities to include Skype Partner products and services, such as Pamela and/or PamFax. There will be "low" monthly licensing fees for use of the basic software module as well as the premium packages.
Distribution: Here is where this agreement is significant for Skype. Digium has an established ecosystem involving a market place, technology partners and 390 Value Added Reseller partners (VAR's). For the over VAR's Skype for Asterisk will be an incremental Digium reseller offering (channel driver) for which they will receive commissions for both the software licenses and premium packages described above as well as for all SkypeOut traffic brought through their customer bases. These VAR's are responsible for implementation services as well as providing first level technical support to individual customers using Digium products and services.
The Beta program will involve two phases. Phase I will involve a limited number of participants to finalize the software while obtaining feedback from user experiences. Phase II will be a much broader public beta to provide both extended feedback as well as to train VAR's and even end users on implementation and use of Skype for Asterisk. The beta program will require the use of version 1.4 or 1.6 of Asterisk; Skype for Asterisk will only support these versions once the commercial version is available.
As Rich Tehrani stated in his post:
What this means to Skype is that [the] company has finally found a way to get into the enterprise in an easy way — by partnering with Digium/Asterisk which has great traction with developers, resellers, carriers, SMBs and more. Expect more enterprise use of Skype and as this happens, Skype should see more revenue from business users.
Any existing SIP interfacing functionality within the Asterisk PBX will be available as appropriate to reach non-Skype extensions involving a SIP interface.
The only additional Skype-to-SIP functionality will come through the existing SkypeOut gateways.
To follow on from my comments yesterday about the need for business transactions related to crossing a SIP interface, both these SIP interfaces will associate with existing business agreements.
And note that for Skype-to-Skype calls through the Asterisk PBX, there are NO SIP interfaces to/from the PSTN involved; otherwise, there would be no support for HD audio on these calls.
In summary, Skype for Asterisk is a software module providing a Skype cloud-to-Asterisk PBX interface, supporting and interconnecting existing Skype and Asterisk services. It simply uses existing gateways but provides no new SIP gateways.
Skype has been hinting at major announcements during the fall; this certainly has to be a significant new revenue channel for Skype while bringing new services to Asterisk end users and new sales opportunities for Asterisk resellers.
Download the latest
claimed yesterday, during an interview, that Skype was reviewing how to embark on "public conversations" in today's messaging world where services such as Twitter and Friend Feed also provide ongoing dialogues. However, Skype Public Chat has its own "space" in terms of user community; it needs to be brought back as soon as possible.
Tonight out at the "ShowStoppers" event at MacWorld in San Francisco, Skype announced the new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version will apparently be available for download tomorrow, January 6, 2009, from Skype's website. [NOTE: I will update this post with the download link when it becomes available.] 
Now I’m trying SyncMood, happily so far. Thanks, Andrej. 
Swing by your 
Skype made a promise to its users from the very start. Here's a page on their web site, 
Join the Skype 4.X Text Chat Room
