Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta 2 Available Wednesday

Wednesday, October 1, the second beta release of Skype 4.0 for Windows will become available for worldwide testing. Via a mix of the Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta 1 feedback channels involving legacy users and new users, bug reporting and usability issue forums and direct surveys that resulted in over 45,000 participants' responses and feedback, Skype learned:

• 70% were in favor of the new "large desktop" user interface; about 30% wanted to return to the traditional compact user interface.
• users were looking for improved means of organizing contacts by groups
• relative to pre-Skype 4.0 beta 1 surveys, increased awareness of the multi-modal features of Skype such as IM, file transfer and SMS.
• there existed problems with how IM presented itself to the new user
• users were missing Instant messages and other events due to a lack of appropriate notification procedures
• increased conversions rate to paid Skype subscriptions
  

As a result Skype 4.0 beta 2 includes:

• user choice of a default "large desktop" view or a compact view
• organization of contacts by categories with several default categories (the term "Groups" now refers to a multitude of users within a conversation such as in a Group Chat, Public chat or on a multi-party call)
• new drop down menu to select "Categories" from the "Contacts" tab
• new algorithms for message and missed call notification, with the initial notification coming via a tag on the Skype System Tray icon so as not to make the notification activity overwhelming
• a new way to display a selected Contact's information when in a call or chat session
• several options for resizing the user information, the video images, the chat area of a conversation, etc.
• entry of PSTN phone numbers into a Contact's information on your local PC for those Contacts who have not included these phone numbers in their Skype user profile: mobile, home, office, other.

Skype for Windows Product Manager Mike Bartlett has prepared a video to demonstrate some of the new features:

And you can download Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta 2 here.
Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta 2 has the same caveat as we issued for Skype 4.0 Beta 1: this is beta software, there will be bugs and may even be usability issues. This is your opportunity to provide feedback. It is still missing some features of Skype 3.8, the last officially released version of Skype, such as Call History and creation of Public Chats. Do not use it as your primary Skype interface, especially if you depend on Skype for business or professional communications. I am still running Skype 3.8 on my laptop; I run Skype 4.0 Beta on my desktop PC.
Phil will be posting tomorrow with more details on his experience.

Check out Alec Saunders comments. And Mike Bartlett appeared as the featured guest on the October 1, 2008 SquawkBox. Click on the link to access the recording.
We asked about any upcoming Skype for Mac; the response was along the lines of (i) the Mac group is also examining the feedback from the Skype 4.0 for Windows Beta 1 for ideas to incorporate and (ii) when a new version does come along it may have some features that are not available on Skype 4.0 for Windows.

Hint: to activate the Contact Categories feature, go to Contacts | Contact Categories | See All Contact Categories.

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New eBay toolbar with Skype, PayPal features

If you like such things, eBay now offers The Browser Highlighter toolbar. Skypify phone numbers, compare prices on eBay, fill forms with your PayPal data, StumbleUpon new sites.

tags: skype, toolbar, skypification, eBay, PayPal, StumbleUpon

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Star Trek: The Continuing Mission. Episode 2: Integration

TCM Productions uses Skype to connect cast and crew of Star Trek: The Continuing Mission, an independent, fanfic, audio drama. The first episode came out in December. The second episode is out now: Download Part 1, Part 2 or The Master Cut. The Trailer. More to come; check out The Continuing Mission site for interviews with the cast and crew.

tags: skype, star trek, tcm, audio, theater, entertainment, radio, drama, science fiction, scifi, workflow, collaboration, continuing mission, coordination

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Jon Arnold: Is VoIP Dead?

TMCNet Editor Michael Dinan has reported on Jonathan Christensen's keynote two weeks ago at TMCNet's IT Expo in Los Angeles. While many of us in the Skype world have heard pieces of this story previously, Jonathan was addressing an audience of enterprise and business telephony professionals who are dealing with VoIP implementation issues.. Jonathan's basic thesis was that VoIP has become a commodity feature but the innovation starts by going beyond low cost voice conversations:

Now, Christensen said, are emerging three pillars of a generation “beyond VoIP.”
The first pillar, he said, includes different facets, including the fact that – unlike analog telephone conversations – services such as Skype are marked by an “explicit handshake model,” or agreed relationship, where both or all parties have agreed to communicate (a nice idea although this presidential election year will feature no robocalls, courtesy of Congress). Secondly, he said, there’s a new band of audio, including wideband audio, improving communications, in part, by allowing participants to distinguish among different speakers. Finally, higher resolution video makes video conferencing such as that offered by Skype, more real.

Three pillars that set the bar for fully equipped IP-based conversation services from the performance aspect.
Yesterday analyst Jon Arnold, who also attended the conference, wrote in his weekly Service Provider Views column: Is VoIP Dead?

Skype has an important message to deliver, not just for the consumer market, but for the business world too. It’s really a matter of how far ahead you’re prepared to look. While most service providers are just catching up to the realities and potential of VoIP, pioneers like Skype are way past that, and for them, VoIP is so old, it’s dead for them.

Jon goes on to point out:

The vision Jonathan paints, of course, is based in the world of IP, not TDM. VoIP can readily replicate the PSTN feature set today, but not much more. With end-to-end IP, not only can VoIP deliver an added layer of new services, and integrate seamlessly with Web services, but it can also deliver superior voice quality to what we’re experiencing today. Under these conditions, VoIP is actually a better product than TDM, and that’s where things get interesting. VoIP is still widely perceived as an inferior service, which explains why it is primarily sold on the basis of price rather than quality. Think of the possibilities for service providers when VoIP could actually be marketed as a premium service, and one that does not have to be sold as a way to lower your long-distance costs.
Well, by the time the incumbent telcos come around, Skype will be long past them. Skype has built up a sprawling international customer base that has embraced a communications platform that goes well beyond VoIP. PC-based VoIP and IM have been the backbone of their success, but Jonathan sees a richer experience emerging, and one that is much more than everyday VoIP. In the keynote, he talked about three pillars that will support this new mode of communications – presence, wideband audio and high resolution video.

And, after discussing the three pillars mentioned above, Jon concludes:

Taking all of this into account, one of Christensen’s key messages was that innovation is happening today at the network edge, not the core. Furthermore, it is not coming from the telcos, but from the disrupters from outside the voice world, such as Skype, Google and the whole Open Source movement. Telecom, as we know it, is now software, and rapidly moving into the cloud and the world of Web 2.0. In this environment, voice becomes another data application, and telcos will no longer be able to build their business around it. This means walled gardens cannot last – and this includes Skype, by the way – and the end user will ultimately define what the optimal experience is, as well as where they choose to get it from.
This is the world Skype is building its future around, and to the extent that VoIP is offered as a standalone service, it will not have much of a future here. Service providers are certainly welcome to try doing so, but in my books, the voice of tomorrow will look a lot more like what Skype is talking about today. What does it look like to you?

It's not about VoIP; it's about the potential of multi-modal IP-based conversations. Read Michael's and Jon's complete posts for more insight.

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Skype Journal Interviews Josh Silverman: The Way Ahead - Markets

This is the fifth in a series of posts resulting from an interview a week ago Friday with Josh Silverman, Skype's recently appointed President. In this post we talk about addressing the small-to-medium business market as well as various geographical markets.
Over its five years, Skype has built up, almost totally virally, a significant base of users who take advantage of Skype to not only reduce their business communications costs but also to communicate more effectively with colleagues and customers around the world. At the same time various Skype software partners have built offerings, such as Pamela, PamFax and Skylook, that either focus on Skype as a business communications tool or include Skype amongst their options for calling. Within Skype's own offerings, the Business Control Panel provides the tools for a system administrator to handle both the deployment of Skype and the administration of Skype accounts within a business's operations.
OnState is a primary example of the latter. They have built up a call center offering that takes full advantage of both instant messaging chat and voice in dealing with both inbound and outbound calls; they also take advantage of the three founders' combined over sixty years' experience participating in the call center market. Yet, they encountered many opportunities where they had to go back to Skype for assistance since, for one reason or another, Skype's program were insufficient to address business users' requirement. The result is that today OnState offers their customers "one stop shopping" whereby, on acquiring a customer, OnState takes on responsibility for addressing Skype subscription needs, hardware requirements (headsets and handsets, implementation issues and first level technical support.
The Business Control Panel has had its limitations also; the main fear has been to mitigate potential for fraudulent or unauthorized activity through transaction value and volume licensing limits.
As for geographical markets, Skype met a much larger need for communications cost reductions in Europe and Asia than in North America. As a result over 80% of Skype's revenues continue to come from outside the U.S. The two primary needs met in North America are for "Friends and Family" calling outside North America and small businesses who are working to grow internationally - both internally and with their suppliers and customers.
In growing internationally, there has been the challenge of building user bases in widely diverse markets; "free", "easy-to-install" and a whole lot of viral marketing action have introduced significant adoption around the world. But this success has led to more business-oriented challenges in working out termination agreements, establishing effective multi-currency transaction systems (although being an eBay co-unit of PayPal certainly helps), multiple language versions of software (27 at last count) and providing multi-lingual, internationally available technical support. (We'll talk about marketing and more about technical support in future posts in this series.)
We asked Josh about the Skype's approach to the business market:

JS: Skype in the business market. There's more that needs to be done. (you guys are smart, you're asking all the right questions). Platform is a huge opportunity for us; business is another big opportunity for us. About half of the communications market is business; we have a great solution, especially for small-to-medium size businesses. We haven't tailored that solution to businesses very much; we haven't communicated to businesses that we have that solution. In the new organizational design one of the pieces of that will be to build out a business unit focused on small-to-medium size businesses where we'll have some resources available to tailor our product and some sales and marketing resources to work ... I don't think that we'll be directly selling to small-to-medium size businesses but we can work with VAR's to help support them in bringing Skype to businesses.

(Note this interview occurred two weeks prior to last week's announcement of Skype for Asterisk, a program that leverages Digium's Asterisk reseller channel for sales, implementation and ongoing support requirements.)
We then moved on to ask about various geographical markets:
SJ: North America. (Thank God for Oprah!) Skype has become much more a household name this past year (with an acknowledgement to Don Albert, GM North America). What does it take to keep that business going forward in U.S. and Canada and what are the strategies for U.S. and Canada?

JS: We're very aware that the number one way to grow Skype is to build products the users love. That is our first mandate always. Once you have a product users love, we can accelerate it by some smart marketing programs. (By the way if you don't have a product that users love no amount of marketing on earth will save you, right?) So we do have a product that users love and I don't think we have done as much as we could to communicate that.
Oprah is a great example. It is not our intention and people should not expect massive multi-million dollar marketing budgets from Skype. But there are some smart tactical things we can do working together with evangelists like Oprah to build awareness. It's our belief that once you've grown awareness, people will try it; once they try it they'll love it. and the rest takes care of itself. At the Democratic national convention we were quite happy to see many of the national broadcasters using Skype as a way to expand their coverage and you should be looking for more programs like that in the United States in the year to come.

SJ: China is your biggest market?

JS: In terms of total users it's one of our top markets; the answer is yes.

SJ: QQ is still kicking butt in China? What strategy do you have in your existing partnership with Tom?

JS: We have a great partnership with Tom who knows the local market very well. Tom is also a very entrepreneurial, innovative, fast moving company. We're very pleased to be partnering with them; they're the right partner to continue building our presence in China.

SJ: Do you have your own people in Asia?

JS: A couple of people in Asia who work with our partners to make sure they're getting the support they need and also giving us real feedback from the market on what we need to be doing on [our] core platform to be able to support Asia better.

SJ: How about India?

JS: We don't have anyone working in India. We don't have a partnership in India to announce but we are seeing good growth in India but we think it's a terrific market and we are expecting to have more focus on that in 2009
My observation, five months in, [is that] markets where Skype has the most power are markets where you have high broadband connectivity, you have a large ex-pat population, and where the local telephony system is not as efficient as it could be. Many of the developing markets meet that profile so we think we have a huge opportunity in developing markets such as India and it's our intention to focus more on that in the coming year.

SJ: To succeed in the mobile market place, mobile device manufacturers have had to build carrier relationships. What does Skype need to do with either handset manufacturers and/ or carriers to succeed in the mobile market?

JS: I don't think the carriers should be able to dictate what software the users get to use. any company, the smallest startup in the world, if it has really outstanding software ought to be able to take on the whole world and not have to hire 50 people to develop relationships with 300 carriers.

Skype tries Skype Prime commissions at 8% for October

"For the whole of October we'll be reducing the commission we take from Skype Prime to just 8%. That means you get to keep more of the money from your calls – you deserve it."

Skype, in a letter to Prime service providers.

30% is Skype's standard cut. Skype takes 120 days to pay and does not pay interest on your money. 

Skype Prime is Skype's first try at eBay-style markets. Where eBay brings people together to buy and sell atoms, Prime brings people together to buy and sell services, entertainment, education, and information. Skype Prime could be just as effective a distribution channel for people who sell their smarts, skills, and charm as eBay is for those who sell cars, collectibles, and tickets.

This one month promotion is an experiment in incentives. How do you bring back service providers? How do you freshen the Prime directory? Is the lower rate enough or do you also need to shorten time to pay to 30 days?

Don Albert, Skype's GM for North America, is getting Prime ready. The timing is right: when the economy sucks, entrepreneurs innovate, and Prime could be on their list of simple things-to-do to pick up new business.

Prime builds on a trend to include fractional labor in labor markets.

Society started with lifetime jobs, then multiple jobs, contract work, part time work, and now... fractional labor. What's started at sites like Rent-a-Coder and oDesk is spreading to other occupations and even sites like LinkedIn Answers.

If the last ten years were about the rise of eCommerce for goods, the next ten are the rise of the online and mobile intangibles economy. We will sell knowledge, entertainment, and services; our time and intellectual work product instead of atoms.

While the eBays of the world are huge now, wait until they apply their "commerce community" experience to organize p2p markets for intangibles. Now it's iPod accessories, soon it will be for forensic accountancy. They know how to bring buyers and sellers together, make a place feel safe, build reputations, and deliver the goods.

When the Keens first tried to launch in the last decade, nobody had broadband, wi-fi was a novelty, mobile phones didn't have data plans, trusted payment mechanisms like PayPal were novelties, and communication tools like Skype were trying to work on dial-up.

Now, the technical and social prerequisites are here. Labor markets aren't just flatter, they are divvying work into smaller, task-sized parcels.

So you can ask the talent pool "what's the best mix for Prime?" and we can bid for your attention and wallet.

From My Skype Prime Wishlist:

• Prime in non-desktop clients. I want to pick up my mobile, my deskphone, my Skype for Asterisk client and make/take Prime calls.
• Prime for Talent Pools. Think distributed call centers, schools, consulting firms.
  • Talent discovery (tell me how our team can help you so I can find the right mix of people),
  • Service delivery (one or more people helping you at the same time or in a workflow), and
  • Payment (billing, reporting) are administered by different people/roles.
• Prime social. Turn on social features so members of the Prime community can organize themselves, talk with each other, friend each other and develop ties that enrich the marketplace.
• Prime text chat.  Let me deliver service without voice or video, if that's what my customer wants.
• Prime alerts. Text me, call my mobile, send an email to my blackberry, shout, anything to let me know a paying customer is calling.
• Prime web service APIs. Let programmers can add/update services from a web site, check your activity logs and payment queues, and launch Prime sessions from a web page. At Skype's faster post-founder innovation pace, they may be ready to pilot this in Q2-2009.

tags: skype, prime, donalbert, commissions, ebay, fractional labor markets

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Rural Internet access is an Obama priority

From Friday's U.S. presidential debate, in discussion of domestic spending priorities, Senator Obama said:

And I also think that we're going to have to rebuild our infrastructure, which is falling behind; our roads, our bridges, but also broadband lines that reach into rural communities.

As I reported Monday, Obama wants to pay for rural net access directly, using the Universal Service Fund. All Americans now pay for the USF with a surcharge on their telephone service, subsidizing the higher costs of connecting distant homes, schools, and hospitals to the phone network. From the Obama/Biden rural issues page, under the headline "Support Rural Economic Development":

Connect Rural America: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will ensure that rural Americans have access to a modern communications infrastructure. They will modernize an FCC program that supports rural phone service so that it promotes affordable broadband coverage across rural America as well.

The Democrats' technology policy says America's Internet needs an upgrade. America's broadband is much slower (2.35 megabits per second) than average broadband in other countries, like Japan (63), South Korea (49), Finland (21), Sweden, and France.

Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Barack Obama believes that America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access. As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband Internet access. Obama and Biden believe we can get true broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation’s wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.

While Senator John McCain didn't speak to rural connectivity during the debate, he's on record as wanting a slower, more indirect mechanism, offering tax breaks for rural ISP investment. From McCain's campaign's technology policy page:

John McCain would seek to accurately identify un-served or under-served areas where the market is not working and provide companies willing to build the infrastructure to serve these areas with high speed internet services incentives to do so. He also supports private/public partnerships to devise creative solutions and help rural area and towns and cities in their efforts to build-out broadband infrastructure through government-backed loans or low-interest bonds.

John McCain will establish a “People Connect Program” that rewards companies that offer high-speed Internet access services to low income customers by allowing these companies offset their tax liability for the cost of this service.

This is consistent with McCain's trust of deregulated markets over government services. McCain/Palin haven't identified how they would offset their plan's lost tax revenue.

Note that McCain's "high-speed Internet" is pre-Obama's "Next Generation Broadband".

America's 59 million rural voters tended more Red than Blue in past elections. Those votes are in play in 2008 thanks to Obama's extensive field operation, policies relevant to rural voters, and frustration with the Bush administration, and top-of-mind domestic and foreign issues.

In my view, Obama is tops if you are a telecom consumer or you advocate for Internet civil rights. On the other hand, an incumbent big telecommunications company or national ISP will flip those scores, putting McCain on top to preserve their market power from disruption or complication.

tags: skype, policy, election, 2008, regulation, rural, suburban, access, carterfone, obama, mccain, presidency, president, us, united states, voters, demographics, demography, broadband

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One billion Skype downloads served today

Jean Mercier is the Skype Numerologist and a regular contributor to Skype Journal.

Today is the birthday of my oldest son, 22 years. But also today, at about 9h17 GMT, Skype reached the phenomenal number of 1 billion downloads.

Congratulations Stefan and congratulations Skype !!!

Some comments about this number:

• This means about 2.8 downloads for each registered username
• The current mean download speed is about 500 downloads/minute
• In the past there were short periods where the mean download speed was much higher than 1500 / minute
• The last two years the speed of downloads was mainly linear (see the light blue straight line)
• A download doesn't necessarily mean a "new user", as "old users" also download Skype on "new or other computers" and when Skype releases "new client versions"
• And last but not least, Skype belongs to the top ten most downloaded applications ever.

[EDITED] Hehe, Skype was also very aware of the 1 billion, because Josh Silverman blogged on it also some minutes after reaching that milestone, but I think I was first: I posted at 9h26 GMT, and he posted on 9h35 GMT! ;-)

[Editor: About 6.7 billion people live on Earth, 1.46 billion use the Internet. — Internet World Stats]

tags: skype, trends, statistics, downloads, metrics, stats, performance, measurement

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Dan York Clarifies Skype's Role within Asterisk

Following up on Thursday's announcement of Skype for Asterisk for which details were posted on Skype Journal late Thursday, Dan York has published a more technical post, "Clarifying how Asterisk could possibly be used as a Skype-to-SIP gateway", discussing how the Asterisk PBX treats incoming and outgoing calls, effectively independently of how the Asterisk PBX is accessed either internally or externally or is directed to make outbound calls.

However, the point I was making in my post yesterday was this announcement has the potential to turn Asterisk into a two-way "Skype-to-SIP" gateway. Asterisk - with the "Skype For Asterisk" module installed - could be deployed into a network where it could provide interconnection between Skype users and SIP users.

Dan goes on in three sections (with diagrams):

• Asterisk Interconnection Explained
• Diving a Bit Deeper
• So How *Might* This Work with 'Skype for Asterisk"

And, in a concluding section "So What About 'Skype-to-SIP' states:

The point of my post yesterday was now that two-way Skype connectivity becomes just another channel driver for Asterisk, you have all sorts of interconnection possibilities. As a standalone system, you could connect SIP phones on an Asterisk server out to the Skype cloud.

If you're into learning more technical detail of how Asterisk handles and directs inbound and outbound calling, Dan's post is an excellent primer.
Also check out Dan's previous post "More on how 'Skype for Asterisk" actually works..." where he quotes an update post from Tom Keating and concludes:

If I understand this correctly, this has the potential to be huge! As far as I know, all the existing "Skype-to-PBX" solutions use the rather kludgey solution of basically running multiple instances of the Skype client on the system. Each "Skype trunk" is essentially just a separate instance of the Skype client. As Stefan Öberg indicates, there are serious scaling issues with this approach.
However, this has been the only options developers have had! Skype has not - prior to this (if it works how it sounds like it works) - provided any "back-end API" that would let a system interact directly with the Skype P2P cloud. The only API developers have had is the client API that lets them interact with a local Skype client. So that's how all the "Skype-to-X" products have been built.
Does this mean that Skype has exposed some additional API that is available through this Skype For Asterisk product? If so, this could be VERY interesting...

Finally, Skype for Asterisk was the topic of discussion for about the first 25 minutes of yesterday's SquawkBox. Access the recording here.

Interesting times ahead.

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Skype television commercials?

People are all atwitter over Skype television commercials on NBC in the United States.

"OMG!! Just saw a skype commercial on NBC11. Didn't expect that" - Robbie Trencheny

"Just saw a Skype ad on NBC during The Office." - Jon Ursenbach

"It shouldn't, but it kinda weirds me out that Skype has TV commercials now." - Ariel Waldman

"A Skype commercial on primetime tv? wtf?" - Jon Low

Mobile operator 3 ran this commercial for the Skypephone in Austria.

No footage yet on the new NBC commercial.

tags: skype, video, television, commercial, nbc, nbc11, theoffice, tv, ad, ads, advertising, marketing, us, at, austria

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skyping friends while watching television

Clearly these two behaviors go together well. Watching television can be a social activity, something to talk about or to talk over. It's context or pretext for talking, grooming, bonding. Dancing.

 

Appointment television or event programming,

Events like political debates.

Ah, there's a US presidential debate tonight.

So, how could you more tightly couple TV+Skype? Watch TV in Skype? Talk (IM/voice/video) in Skype over TV?

Is that the sweet spot for Skype integration into television viewing?

Is this a reason to build Skype into Joost? into TiVo? into Hulu or YouTube?

tags: skype, research, consumerbehavior, hannahmontana, debate, us, tv, television, video, joost, tivo, hulu, youtube, party, danceparty

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Video: Skype for Asterisk interview at Astricon08

Voiceroute.org interviews Wilhelm Lundborg (Skype) and Mark Spencer (Digium) from the Astricon08 show floor at the Skype for Business booth. Includes a demo: a call from Skype to Asterisk and back. (5:39)

tags: skype, asterisk, digium, astricon08, astricon, s4a, skype for asterisk, skype for business, video, interviews, wilhelmlundborg, markspencer

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goldfish-eating skype dweeb

"I knew it. you turned into a goldfish-eating Skype dweeb." - Cameron Kaiser

Skype and Federal Elections...

While the whole world knows that there is a U.S.federal election on November 4, little international notice has been given to Canada's upcoming federal election, October 14. But both are providing significant opportunities to make use of the Internet. Emails, text messaging, candidate websites. Twitter feeds all are coming into play.

In a post on Forbes.com this morning, Elizabeth Woyke talks about "Skyping the Election", where Skype is being used to connect campaign volunteers with voters and journalists with viewers.

Supporters of Sen. Barack Obama have turned to Skype, which processes both land line and cellphone calls over the Internet, in order to reach voters. In June, Elizabeth Edwards used Skype to chat with attendees of the Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference on the intersection of politics and technology. In August, reporters from CNN, C-SPAN and NBC used Skype to report from the political conventions. And this weekend, volunteers in Santa Cruz, Calif., will use Skype-loaded laptops to target voters in Nevada, a key swing state.

The article goes on to quote Christopher Libertelli, Skype's senior director of government and regulatory affairs. Most amusing was this comment:

Libertelli is, naturally, also interested in having Sens. McCain and Obama speak to each other via Skype. "There was that recent press cycle about whether McCain invented the BlackBerry," he notes. "It would be interesting to see if the candidates know how to use Skype."

As one who has known for ten years, and come to appreciate the genius of, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazardis (who wrote his original plan for wireless email in 1992 and is still executing on it), I can only chortle at the claims that surface in political battles. John McCain is no Mike Lazaradis.

Last Monday, in a public forum contributing to OneWebDay, Skype was used to help with a debate about presidential campaign tech policies. Chris Libertelli's comments on net neutrality, the candidates' positions and its role within the overall presidential campaign can be found here.

I'm still looking for examples of Skype use in the Canadian election campaign; I'm sure it's quietly getting use in many ways by those candidates who have an enlightened appreciation for web technology.

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The Skype for Asterisk Story -- Significant Details

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.

And to narrow down on Dan York's speculation about any Skype-to-SIP gateway:

• 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.

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defenestration

"Argh. If Skype was a physical, solid thing, I would have chucked it through the window half an hour ago. :(" - Walker Moore

Skype for Asterisk gateway software announced

Tom Keating reports from Astricon on Stefan Öberg's announcement of Skype For Asterisk, a channel driver that connects the Asterisk call manager software to the Skype cloud. Register for the driver through a Skype for Asterisk beta program form.

Dan York explains the new value add is "two-way connectivity in and out of the Skype cloud." 

Skype is positioning s4a for business, Asterisk VARs as resellers. This is less about a licensing revenue stream than opening Skype up to the millions of calls managed through Asterisk solutions. 

This will kill off competing Skype channel drivers like Chanskype and create competition to Vosky and other Skype-to-PBX system integrators.

More to come...

Stefan Öberg's blog post and the news release:

Digium and Skype Collaborate to Bring Skype to Business Phone Systems

Skype For Asterisk beta program starts today, adding Skype features to Asterisk-based solutions

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AstriCon 2008)—September 25, 2008—Digium®, creator and primary developer of Asterisk®, the leading open source telephony platform, and Skype™, the leading global Internet communications company, today announced the beta version of Skype For Asterisk, which will allow the integration of Skype functionality into Digium’s Asterisk software and enable customers to make, receive and transfer Skype calls from within their Asterisk phone systems.

“Throughout our individual histories, Skype and Asterisk have each disrupted conventional communication methods through innovative, cost-effective solutions,” said Stefan Öberg, vice president and general manager for Skype Telecom and Skype for Business. “We are excited to be working together with Digium to offer small and mid-sized businesses an even more powerful communications solution to conduct business worldwide.”

Specifically, the beta version of Skype For Asterisk is an add-on channel driver module that integrates Skype Internet calling with Asterisk-based telephony products. Skype For Asterisk also complements small and mid-sized business users’ existing services by providing low rates for calling landline and mobile phones around the world.

“Working together with Skype, our goal is to help businesses boost productivity and reap the rewards of feature-rich telephony software, all while saving a substantial amount of money,” said Danny Windham, CEO of Digium, the creator and sponsor of Asterisk. “The Skype For Asterisk beta program is a first step towards adding Skype capabilities to Asterisk-based phone systems and enabling them to reach more than 338 million Skype users.”

The beta version of Skype For Asterisk will enable business users to:

• Make, receive and transfer Skype calls from within Asterisk phone systems, using existing hardware.
• Complement existing services with low Skype global rates (as low as 2.1US¢ per minute to more than 35 countries worldwide).
• Save money on inbound calling solutions such as free click-to-call from a website, as well as receive inbound calling from the PSTN through Skype’s online numbers.
• Manage Skype calls using Asterisk applications such as call routing, conferencing, phone menus and voicemail.

Following the beta period when the product is released, Skype For Asterisk will be sold and distributed by Digium and its worldwide network of resellers.

Live at AstriCon

Stefan Öberg will provide the first public demonstration of Skype For Asterisk during his keynote address today at AstriCon, the annual Asterisk user and developer conference. AstriCon attendees are also invited to stop in and see a demonstration of Skype For Asterisk at the Skype booth on the expo floor.

tags: skype, asterisk, business, astricon, pbx, channel, chanskype, pika

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skype with more-online screen sharing

"Skype with More-Online Screen sharing tool http://skype.mikogo.com Looks very good-any testimonials?" - Angela Maiers

(Mikogo is the free Windows version of BeamYourScreen)

(Mikogo has a Skype plug-in to help you launch from Skype)

(Screen sharing is inherently viral, like Skype)

tags: skype, mikogo, screensharing, screen sharing, desktop sharing, beamyourscreen, extras, software, virality

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997667891 Skype downloads

Counting down to one thousand million served. Just a few more days.

tags: skype, downloads, stats, statistics, trends, performance

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Skype refuses British order for emergency dialing

Skype refuses to comply with 999 ruling. Andrea-Marie Vassou quotes a Skype spokesperson:

"At this time, Skype is not complying with Ofcom’s ruling, as we believe that it is not applicable to our software offering and in fact potentially harmful to public safety.”

I don't know enough about UK law to comment on whether the General Conditions of Entitlement for VoIP applies to Skype. Potential harm is straightforward, though.

The issue is data quality and authority. Landlines, and VoIP systems like Vonage that emulate them, have a single location they can report to emergency services.

One person's Skype account, on the other hand, can be in many places at once and anywhere in the world. I could dial 999 from my laptop in Los Angeles but Skype would have no way of knowing my street address or that the call should be routed to LA 911 instead of London 999 operators.

From the Skype and Emergency Services page on Skype.com:

Skype and Emergency Services

An emergency call is perhaps the most important call you will ever make. We care about your safety and want to provide you with complete information about emergency services.

• Skype is little piece of software that enables a rich communications experience - an entirely new way to communicate online. Skype offers affordable prices and innovation that are years ahead of what a traditional phone service offers.
• Skype is not a replacement for your landline or your mobile phone. Skype does not offer you the ability to call emergency services for help if you are in distress.
• When calling 911 for help, mobile phones can identify your location within a 300 meter range and sometimes even closer. This enables emergency service operators to find you or call you back if the call drops. Landline phones will dispatch help to the address you provided when you subscribed to use the phone company’s services.
• If you are a SkypePro or SkypeIn subscriber, using your mobile or landline phone for emergency calls is still required since Skype does not know your physical location and is unable to assist emergency services.

From Skype's Terms of Service:

1.1 No Emergency Calls: More important than anything: please remember that Skype does not support any emergency calls to any type of hospitals, law enforcement agencies, medical care unit or any type of emergency services of any kind. Skype is not a traditional telephone service or a replacement for Your primary telephone service. There are important differences between traditional telephone services and the Products. You need to make additional arrangements in order to access emergency services. It is Your responsibility to purchase, separately from the Products, traditional wireless or fixed line telephone services that offer access to emergency services. If, with Your permission, another user uses Your User Account or the Business Control Panel, it is Your responsibility to inform that user that it is not possible to support or carry emergency calls using the Products.

From the Skype End User License Agreement:

3.6 No Emergency Calls: The Skype Software is not intended to support or carry emergency calls to any type of hospital, law enforcement agency, medical care unit or any other kind of Emergency Service. You acknowledge and agree that: (i) Skype is not required to offer access to Emergency Services under any applicable local and/or national rules, regulation or law; (ii) You must make additional arrangements to access Emergency Services and it is Your responsibility to purchase (separately from the Skype Software), traditional wireless or landline telephone services to obtain such access; and (iii) Skype is not a replacement for Your primary telephone service.

6.2 Specific Disclaimer Of Liability For Emergency Services: SKYPE DOES NOT PROVIDE CONNECTIONS TO EMERGENCY SERVICES VIA THE SKYPE SOFTWARE. NEITHER SKYPE NOR ITS OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES OR AFFILIATES MAY BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGE, OR LOSS, (AND YOU HEREBY WAIVE ANY AND ALL SUCH CLAIMS OR CAUSES OF ACTION), ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO YOUR INABILITY TO USE THE SKYPE SOFTWARE TO CONTACT EMERGENCY SERVICES, AND YOUR FAILURE TO MAKE ADDITIONAL ARRANGEMENTS TO ACCESS EMERGENCY SERVICES IN ACCORDANCE WITH PARAGRAPH 3.6 ABOVE.

What do you think Skype should do?

tags: skype, emergency, 999, 911, e911

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boss just discovered

"Boss just discovered Skype..... Might be getting rid of all that is the glory of Packet8" - J.J. Merrick

yucky hookers

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

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

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pure class

"Skype ripped me off.. and the suggest I pay them more money to fix it. pure class" -- Daniel Cremer

(Old saying: "one happy customer tells one person, a dissatisfied customer tells five". The Internet and social media multiply both)

UPDATE:

tags: skype, customer service, money, tech support

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Dan York on "Skype and SIP"; Input for Skype's Platform Ambitions?

Just in case you've been on vacation on a remote island not reading Skype Journal the past few days, Phil and Michael Robertson have been having this debate about Skype and interop with SIP-based services (more here and here). It even spread to last Friday's SquawkBox call.
This morning Dan York, who sits on IETF forums on VoIP security, weighed in with his perspective in a post: Skype and SIP Interop - the two sides of the issue raised by Michael Robertson where he lists all the various posts on this subject and comments:
About Wireless Openness:

So with that view, you can expect I applaud Skype's efforts to open up the wireless networks and allow consumers to have a choice of what apps they want to run. I want the *wireless* carriers to be big, fat, dump pipes... give me an IP address on the *mobile* Internet and let me do what I want with it. Sure, the carriers can offer their own services, and maybe if I like them I'll pay for them.... but I want the option to use other products and services - without degradation or prioritization...
To put it another way, I pay the wireless telcos for *dialtone* now. Once connected, I can call anyone and use any *voice service* over the PSTN. I could use someone else's voicemail if I want (like GrandCentral), although the carrier's offering may be more convenient (and is usually free). But I can call anyone on the PSTN and use any voice service I want. The carriers just provide me dialtone.
I want "IP dialtone". I want a Big, Fat, Dumb Pipe.
So... go, Skype, go

About Skype Openness

We need to build the interconnect.
Yeah, there are a TON of issues out there that we still need to address to build that interconnect. There's a whole host of security issues... there are billing issues... there are trust issues... there are network plumbing issues. Yes, there are all those issues. But if we are to succeed in ultimately bringing about the rich communication experience we want, we need to make this happen.
And for that, Skype's walls need to come down.... at least a bit.
What we need is that Interconnect from Skype's cloud out to the emerging IP infrastructure. Think about it... Skype right now has a two-way interconnect between Skype's cloud and the cloud we know as the PSTN. It's called "SkypeOut" and "SkypeIn" (or whatever marketing names they are being called now). If you dial my SkypeIn number, you can reach me on Skype wherever I am. From my Skype client, I can call anyone on the PSTN. The two-way interconnect is already there.
So why not offer the same on the IP side?

My feeling is that we are at a stage in the evolution of IP-based communications where the interconnectivity agreements between service providers still need to be worked through. While technically one can make the connection, it seems that every SIP gateway also requires a business agreement and transaction - similar to the agreements amongst PSTN carriers that are so transparent to our ability to make calls anywhere on the PSTN. I'm not a technical expert; I just want to be able to call as many of my contacts as possible - at as low a cost as possible - but I also want the privacy, security and authentication of Skype when connecting to other services.
In a Skype Journal post earlier today, Skype President Josh Silverman is quoted as mentioning that Skype is looking for a GM for Platform whose initial responsibility will be to lay out Skype's future platform architecture. But Josh also assured us that user perspectives will be considered while designing this architecture. It would seem that, once the appointment is announced and Skype has a forum for user input, the debate engendered by these posts would be a good starting point for consideration of one aspect of Skype's platform ambitions.
Now the real challenge for interop beyond the issues mentioned above would be incorporating wideband (or HD) audio across the interconnection. I have had an experience the past few days where wideband audio hardware benefited my ability to complete a project more accurately. Hey, you technogeeks want a technology challenge?

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13 million – congratulations Skype!

Jean Mercier writes the Skype Numerology blog

So another million mark was reached on 15 September 2008: 13 million concurrent Skype users online.

After a very strong start in 2008, where two million-marks were reached in a very short time span, we had to wait 210 days for the next million. [Skype reached 12 million online on 20 February 2008.] This was the third longest period we had to wait for a million mark. This also means there is still a good and steady growth of Skype users, and it also means most of them are satisfied with the services offered.

But the growth isn't exponential anymore. The graph seems to show a small downward bending tendency.

I hope some innovations will cheer us up in the near future: a genuine Skype client for the iPhone for instance!

And perhaps another side comment: until right now, almost nobody blogged about these 13 million. It therefore seems to be a no-event!

tags: skype, trends, statistics, stats

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Please send photos from Skype Beta Days in Greece

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

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

(Part of a methodical campaign of stakeholder relations)

tags: skype, developers, devrels, beta, betatesters

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Skype Journal Interviews Josh Silverman: The Way Ahead - Platform and Partners

This is the fourth in a series of posts resulting from an interview a week ago Friday with Josh Silverman, Skype's recently appointed President. In this post we talk about directions for the Skype platform and partner programs.
When I first attended a Skype developer event in June 2006, there was lots of enthusiasm for the Skype partner program and for its integration into various third party applications and service offerings. Several of the feature requests, such as call transfer and access to the voice stream, that had come to the surface by the time of this event, have since been implemented. In December 2006 Skype announced the Skype Extras program for which there are over 100 offerings available, mostly for the consumer user but the list also includes about ten in the small-to-medium business space. Most importantly, partners have been asking not only for a platform roadmap but also for execution on that roadmap.
Skype Extras included a publishing and transaction platform, yet to date, only PamConsult has taken full advantage of these feature for its well received (and award winning) PamFax offering. On the other hand, OnState has been able to figure out how to provide a friction-free full services program for its call center customer base. However, over the past eight months market visibility of any significance for the entire Skype partner program has just not been there. Yet we see "Skype access" continue to be built into various platforms such as Ribbit and Voxeo. Skype Certification exists for only seventeen offerings. InnerPass has received Skype Certification two weeks ago (review coming). At IT Expo last week in Los Angeles I came across several service providers and application developers who wanted to have a Skype presence in their offerings.
On the hardware side there have been many innovative offerings; I have experienced many of them. As confirmed by 3 executives at last Thursday's Mobilize 08 event, the Skypephone has met with phenomenal acceptance in the nine countries serviced by 3. Yet several hardware partners have drifted away to the point where we only see limited visibility for Philips, GE and IPevo dual mode (Skype and landline) phones and a few accessory products, such as the FreeTalk Wireless Stereo Headset, from InStoreSolutions (who largely address the European market). Beyond the Skype Store availability, WalMart is carrying Skype hardware in the U.S. (and I found some at Fry's in Sunnyvale this past Saturday).
Frankly, sorting out its platform strategy and partner relationships, and giving them appropriate visibility, is perhaps one of the biggest challenges that Josh and his team face in sustaining Skype's presence in the IP-based conversation space. In our interview with Josh it became quite apparent that these issues have not missed Josh's scrutiny leading up to the business reorganization we have been discussing in the various posts in this series:
SJ: In your interview with Om Malik yesterday you mentioned as one of your key growth initiatives "Skype as a platform, embedding Skype as the conversation infrastructure for devices and services". Tell use more:

JS: We're incredibly lucky that almost everyone in the world wants to do something with us. That's fortunate because we need to be everywhere. For Skype to be successful and to fulfill its full potential we need to be part of every device and every communications experience. We can't do that on our own. We need a really robust platform that allows us to be part of other people's experiences or devices and allow other people to be part of us. We all recognize that we have a long way to get from where we are today to there. With the relatively small program we have and small investment we have made we have 15,000 partners who have signed up for our program today. I think that's a great indication that if we really invest behind this we can do something magical.

SJ: What would that future platform look like?

JS: What we want to do is lay out a set of principles around the platform that say:

• we want people to be able to incorporate Skype into their experience.
• It should be the full Skype stack of functionality
• it should include all of our feature set and not just hive off one piece or two pieces.
• When you use Skype you should know you're using Skype and
• you should have a SkypeID which works across all of our experiences,

So somebody who wants to take Skype and build it into their experience but create a walled garden of "only within their experience" doesn't build value for the greater ecosystem. If you start with Skype on one experience and then you go to another experience with another platform partner, you still need to be able to communicate. There needs to be one SkypeID that works everywhere and then it needs to hold true to some basic sense of brand principles around what the Skype brand should be. Beyond those principles we really want to allow people to innovate and use Skype and do what they will to extend the functionality for our users.

SJ: Has the architecture for this started?

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

SJ: Is the job posted on your job board?

JS: Not yet, we have some candidates; but if there are folks in your community that are excited by this and we haven't already filled this in the coming days [faded away but implication was to apply].

SJ: Is there a timeline?

JS: I don't want to speculate too much. We do have a API [set] today, we do have lots of people working with the API's so we have something to build from. I'm not an expert. I wouldn't be able to lay out a timeline but we are going to get an expert who can lay out a timeline. ... As with everything at Skype, we want to be fast but also make sure we do it well, in particular with a platform. It's got to be well thought through so we support our partners really well. We know there's a big responsibility in there and we take it seriously.

SJ: Would you be looking at getting the partners involved in helping design that platform and getting some feedback on it?

JS:I think that would be essential. One of the things I'm pretty passionate about is always bringing the voice of the customer in early to anything we're trying to do and I think that, for the platform, that would be absolutely essential.

SJ: What are you looking at to address ongoing partner communications issues with respect to the partner program?

JS: I take the partner program really seriously and we're aware that we've not invested adequately behind it and want to do more. The first thing we are going to do is hire an experienced, capable leader of that organization who will pull together for me a plan for what resources do we need to invest in -- engineering, partner support, evangelism, technical documentation -- to make sure we build an organization that can support our partners robustly.
What I don't want to do is over promise. Step one is, when you get somebody good in, lay out a plan and then when we're ready to announce some more forward looking things we'll do that.

Changes are not going to happen overnight when Skype is acquiring 300,000 new registrations per day and profitable. But, based on the strategy and principles outlined by Josh in this interview, going forward we should be looking to see within a three to six month timeframe:

• Announcements of the appointment of two key senior executives who bring along experience in building platforms and partnerships
• A platform architecture and developer roadmap
• Revamped plans for Skype's hardware and software partner programs

It will also be most interesting to see what forums or other means Skype provides for input into the platform architecture and developer roadmap strategy. Execution is everything, especially at this stage of Skype's growth within the IP-based conversation space.
(For background on Skype's partner program history check out: A Primer for Skype's Direction - Skype's Extras Gallery and Developer Partner Program. And for an example of what attracts developers to Skype as an ecosystem check out "On Spotlight: Don Kennedy AKA TheUberOverLord".)
Next: Markets: Business and Geographical

cataclysm

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

A nod to collective presence?

McCain and Obama proxies debate technology policy Monday

Monday is One Web Day, the web's "earth day." Skype is sponsoring a debate between technology spokespeople for the two U.S. presidential campaigns. The debate in Cincinnati, Ohio, will be virtual, with speakers calling in to the public access channel studio via Skype video.

Three political issues directly affect Skype users.

Network neutrality requires your ISP not treat your Skype bits differently from other bits they carry. ISPs in some countries blocked Skype for political and competitive reasons. ISPs in the United States slowed or blocked Skype to favor their own VoIP solutions.

• McCain voted against net neutrality
• Obama voted for net neutrality.

Rural access to the Internet is limited compared to American urban access. It costs more to run cables and antennae those last miles and miles and miles. More than one third of the US population lives outside major cities and suburbs.

• Obama favors using the Universal Service Fund, moneys already collected for rural phone access, to improve rural Internet access.
• McCain favors tax incentives for those who expand rural Internet access.

Wireless Carterfone allows you to connect unlocked phones to the mobile phone network the same way you can plug any phone of your choice into a landline phone socket, the original Carterfone ruling. It's a consumer freedom (to move your sim chip into the Skype, Google or Apple phone of your choice) and an opportunity for mobile device makers to innovate.

• Obama voted for this.
• McCain voted against.

We'll update this post when after the debate goes online.

tags: skype, us, politics, policy, netneutrality, networkneutrality, universal service fund, carterphone, freedom, regulation, obama, mccain, debate, ohio, cincinnati

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why the frack not

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

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

Australian PM uses Skype

Kevin Rudd, Australia's 26th Prime Minister, spoke with Rove McManus on Sunday's show. On YouTube: part 1 and part 2.

This brings up one problem with simple IM ID's. You need multiple personae for each user account. For example, one username you can give to friends, another to work colleagues, one for family, another to strangers. 

This tool of faceted identity helps you manage social network overload. By letting you present different aspects of yourself to different publics, you contextualize relationships and shape the stream of your interactions.

Rudd would love to treat people appropriately.

Skype makes that difficult once your contact list rises above Dunbar's Number (~150 people). In Skype, everyone sees the same name, the same presence and mood, the same autobiography, the same sex/gender data, the same contact information. Everyone is managed by the same privacy rules. All 20 million Australians will see the same Kevin Rudd in Skype, even though he may to keep his mobile number hidden from most and convenient to a few.

Today's monolithic identity is baked into Skype. An upgrade would be worth it.

If only so Kev can talk with his daughter without logging in to his office and political Skype accounts.

tags: skype, australia, au, identity

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A few thoughts on Skype interop tradeoffs

Interoperability comes at the expense of innovation. Once you have multi-network interop, you can't drag a whole industry with you as you improve technology.

For example, Skype keeps improving their codecs with a team of PhDs in Stockholm. The team (still hiring) updates Skype's proprietary codecs, and their configurations, to the whole Skype network every few months. Same with Skype's p2p engine configuration, and with NAT traversal as new routers and firewalls are discovered. So the technology that makes Skype work is changing often. As are the computers and networks Skype runs on. Skype learned things at 100 million user accounts it didn't know at 1 or 10 million. What will they learn by 500 million users? Time and change are giving Skype a unique depth of experience, knowledge and skill.

The move to mobile complicates this further. What Skype knew about networks, latency, UI frameworks, etc. all came in the PC/Internet context. Codecs and encryption that work easily on PCs will melt most phones. Wideband audio, stereo, spatialized audio? These crowd pleasers wait for several cycles of Moore's Law and years of mobile device hardware evolution. High def video? A pipe dream for the next decade.

Yet Skype must blend mobile usage into their PC network while keeping core values and brand notes. And Skype hasn't started to plug-in to web sites,  another front with its own changes and revolutions. 

So the technology is fluid, complex, in motion. But Michael Robertson's call for Skype to interop is a call to stop innovation and adaptation. Kids born when the conventions MR wants Skype to support were defined are now starring on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? This is like locking in mileage and pollution standards from the Mad Men era instead of reaching for the zero emissions 100mpg car.

So:

1. At what point should Skype give up competitive advantage for the increased network effect?
2. When the environment continues to change rapidly, when should you stop innovating and start commoditizing?
3. Can you interop on some features but not on others? Which ones? And when is it worth it?

tags: skype, interop, interoperability, strategy

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Michael Robertson responds

[A letter by Michael Robertson.]

Phil,

Thanks for the post on Skype Journal about my letter to Skype pointing out the hypocrisy of demanding that the wireless carriers open up their network when Skype will not open their network to receive calls from others. You don't address the core issue about Skype interconnecting with other networks and seem to make excuses about why it's not possible or safe. These protests had no validity 5 years ago when peering was an issue with the major IM networks. Back then AIM and Yahoo used identical excuses about why they could not interconnect which MSN and Google. Now those entities cross connect with each other in several instances.

Gizmo5 uses and fully supports an open standard called SIP which lets callers from different networks connect to each other similar to how emails from different servers are connected to each other. This is how the Gizmo5 network connects with over 250 big and small networks. You might also be surprised to learn that Skype supports SIP already! Skype uses SIP to hand-off calls to the PSTN (the original phone network). Anytime you are using Skype-In or Skype-Out your calls are going from/to your computer using both the SIP and Skype systems. In spite of your questions and concerns below, this unquestionably proves it is not only technically feasible, but secure and practical.

When it is in Skype's best business interest they support SIP. Other times they want to lock out all competing VOIP companies which is why they don't publish a public SIP interface which is what I'm calling for. (You probably know that several companies like Fring and Nimbuzz have reverse engineered the ability to send and receive Skype calls but it is susceptible to breaking or being blocked by Skype.) This is exactly the situation with the FCC letter. Skype wants others to open their networks but Skype won't open theirs. Either you believe companies should be able to choose or you believe everyone should be open. Either argument has validity but toggling between the two positions to fit business justification should be pointed out.

You state in your public defense of Skype's closed system: "How we connect a phone to a mobile network is standardized. How we connect a client to the Skype network is not. How we connect the Skype network to another service is not." I would contend this is inaccurate. There is a standard way that Skype client's connect to a network - they have just chosen not to publish this and their reluctance you believe gives them the right to lock everyone out. (The wireless carriers could of course make the same argument rebuffing Skype.) However to send and receive calls, it is not necessary for Skype to reveal how its entire network work. Rather they are only required to offer a SIP interface which as I mentioned Skype already has it is just not made available to others.

You proposed several questions so let me address them below.

1.  Will you peer IM, video, file transfer, presence, commerce, desktop sharing, conferencing, texting, microblogging, and data channels? Crossing all conversational modes? Exactly whose codecs and protocols should everyone use? Should Skype users downgrade the quality of their voice and video calls to match Gizmo's?

Yes, Gizmo5 will and does peer all conversation types. We use XMPP for text messaging and presence and SIP protocols for voice. We strive to adhere to the standards to insure interoperability with all. Where there are standards we use them and publish them. If we build something that is not to standard we are open to publishing the specifications.

This is "Skype Journal" so I don't expect objective treatment about voice quality but the facts are Skype and Gizmo5 calls will have similar voice quality because both products use the GIPS media engine. This means the code is identical all the core aspects that impact call quality such as jitter protection, echo cancellation, noise protection, etc. See:  http://www.gipscorp.com/default/customers.html

On the video front, Skype does have higher quality video because they implemented On2's proprietary solution called vp7. Gizmo5 chose the open standard called h.264 so that we could interoperate with others doing video calls. In fact, you will see mobile to PC video in the near future suing Gizmo5 because of this technology choice. Gizmo5 would be happy to license On2's technology if that is what is required to interoperate with Skype. Gizmo5 already supports multiple audio/video codecs so adding another one is trivial.

2. Will you require realtime encryption? Strong enough to prevent live intercepts? Will you require all networks to notify users when their conversations are no longer encrypted?

Skype and Gizmo5 have similar approaches. Skype to Skype calls are encrypted as are Gizmo5 to Gizmo5. Anytime someone calls the PSTN (whether on Skype or Gizmo5) those calls are never encrypted. Encryption should be a user choice where appropriate. No, we don't require realtime encryption.  We don't tell others how to run their networks. If others don't run their networks responsibly then users will abandon them.

3. Will you agree to strong user authentication? So users can have confidence in the identity of friends and strangers?

Not sure how this is relevant to peering with Skype. Remember - that's what we're talking about. Users of other VOIP networks being able to call Skype users and receive calls from them. We don't support this, but the fact of the matter is that if it's important to consumers then a network will support it and users can migrate to that service. As it is, users are locked into Skype and have no choice to choose another service if they want to call anyone in the Skype network.

4. Will you (and everyone you peer with) agree on user profile data structures, white page directory services, and directory search interop?

We can't make everyone who peers with us agree to do this. We do publish an API for our system so others can interoperate. I think this would be ideal. I'd love to have it for email addresses and IM addresses and social network profiles, but sadly we do not. It sounds like you're making my case about why open standards are important.

5. Will you support data portability principles? So users can switch to and from you network with their identities, profiles, buddy lists, histories, and preferences?

I started MP3.com 10 years ago on the premise that open standards are the way to go. They are with music (MP3) and they are with email, IM and VOIP as well. Data portability is also important and I spend my money building companies which adhere to these tenets. Again, not sure what this has to do with peering since Skype supports none of the items you have listed. I encourage you to check out another company I run called MP3tunes which stores your personal music collection in the cloud. Go sign up for a free account. You will see that we let you sync your entire music collection everywhere - no lock in.

6. Will you peer customer support costs and security? How should customers escalate security and technical issues across multiple networks?

Gizmo5 already sends and receives calls from over 250 VOIP networks. And we work through security and technical issues across networks as they arise. This is not a hard thing to do. There's no reason VOIP can't be a universally open system like email. These are just straw man arguments about why it's hard or not possible. These wobbly arguments work when you're testifying in front of congressman who don't know a damn thing about technology, but they don't hold water to technologists. And the point of using standards is that if people adhere to the specifications everything works fine together right out of the box. Of the more than 250 networks we regularly exchange calls with we have had issues with less than 15 in 5 years and they have always been quickly addressed because it's in both peoples interest to make sure things work.

7. Will you mandate end-to-end transparency of call quality information?

I don't even know what this is. But no, we don't mandate how others operate their network.

8. What namespaces would you suggest Skype use? Will you support OpenID or some other namespace?

The SIP standard supports namespace issues. It is similar to email. username@skype will work just fine. Again, this is how we interoperate with hundreds of networks now. It's a non-issue.

9. Will you open Gizmo up to all partners? Your contact page says "Unfortunately, we are not setup to partner at this time with organizations with fewer than one million users."

Nice misquote. Let me include the entire paragraph in context so your readers will get the full picture. From: http://gizmo5.com/pc/about-us/contact/

Potential Partners

Companies and organizations looking to partner with Gizmo5 should visit our parent company site, SIPphone.com. Partners looking to brand the Gizmo5 client and service typically have user bases well in excess of 1 million users. If you are a smaller company or individual looking to start your own VoIP service, please visit our developers area, where you can learn how to start your very own VoIP service. Unfortunately, we are not setup to partner at this time with organizations with fewer than one million users.

As you can see the 1 million reference is related to people who want a branded version of the Gizmo5 client to distribute. Anyone with a VOIP network can setup a SIP service (or Asterisk) and dial our users or receive calls from our network. If Skype Journal has a million users we will provide you with your own branded VOIP client to distribute.

10. How will you make all this work? What industry body or standards process could help Skype and other companies find the sweet spots of commoditized conversation?

Some years back some smart guys got together to address this very problem.  They did so in a public manner using the same process that brought us standards for the web and email which is why the web and email work universally. They called the standard they defined SIP and it deals precisely in how calls are initiated, negotiated and connected. It's what Gizmo5 uses and promotes as the solution to allow calls to flow freely between networks instead of having a big number of disparate networks. You can read all about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol

Skype should support a public SIP interface so standards based networks like Gizmo5 and others can seamlessly send and receive calls.

-- MR

Michael Robertson

www.MP3tunes.com - Your Music Everywhere
www.Gizmo5.com - IM/VOIP/SMS from PC and phone

 

del.icio.us Tags: skype,sip,gizmo5,asterisk,voip

ASUS PC-free Skype desk videophone, coming October

Nobody invited me to the Skype London 5th Birthday Party where you might have seen the preview of the ASUS AIGuru SV1. Standalone device, connected directly to the network via wi-fi or ethernet. A good writeup. Photo gallery.

Draft news release below; product name and specs subject to change.

Taipei, Taiwan, September 18, 2008 – September 18, 2008 - ASUS today unveiled the AiGuru SV1, the world's first Skype Certified™ videophone dedicated to unlimited video calling over the Internet. Boasting a large 7" display and a built-in webcam, speaker and microphone, the WiFi-capable videophone lets users make unlimited video calls for free to other Skype users without the need for a computer.

Its simple-to-use, icon-based interface and intuitive button layout take the complexity out of Internet calling - making it easy for anyone to make and receive Skype-to-Skype video and voice calls. Users can even join voice conferences, making the ASUS AiGuru SV1 an inexpensive, all-in-one voice and video conferencing solution for small businesses. Furthermore, the ASUS AiGuru SV1 also allows users to make and receive calls to and from fixed and mobile lines at really cheap rates.

"The AiGuru SV1 is Skype's first foray with a partner into the videophone category," said Jonathan Cristensen, Skype's general manager, mobile and hardware devices. "With more than 25% of Skype-to-Skype calls including video, we know that video is fast becoming a mainstream way for people to communicate. The videophone offers the benefits of video calling to a much wider audience, allowing friends and families to share their worlds face-to-face without being tied to a computer."

Free Calls Whenever, Wherever and Forever
With the ASUS AiGuru SV1, free unlimited video and voice calls can be made to anyone on Skype. Whether it's a father, child, or business colleague receiving a video or voice call, they do not have to be using a videophone; as long as they are connected to Skype - via a computer or a Skype-enabled device - the call will always be free. This enables people worldwide to make Skype-to-Skype calls either at home or the office whenever the need or mood strikes, without having to worry about cost. ASUS AiGuru SV1 users looking to make outgoing and receive incoming calls to and from fixed and mobile lines can subscribe to one of Skype's popular unlimited calling* subscriptions or purchase Skype credit to make outgoing calls at www.skype.com

Great Video and Voice Communications Experience
The ASUS AiGuru SV1 is designed specifically for video calling and is equipped with a large, high-resolution 7" TFT LCD and an integrated webcam, for the best video calling quality. The ASUS AiGuru SV1 also features a built-in microphone and speaker supporting exceptional sound quality. Users who wish to have privacy during their calls can use a standard mini-jack headset and microphone.

Easy to Set Up and Easy to Use
The ASUS AiGuru SV1 offers the quickest and easiest way to make free video calls - at no point is a computer or additional software required. Users can get up and running in three simple steps:
1. Connect to a broadband connection, either wirelessly or via an Ethernet cable
2. Sign-in with an existing Skype name or create a new one
3. Start video calling

The videophone is as easy to use as it is to set up. Its icon-driven user interface and clean, clearly labeled button layout are designed to be immediately intuitive to users.

With its WiFi capability, small footprint and rechargeable battery power system, the ASUS AiGuru SV1 also offers convenience in its portability. The user is neither tied to a wall socket nor a computer during use, which means the videophone can be moved from room to room without hassle, and without interrupting or dropping a call.

Availability
The ASUS AiGuru SV1 will initially be available for pre-order on September 18, 2008 in Europe and North America from Skype's online shop (www.skype.com/shop). It will be on sale at the beginning of October 2008 priced $299.95/€249.95/£199.95. The videophone will be available in retail outlets in the Asia Pacific region later this year.

*Unlimited calling: All calls are subject to Skype's fair usage policy which is set at 10,000 minutes per month (which equates to more than 5 hours of calling per day). Unlimited calls to landlines in up to 36 countries worldwide are included. Calls to premium, non-geographic and other special numbers are excluded.

Specifications
Key Skype features

- Skype-to-Skype video and voice calls
- Call fixed lines and mobiles with Skype credit and/or subscriptions
- Online Number (SkypeIn™) – allows anyone to reach you on Skype
Presence
- Call forwarding
- Skype Voicemail
- Participate in voice conference calls (as a guest only)

Interface
Wireless: 802.11 b/g
Wired: 10/100Mb Ethernet port

Protocols
DHCP/Static IP/PPPoE

Dimensions
202 mm (L) x 123 mm (W) x 253 mm (H)

Weight
1.6 kg

Display
800 X 480 pixel 7" TFT LCD

Camera type
Built in Webcam CMOS (640 X 480 pixels)

Audio
Integrated Speaker
Internal Microphone

Power supply
AC Adaptor: 12V/3A

Battery life
Talking Time : 20 minutes
Standby Time : 30 minutes

Battery charging time
2 hours

Operating distance
Wireless: 50 m (actual transmission distance may vary depending on operating conditions)

Keypad and buttons
- Power button
- Volume keys
- 5-way navigation (Up, Down, Left, Right and Select keys)
- Menu key
- Back key
- Call key
- End key

I/O connectors
- 3.5 mm Headphone jack and Microphone jack
- RJ-45 connector
- USB type A connector
- DC Jack
- Battery connector

Michael Robertson says Skype should open to Gizmo Project

Michael Robertson tells Andy Abramson his Gizmo Project peers with hundreds of other networks, so Skype should open up too. Robertson contrasts Skype's closed network to Skype's Carterfone petition to the FCC, a plea for mobile phone companies to let customers use phones of their choice. Skype wrote a letter last week

It's a false comparison. How we connect a phone to a mobile network is standardized. How we connect a client to the Skype network is not. How we connect the Skype network to another service is not. 

A few interoperability questions for Michael:

1. Will you peer IM, video, file transfer, presence, commerce, desktop sharing, conferencing, texting, microblogging, and data channels? Crossing all conversational modes? Exactly whose codecs and protocols should everyone use? Should Skype users downgrade the quality of their voice and video calls to match Gizmo's?
2. Will you require realtime encryption? Strong enough to prevent live intercepts? Will you require all networks to notify users when their conversations are no longer encrypted?
3. Will you agree to strong user authentication? So users can have confidence in the identity of friends and strangers?
4. Will you (and everyone you peer with) agree on user profile data structures, white page directory services, and directory search interop?
5. Will you support data portability principles? So users can switch to and from you network with their identities, profiles, buddy lists, histories, and preferences? 
6. Will you peer customer support costs and security? How should customers escalate security and technical issues across multiple networks?
7. Will you mandate end-to-end transparency of call quality information?
8. What namespaces would you suggest Skype use? Will you support OpenID or some other namespace? 
9. Will you open Gizmo up to all partners? Your contact page says "Unfortunately, we are not setup to partner at this time with organizations with fewer than one million users."
10. How will you make all this work? What industry body or standards process could help Skype and other companies find the sweet spots of commoditized conversation?

You like thinking of yourself as a David against Goliaths (I'm thinking back to SIPphone vs. Vonage), and you cast Skype as one of the giants. It's fine to take a swing at Skype.

I hope you are up for more than talk, Michael.

What will you do to advance Talk 2.0 interop? Will you dig deeper? Reach out? What are the next steps, Mr. Robertson? 

tags: skype, sipphone, gizmo5, gizmoproject, interop

Follow Phil Wolff on Twitter or FriendFeed or on Skype.

First Skype Video Phone

Videophones were first demonstrated to the public at the New York World's Fair in 1964 and Montreal's Expo '67. But, until Packet 8 introduced a video phone a few years ago, they were not readily available.

Once Skype introduced video, you knew someone would have to come up with a Skype-enabled video phone. Coolest Gadgets reports the announcement of a Skype-certified AirGuru SV1 Skype video phone. No additional details are known at this but it's a development we'll follow once launched later this fall.

Just as significant, this is the first new Skype-enabled hardware device partner we have seen in quite some time - certainly since the introduction last fall of the Skypephone and the FREETALK Wireless Stereo Headset.

Hat tip to Andy for pointing out this post while sitting in on the Mobilize sessions.

Josh Silverman

 

Skype CEO Josh Silverman at the Skype Inn in San Jose, California, on 12 September 2008.

tags: skype, joshsilverman

Follow Phil Wolff on Twitter or FriendFeed or on Skype.

Skype Journal Interviews Josh Silverman: The Way Ahead - Managing the Skype Team Culture

This is the third in a series of posts resulting from an interview last Friday with Josh Silverman, Skype's recently appointed President. In this post we talk about Skype's value set, getting the business side right while benefiting from the experience and skills of the current employees and the role of product marketing.
In the last post we talked about the major issues Josh has identified for addressing along with a strategy for employee empowerment to reduce the complexity of decision processes while driving towards business success. But a critical requirement for employee empowerment is the need to establish and communicate a sense of core values that flow throughout the company and make employees more comfortable in making decisions, especially with decisions that may involve some risk. As a follow-on question to our discussion of employee empowerment I asked about the need to drive a value set through the company. Josh's response:

Skype has a great set of values. Coming into the company I'm very humbled by what they've accomplished, what a great culture and values we have. I want to make sure we nourish and respect that. So some of the values I see are:

• thinking disruptively and differently about problems, not just incrementally innovating
• wanting to have an impact on the world
• caring a lot about what we do for people and doing that globally
• a big desire to win
• a big desire for excellence
• a passion for the customer

Those are qualities that I would hold dear and want to make sure we nourish as we grow.

We then went on to the "people" challenges of getting the business side right while building on the inherent passion of the current employees.

I think everyone at Skype would agree that we, in a very short time, in about a year, hired over 150 people into marketing, product management and [other] non-technical functions. [We] essentially evolved those functions from scratch in a year. Given the pace of change at Skype, we needed to bring a lot of that expertise into the company. Of course, the challenge is that, when you grow that fast, making sure everyone knows what their role is and how to do that well ... training ... getting a common culture ... takes a little bit of time. So what I'm focused on now is clarifying the accountability of all those business roles.
By the way, to your point about 'we have a lot of passionate technical people', I couldn't agree more. Often time the best ideas come from that team. It is my belief that what the product and marketing organizations need to do is understand what problems the customer needs solved, and then to work together with engineering to think of the most creative, best way to solve that problem, hopefully better than anyone's ever thought of in the past. If you're doing an "ok" job of that, you're understanding the articulated needs of the customer - like I can't pay easily enough ... it takes too long to download ... I can't configure my devices . If you're doing a great job, you're understanding the unarticulated needs of the customer .. things like "I'd like to be able to call anyone in the world for free" ...

We then got into a short discussion about the role of the product manager as the mediator managing a balancing act between the user market and the engineering and design teams:

... It is not the job of the product manager to come up with the solution; it's the job of the product manager to quarterback the design team and the engineering team and the marketing group together to come up with the world's best solution. I think engineering and design play huge roles in that process.

Next: The Skype Platform ... and Partner Program.

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Skype's Chris Libertelli to Discuss Open Networks on SquawkBox

Christopher Libertelli, Skype's Senior Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs – North America will be the featured guest on SquawkBox tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 18 at 11:00 a.m. EDT - 'GMT-5') to discuss his recent letter to FCC Chair Kevin Martin about U.S. wireless carriers misperception of what "open networks" and "unfettered access" really means.

For the past two days at IT Expo I have been listening to speakers talk about the need to make wireless services "open" such that both application innovation can occur and consumers have unfettered freedom of choice with respect to the wireless services, portals and applications they individually prefer to use. The Apple App store is the first to break the carriers' foothold but expect others such as RIM and Nokia to follow suit in the next few months in driving towards user freedom. (In fact there are over 4400 applications for various Blackberry models at Handango.com). In a post earlier today Phil has also commented on the Chris' letter.

"AlwaysOn" Carl Ford is guest host of tomorrow's SquawkBox which you can join here.

See also Russ McGuire's post on GigaOm: "Mobility -- What's Different?"

Skype asks FCC to support unfettered customer freedom

Skype called "liar, liar, pants on fire" [my phrasing] on the leading US mobile carriers and "we can't trust those guys" to the Federal Communications Commission. It was triggered by comments at last week's CTIA conference. For example:

"Unfettered access would be a pretty bad experiment." "There needs to be some stewardship or control."

— Robert Dobson, chairman and president of T-Mobile USA

"I think we have to be careful to not all run to one side of the ship"

— Lowell McAdam, CEO and president, Verizon Wireless

“The big Internet can be daunting ... There can be too much choice.”

— Sprint Nextel Corp. CEO Dan Hesse

Skype's Christopher Libertelli responded to these and other comments in a letter to the FCC's chairman on Friday. Let's sample the letter:

Instead of broadly carrying forward the Commission’s tremendous strides toward open networks, the word coming from the CTIA gathering is that open networks present a multitude of problems for the carriers, and that to protect consumers from too many choices, network operators must be the gatekeepers of the consumer experience. This is inconsistent with the Commission’s Broadband Policy Statement and a market structure that maximizes choice and innovation.

Let me parse this for you.

• Instead of broadly carrying forward the Commission’s tremendous strides toward open networks,
  
  
  • reminder that you (the FCC) already support "open"
  • the mobile giants are lollygagging and poo-pooing the commission's mandate
• the word coming from the CTIA gathering is that open networks present a multitude of problems for the carriers
  
  
  • they are whining and giving excuses
  • "too complex" is silly since open is simpler
  • despite they are usually slow moving behemoths overly concerned with internal operations
• and that to protect consumers from too many choices,
  
  
  • they say voters are stupid babies, 
  • they want to deny citizens their consumer freedoms
• network operators must be the gatekeepers of the consumer experience.
  
  
  • "we know best"
  • "control is our right"
• This is inconsistent with the Commission’s Broadband Policy Statement and a market structure that maximizes choice and innovation.
  
  
  • market structure = anticompetitive duopoly (Verizon + AT&T)
  • duopolies don't compete fiercely
  • think "OPEC 2.0" power concentration
  • you say you want open networks
  • please verify the oligopoly is acting broadly, quickly, meaningfully
  • the public good is at risk

The letter continues in a similar fashion, full text below.

Skype is asking the FCC to check the carriers who promised open access to their networks.

Please.

Now.

Technorati tags: skype, fcc, regulatory, freedom, netneutrality, network neutrality, liberty, carterphone, us, chrislibertelli, von coallition

 

 

September 12, 2008

ELECTRONIC FILING

Chairman Kevin J. Martin

Federal Communications Commission


445 12th Street, SW


Washington, DC 20554

Re: Ex Parte, RM-11361

Dear Chairman Martin:

Skype Communications S.A.R.L. (“Skype”) writes to respond to various statements made at CTIA’s Wireless I.T. & Entertainment conference in San Francisco. Attached to this letter is a Reuters report on what seems to be a wireless industry theme at the CTIA meeting. Instead of broadly carrying forward the Commission’s tremendous strides toward open networks, the word coming from the CTIA gathering is that open networks present a multitude of problems for the carriers, and that to protect consumers from too many choices, network operators must be the gatekeepers of the consumer experience. This is inconsistent with the Commission’s Broadband Policy Statement and a market structure that maximizes choice and innovation.

Skype disputes the need for wireless carriers to maintain their closed networks not only in the face of consumer preferences but contrary to their assurances to the Commission[1] that the industry had adopted a policy of openness such as to obviate the need for the relief that Skype sought in its Petition in the above-captioned proceeding (“Skype Petition”). [2] Apparently,these assurances of openness led some at the Commission to believe that there was no present need for Commission action. In this regard, the carriers’ apparent change of heart should be a cause for concern.

Despite the carriers’ assurances, when lip service to the goals of open networks is translated into their terms of service, they continue to require their subscribers to limit the applications and devices that can be used on their networks. The attitude of the wireless carriers was perhaps best summed up in Sprint Nextel Corp. CEO Dan Hesse’s recent comment: “The big Internet can be daunting ... There can be too much choice.”[3] This stands in stark contrast to the Commission’s wise policies designed to promote as much consumer choice as possible.

Skype respectfully submits that the wireless carriers continued opposition to open networks — including their restrictive terms of service — raises questions about whether the industry will faithfully implement the Commission’s rules and policies, including the standards set out in the Commission’s Broadband Policy Statement.[4] Skype is mindful of the challenges that wireless operators face moving from a closed model to an open, Internet-friendly business. As noted, despite some recent steps to modify terms of service toward openness, carriers continue to prohibit voice applications that compete with their core business.[5] Consumer choice, competition and free markets, not carriers acting to block competition, should win the day in wireless — now, not later. If the Commission believed that the transition to more open networks was going to proceed quickly, statements out of CTIA’s convention suggest just the opposite.

Skype repeats that the best way for the Commission to maintain the vigilance that is necessary to protect consumers’ interest in open wireless networks is to for the Commission to affirm that the Commission’s Broadband Policy Statement applies to wireless broadband networks. This would be a measured response to the dynamics of the wireless market and would send the correct message to an evasive wireless industry. It would also encourage those in the application development community, like Skype, who have reasonable expectations that applications will run as they were designed on wireless broadband platforms.[6]

Affirming that the Commission will enforce the Broadband Policy Statement and address any violations of the Policy Statement on a case-by-case basis is fully consistent with the Commission approach to constraining Comcast’s abusive practices.7 In this way, the Commission will maintain a policy environment that serves the interests of consumers, carriers and innovative providers of wireless devices and software applications.

Thank you for your continued vigilance in this matter. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Respectfully submitted,

________________________

Christopher Libertelli

Senior Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs – North America


SKYPE COMMUNICATIONS S.A.R.L.


6e etage, 22/24 boulevard Royal, Luxembourg, L-2449 LUXEMBOURG

Footnotes:

1. Ex Parte filing by CTIA — The Wireless Association, RM-11361, April 14, 2008, at 1 (“Wireless carriers, reacting to the demands of consumers in the competitive market, already have begun implementing a variety of openness initiatives designed to expand consumer access to new and innovative wireless devices and applications. . . . Because both Commission action and the wireless marketplace have addressed the concerns raised by Skype, the Petition should be dismissed.”).
2. Skype Communications S.A.R.L., Petition to Confirm A Consumer’s Right To Use Internet Software and Attach Devices to Wireless Networks, RM-11361 (filed Feb. 20, 2007).
3. Allie Winter, Embracing an Open Network, RCR Wireless News, Sep. 10, 2008.
4. Appropriate Framework for Broadband Access to the Internet over Wireline Facilities, CC Docket No. 02-33, Appropriate Regulatory Treatment for Broadband Access to the Internet Over Cable Facilities, CS Docket No. 02-52, Policy Statement, FCC 05-151 (rel. Sep. 23, 2005) (“Broadband Policy Statement”).
5. See Letter from Robert W. Quinn, Jr., Senior Vice President-Federal Regulatory, AT&T, to Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, WC Docket No. 07-52, July 25, 2008, at 1, n.1 (noting that all major wireless carriers do not permit the use of peer-to-peer VoIP applications like Skype).
6. A wide array of industry and consumer groups agree that the Broadband Policy Statement should apply to wireless broadband networks. See, e.g., Comments of the Information Technology Industry Council, RM-11361, at 1 (Apr. 30, 2007); Comments of the Consumer Electronics Association, RM-11361, at 2 (Apr. 30, 2007); Comments of the VON Coalition, RM-11361, at 2 (Apr. 30, 2007); Comments of Mobile Industry Executives, RM-11361, at 6 (May 1, 2007); Comments of Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America and Free Press, RM-11361 (Apr. 30, 2007); Comments of the Ad Hoc Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, RM-11361 (Apr. 30, 2007).
7. Formal Complaint of Free Press and Public Knowledge Against Comcast Corporation for Secretly Degrading Peer-to-Peer Applications, Memorandum Opinion and Order, File No. EB-08-IH-1518, WC Docket No. 07-52, FCC 08-183 (rel. Aug. 20, 2008).

Josh Silverman

x

Skype CEO Josh Silverman at the Skype Inn in San Jose, California, on 12 September 2008.

tags: skype, joshsilverman

Follow Phil Wolff on Twitter or FriendFeed or on Skype.

Skype Journal Interviews Josh Silverman: The Way Ahead - Righting the Ship

This is the second in a series of posts resulting from in interview last Friday with Josh Silverman, Skype's recently appointed President. In this post we talk about the key issues Josh found necessary to address and establishing a framework for employee motivation and empowerment.
Over the past couple of years I have written many posts lauding Skype, largely for its conversation infrastructure technology; I have also, from time-to-time written posts about the need for Skype to address the business infrastructure surrounding the deployment and use of the technology. With 300,000 new registrations daily, 30 to 50 million active users within a given day, and demand in the small-to-medium business market driven by its inherent cost advantages, Skype needs to right the ship when it comes to all aspects of turning Skype into a business that delivers customer satisfaction while sustaining profitable growth..
Some have thought that Phil and I are Skype Cheerleaders and, in their simplistic world, want instant solutions to problems. Doesn't happen in a business that has become as large as Skype. To take maximum advantage of Skype's technology, Skype needs leadership at the top that delivers a sense of mission, a set of inherent values and and a management structure suitable to a business that has grown as large and as rapidly as Skype. Business processes need to become readily scalable. Within such an environment, the Skype team needs to execute; employees need to know their responsibilities, to be held accountable for them, and, most importantly, to be empowered to act in their area of responsibility.
When we asked Josh Silverman, who took over as Skype's President five months ago, as our first question, :"What has changed at Skype in the past year (since Niklas' departure)?" he replied that he could only speak for the past five months. He then confirmed my suspicion: he has used this time to delve into all aspects of Skype - involving internal team and individual employee meetings, learning more about customers and their needs, examining market differences worldwide, reviewing both current and archived Skype forums and websites and even surveying media, all as input to determine what management structure and what cultural environment were needed to right the ship. What follows is a high level view of his action plan. (Note: where appropriate he has already discussed these moves with the Skype team, so there are no surprises here for them.)

1. Define a mission statement
2. Establish a set of values
3. Restructure for business success
4. Improve the user experience
   
5. Evolve the business model
6. Develop a technology roadmap.
7. Establish a framework for effective customer and partner relationships
8. Build market awareness

In building out on his response, Josh identified as issues to be addressed:

• clarify Skype's mission and strategy going forward
  
  
  • be clear about what Skype is trying to accomplish
  • be clear about decision making
• maintain an ongoing sense of momentum around building great products
  
  
  • the Skype 4.0 beta program
• understand their customers and bring their voice into the company.
• a big issue: organize the company structure to clarify roles and accountability for people
• establishing employee accountability: define who owns what internally
• add people skills and resources consistent yet scalable with the level of customer growth
• grow internal talent while adding experienced management leadership
  
  
  • bet on the people who brought Skype to this point
  • bring in experienced outside help to scale

On the core subject of building employee responsibility and accountability Josh responded:

We need to clarify accountability and roles for employees ... I'm a big believer that, if you take a small cross-functional team, give them a mission, a lot of room to innovate, they're going to come out with fantastic products. So we're moving our organization more in that direction.
Skype, I don't think is different [from] a lot of hypergrowth companies, in that the business grows so fast that it is very hard for the organizational structure to keep up. What ends up happening is people just take on extra responsibility here and there as the needs come up. And pretty soon you find yourself in a place where it's really not clear who owns "this" ... there are some really important things that nobody owns and some things that two or three people all think they own it.
So we need to step back and say, ok, lets' take a fresh look at this and make sure everyone is really clear about who owns what, what are you accountable for, and what resources do we have and then let them go forth and empower them. So that's what we're doing right now and I think in the coming months we'll be in a much better place for everyone. ... I've been very public with my team about it and they're all very supportive .... and they're quite excited for us to do that.

On building the right mix of people, skills, capabilities to execute:

I'm a big believer that, when a company is growing as fast as Skype, just keeping up with the scale and evolution of the company is a major promotion every year. So what we want to do is grow a lot of our internal talent and take bets. I'm also a big believer in taking bets on a lot of the people who have been with you from the beginning, who understand the business and culture. But I also believe in bringing experience from the outside ... who have seen this before and had to scale this way before and can help us to figure out how, as we inevitably get a little bigger, to stay agile and, in fact, I think we can get even more agile as we get bigger, if we're smart about it.

On getting employee empowerment right:

Everybody needs to know what their accountability is. I'm a believer that empowerment doesn't mean everyone can do anything ... because then everyone starts overlapping and, actually, you end up with a big mess. What empowerment means is everyone is really clear about what the company is trying to accomplish, everyone is really clear about what they're accountable for and, within that accountability, they have the scope to make all decisions. It doesn't mean they can make any decisions they want but they're really clear about where their decision making begins and ends. If you do that everybody feels empowered and we grow much faster. By the way I also believe that the best decisions you make are almost always made at the level of the working team. So I aspire to a world where very few decisions flow up to the executive ranks other than "what are we trying to solve for?" and "how much resource are we investing in any given initiative?" and "do we have the right talent?".

Next post: Managing the Skype team culture

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Yuuguu desktop sharing becomes less dependent on Skype

In their latest update, as Yuuguu launches a browser-only flash client, they complete moving participant chat from Skype right into their screen sharing application. They can because they already have the people in a collaboration session.

This adds value in two ways.

First, it keeps the visual part of the conversation right in line of sight, without any application or contextual switching. Adjacency should improve user focus and overall satisfaction.

Second, it reduces dependence on Skype's software and on Skype as a company. (Diversification vs. eggs-in-one-basket.)

Second and a half: It opens up the potential for eventually building voice conferencing into their new flash app. Although Skype remains a voice channel, Yuuguu sells access to a voice conferencing bridge. Participants can can dial in from desk or mobile phones so call quality is not affected by desktop power or connectivity and so conference calls can scale to 30 people, more than Skype's native capacity. Should they care to, Ribbit APIs make it easy to add voice right into their flash application.

The downside of embedding their own chat: people are relying on Skype's multichats and public chatrooms for extended conversations. So a Skype chat could both precede/trigger and follow a Yuuguu session. In that case, increasingly common in workplace teams, using Yuuguu's chat feature will leave a hole in the Skype chat archive.

Wishlist: A perfect implementation would have the Skype chat move into the Yuuguu flash experience. So the yuuguu chat and Skype chat were exactly the same and nearly synchronous. This would let people in a group Skype chat keep focus in the yuuguu session without giving up the personal and collective memory that lives in the Skype experience. Sadly, this isn't technically or commercially feasible with today's Skype APIs. It may become feasible if Skype executes on its vision of helping companies put Skype into their applications.

See also:

• Three big milestones in Skype's fifth year and Rumor: BT buying Ribbit, takes on Skype, Google

• Yugma Skype Edition: Cross Platform Desktop Sharing, Yugma Skype Edition Version 3: Fluid Collaboration, Yugma Skype Becomes Skype Certified

• WebDialogs Unyte Re-emerges out of IBM SameTime Group... 

• Convenos Meeting Center: Your Conference Board Room on the Internet

Technorati tags: skype, yuuguu, conferencing, desktop sharing, screen sharing, platform, platforming

Congrats to Brough Turner on his move to Dialogic

More correctly, congratulations to the globetrotting Brough Turner and the whole NMS Communications team which Dialogic is buying.

tags: broughturner, dialogic, nms

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Jim and Phil on the road

We'll both be at INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO West (ITEXPO for short) in Los Angeles tomorrow and Wednesday and at GigaOm's Mobilize 08 Thursday and Friday. If you're there, please call us. Jim's at +1 (650) 353-4610 and I'm at +1 (510) 206-1138.

tags: skype, los angeles, san francisco, itexpowest08, itexpo08, mobilize08, gigaom, gigaomnimedia, events, conferences

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edicy: the Skype-friendly web site builder

Fraktal design/engineering studio built the new Edicy service, a free web site builder. Some of the Skype alumni:

• Toivo Annus is a co-founder, working on strategy, and remains a partner at Ambient Sound Investments. Paste (toivo) into a Skype chat to see a an emoticon in his honor.

• Märt Kelder is a co-founder, manages product and engineering management.

• Andres Sehr is marketing and promoting Edicy.

• Martti Ilves leads quality assurance. 

Brought to you from Tartu (city of good thoughts), Estonia.

P.S. Send Skype alumni news to tips@skypejournal.com.

tags: skype, alumni, people, fraktal, edicy, tartu, ee, estonia

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update 1. Added Martti Ilves.

Josh Silverman

Skype CEO Josh Silverman at the Skype Inn in San Jose, California, on 12 September 2008.

tags: skype, joshsilverman

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Skype Journal Interviews Josh Silverman: The Way Ahead - An Introduction

This is the first in a series of posts resulting from in interview last Friday with Josh Silverman, Skype's recently appointed President. In this post we provide an overview of the range of topics discussed and some background to the interview.

On Friday Phil and I participated in a one hour wide ranging interview with Skype's new President, Josh Silverman. Having listened to both Skype's team and the market over the past few months, Josh is starting to take the high level measures required to grow Skype from a technology "marvel" into a full-fledged conversation infrastructure business that is "just there" when you want to converse ... anywhere, anytime. Having personally participated in a corporate restructuring over a decade ago, suffice it to say that, while technology has been rapidly changing in the interim, the basic requirements for growing a business from a "wonder" into a sustainable, world class enterprise have not changed. After all, you're dealing with human interactions and we're all still emotional beings who need motivation internally (to build a functional employee team) and a "wow" level of excitement externally (to build an appreciative user base). Some background facts that have led to the issues that Skype must address and the action plan Josh has determined to be necessary:

• Skype, in its first five years, has grown to its over $500MM annual run rate faster than either eBay or PayPal
• Skype has about 500 employees worldwide with over 150 joining in the past year
• Skype delivers about 6% by minutes of the world's international calling traffic

Recall, that during Josh's interview with Om Malik, he outlined three key growth initiatives:

• product innovation: making Skype easier to use and more reliable; the video opportunity
• paid services and their marketing:
• Skype as a platform: embedding Skype as the conversation infrastructure for devices and services.

In many ways our discussion expanded on those themes. Because of the range of topics we covered and given short posts make for easier and more readily absorbed reading than one long post, we'll cover the interview content in several posts over the coming week. But our topics will include:

• Restructuring and reorganizing with new focuses while delegating responsibility
• Skype's platform strategy and the infrastructure required to execute
• Skype's approach to the business market
• Geographical markets
• Generating broader awareness through marketing
• Tech support

Since Om had already asked the questions about Skype on iPhone and the eBay relationship, we left those out of our interview in the interest of using our time with Josh to learn more about Skype's internal evolution and the direction in which Josh sees driving Skype as a publisher of conversation infrastructure software and services.
Next: Righting the Ship

Josh talks with Om

Om Malik wrote up his interview with Skype CEO Josh Silverman today. Here's his 19 minute interview.

Factoids:

• 6% of all international calling minutes.
• $136 million revenue last quarter.

What follows is a very rough and partial transcript of the first half of the interview, starting after generic introductions. Spelling, typos, omissions, and other errors are all mine. Corrections and additions welcome. 

Om: eBay Synergy?

Josh: "Our mission is enabling the world's conversations. We aspire to be is the world's leading communications software company."

Josh: "I think that the communications industry is going through one of the great sea changes of our time. And we'll look back ten years from now at this moment in time and say this is the time when communications transitioned from being hardware to being software.

What i mean by that If you cast your mind back ten years ago, you'll remember that dedicated appliance you had called the telephone. and it was purpose built for voice and it was tied to a network that was purpose built for voice.

if you think about the world we live in today we use these multipurpose computing devices, i don't know about you, maybe 5% of my time on this is spent with voice communications. i do all kinds of other communications with it. if you look at the iPhone, it's not even a communications device. you're checking stock prices or the Internet, watching movies and listening to music. one of the applications you use on that device is around communication.

so communications moved from hardware to software.

it's now part of every device and every device is connected to a multipurpose network called the Internet.

so what that means for consumers is massive amounts of innovation, making communication richer and fuller.

again, going back to when communication was embedded in the hardware, it was only voice. now, if you think about the spectrum of communications, it goes all the way from very short twitter-like communications, in our case we call them mood messages, to chat, to voice, to video, to file transfer and online collaboration; a whole set of different modes you want to talk in, all tied together by some common services. for example one common address book, a common set of presence. and what consumers want and need is that core set of services to follow them from device to device everywhere they are.

we think Skype is uniquely well positioned to capitalize on that. in fact we think that is the future.

just like the train industry did not invent the airplane, the telephony industry is not going to invent the communications business of the future.

Om: I wrote about ten of the telephone companies getting together and building their own client. What do you make of that?

Josh: We welcome competition from all sources.

Om: If you were a betting man, when would you bet will they release a product like that?

Josh: the phone companies have not been known to be world class at building software. when ten of them get together the odds go down a lot.

the great thing about communications being in software is this is going to be a massively competitive industry. and when it's massively competitive the consumer wins.

what we need for that to happen is we need open networks.

and the world that North America lives is in today, where the carriers control the device you can use and the software you can load on the device, consumers are losing big time.

Om: I wouldn't go that far. That's Skype's argument. I don't buy that. Although I agree we're are living in a country where competition is scarce, and where it's almost like an emerging economy as far as broadband and IP networks are concerned.

Being married to eBay seems like a big mismatch.

 

...

Josh: One of the interesting things about the communications space is that it is very balkanized. cable providers against the fixed line against the wireless. and any camp you join makes as many foes as it does friends. one of the really unique things about eBay is within eBay umbrella I'm a totally neutral camp, i can work with everybody.

Om: why not just go public? spin it out of eBay? you are profitable, you've got revenues, you have customers, your are growing business like crazy. why not a standalone company?

Om: What should we as consumers be excited about?

So there's three things we're focused on right now at the highest level. Product innovation, paid services, and platform.

On the product innovation side I'd highlight a couple of things.

Skype was not the first company to do voice over the Internet, it was just the first one to make it really easy. while Skype is very easy to use, it's not easy enough. and so a lot of the innovation you should expect from us is making it even easier and even more reliable.

Another big area of focus in product innovation is going to be around video.

Video is going to be the dominant form of communication. now i don't mean that that all calls will be video calls. i think voice and chat will be table stakes and people will make the decision around which application to use based on who delivers the best, most reliable, highest value video experience. so we think video is a great source of differentiation for Skype.

On the paid services side, we have some great paid services. They're just not particularly well marketed. A lot of our users don't know we have them, we haven't named them well, we haven't described the what the value proposition is well. When people find out about them, they're delighted. We just haven't done a good job. So I think there's a lot we can do just to market our current products and services better and bring some new and exciting ones to market.

The last thing I talked about is platform. Skype has historically been a relatively closed community. now, we have created an api that has about 15000 partners working with Skype to build their capabilities into Skype. there's a massive ecosystem of people who want to build Skype into their products and services, from hardware providers who want to build Skype into flat panel televisions or cordless phones to software providers and web sites who want to build Skype in. and we should be working with all of those, we can't win if we're working with all of them one off, so we need to have a really robust platform. obviously, the within platform the area of most importance needs to be mobile.

This is a great start. Let's explore this further.

tags: skype, gigaom, ommalik, joshsilverman, strategy, competition, differentiation, positioning, marketing, partnering

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Josh talks with BusinessWeek

Catherine Holahan interviewed Skype CEO Josh Silverman. Notable factoid: Fully 10% of Skype users buy a paid service.

tags: skype, businessweek, stats, trends, financials, ebay

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Silverman says Skype targeting telecom profits

In an interview with the Mercury News, Skype CEO Josh Silverman says Skype...

plans to offer consumers and companies less expensive options for conference calls and 900 numbers

Skype...

is targeting some of the most profitable "niche" businesses of telecommunications companies.

Big profits "probably means there's significant market inefficiency," Silverman said. "Skype can come and make things more efficient for consumers and build a reasonable business for ourselves along the way."

See also:

• eBay Appoints Shopping.com's Josh Silverman as New Skype CEO, February 2008
• Skype CEO Josh Silverman -- Thoughts After the First Four Weeks, April 2008
• Josh Silverman on Skype's next five years, August 2008

tags: skype, ceo, joshsilverman

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911-ICE brings web2.0 to mobile emergency dialing

Skype doesn't offer emergency dialing. Among other things, Skype doesn't really know where you're calling from (since you could be logged in from any computer on earth).
But after you call 911 (sorry for the Americanism), what is your second step? 911ICE.org thinks you call your emergency contacts. Your family. Your neighbors. Your doctor. Your child's school.
Many mobile phones now include a special contact called ICE, short for "In Case of Emergency." 911ICE builds on this service.
Here's the model:

1. Tragedy strikes and 911 responders activate the "In Case of Emergency" (ICE) feature in your mobile phone.
2. 911ice.org alerts a list of people from your mobile's address book.
3. It connects your emergency network and drives them to a web page created for the emergency event. They can chat, email, and text updates to each other live.
4. Along the way, 911ice.org shares links to your Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault medical profiles with the emergency room and first responders.

As you recover, your ICE community supports and updates itself, bringing their collective attention to your care.
So:

• Micro-community triggered by a common event
• Different stakeholders (friends vs. doctors) see different information
• Multiple communication modes reach different people
• The triggering event is a kind of highly contextualized presence ("I've been hurt")

I so want a Skype plug-in.

tags: skype, 911ice.org, ice, 911ice, emergency, in case of emergency, calling, dialing, e911, tc50, techcrunch50

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German court bans VoIP on iPhone

Too bizarre. Read Tom Keating's post on software as thought-crime.

tags: skype, voip, germany, iphone, blocking, banning, censorship, hamburg, de, sipgate, apple, t-mobile, tmobile

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Angstro tackles people search

"Follow the right people and they'll lead you to the right information." -- Rohit Khare

Startup Angstro, launched today at TechCrunch50, takes on three challenges:

1. Disambiguating people. There are many people named Phil Wolff. Search engines and white page directories are horrible at telling us apart.
2. Finding news about people. It's one thing to find what you write about yourself on your blog or facebook. What do others say about you? How are you mentioned?  
3. Relevance and People Ranking. How do you bring the freshest, most relevant, most trustworthy news to the top?

People search fuels talk.

So does news from your social network.

Angstro could enhance Skype's people search. With Angstro, Skype could highlight opportunities to talk as your contact list updates. More than online availability or mood messages, this observed presence (not declared presence) could trigger discussion.

Congratulations to founders Rohit Khare (of CommerceNet and microformats fame) and Salim Ismail (PubSub and Confabb co-founder and Yahoo! Brickhouse). 

P.S. If your name is also Phil Wolff (or some variation), please leave a comment on my Homonymous Folk disambiguation page.

tags: angstro, tc50, techcrunch50, presence, identity, search, directory

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Vote in Business Week "Best of the Web"

Skype is one of five finalists, along with Apple iChat, Grand Central, Vonage and Gizmo Project in BusinessWeek's "Best of The Web" poll where results will be published in a special report in the September 29 issue. The poll itself seems to be at cross purposes when they say "BusinessWeek wants to know the sites you consider most valuable when it comes to getting informed, making money, having fun, and building your own online tools." I think the five candidates listed above should be described as applications as opposed to "sites". Google Chrome may be encouraging the development of browser-based applications but that does not mean stand alone applications are necessarily doomed.
When you go to the voting page, select the "Calling" category under "Online Tools" (scroll down, way down) and make your choice in the resulting pop-up. Note that there is also an option for "Other" but you'll need to provide details. Vote early (but you can't vote often); polling ends September 12.

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The Bush/McCain economy is good for Skype

The U.S. misery index is up. Unemployment is at a five year high. The US dollar is at a generational low. Home loans are hard to get and usurious if you get them. College is out of reach for millions. Petrol so expensive that people aren't traveling, are rethinking location decisions like where they work and live, how often they visit family, are cutting shopping trips and buying more online.

This is good for Skype adoption in the United States.

Cheap is Skype's gateway drug.

We substitute onlife communication for costly local and long distance travel. Telecommuting, conference calling, and team chats replace hauling your sorry atoms to meetings. 

We reinforce relationships with family and close friends as financial threats loom large. Safety in numbers, strength in tribes, even at a distance.

We look hard at our monthly spending. Compared to PSTN landlines, $5/month for 10,000 minutes in the US & Canada and a SkypeIn number looks like a lifeline. Hundreds of dollars kept in your wallet. Small businesses, also feeling economic pain, are setting up Skype and Vosky PBX-to-Skype gateways to save. Good feelings in bad times can bank loyalty money can't buy.

Will next month's 2008-Q3 numbers support the theory? We'll see.

tags: skype, economic geography, economy, trends, marketing

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Harry Potter podcast

tags: skype, podcasting, secrets of harry potter, harrypotterpodcast, podcast

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Yopi Djauhari's Flink concept phone

From Yopi Djauhari's portfolio. Flink tackles the problems of hot ears in long calls (open area above the speaker) and storage (flexible ring bends into a hook to hang the phone on a computer display.

tags: skype, flink, phone, hardware, concept, design, ergonomics, bend, hang, assembly

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Does Office 2.0 include Voice 2.0?

I'm stopping by the Office 2.0 Conference Thursday and Friday. When it started, Office 2.0 was document centric, bringing Microsoft Office to the web. Last year it became more metawork (work about work) and project/workflow oriented.

Realtime talk remains off topic.

There are a few contrary examples. Plutext.org enables live collaborative editing of Microsoft Word docs.

So where do Office 2.0 and Talk 2.0 overlap?

Simply, you have...

Talk with Office features might look like Skype plug-ins for document co-writing. Call centric with talk experience enhanced by office tool.

Office with Talk features might include collaborative spaces that add live chat room.

There's room for service-to-service interop, but we haven't seen much.

Three dimensions affect the uptake of this union:

1. Time structures
2. Engagement
3. Packaging

Time Structures

Nearly all Office 2.0 services are mostly asynchronous. While most Talk 2.0 services are nearly synchronous.

But we're seeing some blending. For example, Blackberries turn email into instant messages. Persistent IM chat rooms keep history so you can catch up on a conversation.

The other structure to time is that Live Talk is an event. It takes place in time. Divide each conversation into periods before, during and after a call. 

Before a talk, you have to discover people to engage, using a namespace, group affiliations, authentication of ID, permissions, white/yellow page directories, etc.

You'll also want to schedule your conversation using calendars, project deadlines and services that find common time windows.

If you're exceptionally lucky, someone has tools that map to-do lists to agenda items and reminder services.

During a conversation, you can augment the experience. For example, adding live chats or conferencing backchannels to desktop sharing or collaborative writing exercises.

After, you can add the conversation's debris to a team/project/process/transaction workspace. Or publish it to a blog/vlog/wiki/microblog, becoming part of your team's institutional memory, searchable, attributable.

Degrees of Engagement

You are more than an email address or Skype name. The more you share digitally, the closer your experience comes to feel like face-to-face contact. The higher the fidelity (wideband audio, high quality video) the higher you climb the ladder of engagement.

Engagement brings people into a call, make it more real, vivid, increasing focus and participation. When embedded in an Office application, that engagement improves the quality of the work experience.

Embedability

OK, so you can design solutions that exploit Talk's time, engagement, and modality attributes. How do you add talk with as little effort and as much reliability and scalability as possible?

I started off saying few Office 2.0 companies have Talk 2.0 features in their products. It's a little failure of imagination. Mostly, though, it's the companies that offer Talk 2.0 components haven't made them very embedable.

What does it take to make Talk readily embedable?

Web services. Web services let my servers talk to your servers. To start, you want access to a metatalk command language, creating accounts, groups, sessions and getting statistics, status, and reports. More, you want access to the content of conversations; the better to index and repurpose them. A startup can't force a customer to download 20MB software clients and keep them running on a desktop; they rarely have that sort of power.

Browser clients. Flash and JavaScript downloads are small and cached. So you can access your Office/Talk service from nearly anywhere. Side benefit: you aren't tied into a Talk supplier's UI, you can adapt and adjust it to meet your changing needs and your deep understanding of the workplaces you support.

The customer's name spaces. Skype commands the Skype user namespace, Microsoft Microsoft's, and so on. As an infrastructure provider, you have to go beyond that; you no longer control the customer relationship. Each Office 2.0 service will either have their own namespace ("thank you for registering at Octopz") or administer an enterprise's namespace ("set up the call using your company directory or org chart").

Security. Your security must be better than your customers' and much better than their customers' security.

Commerce. Office 2.0 companies will charge for many services, so accounting, billing, automatic payments, and revenue sharing must be part of any Talk 2.0 service offer.

Fidelity and Immediacy. Skype's been spoiling people with amazing audio quality. Skype sets expectations high. Wideband spectrum, noise reduction, echo cancellation, high resolution, fast frame rates, deep color depth, smart compression and other techniques are expected in rich clients like Skype. Thin/browser clients suffer from comparison but are in demand anyway. The same applies to the problems of latency, compute demand, and network connectivity. Skype makes it all seem easy but it isn't.

Media access. Many services don't let you manipulate IMs, audio or video during a live session. Others won't let you get them after a session. Your Office 2.0 application may have excellent reasons for touching those streams or files, solving real customer problems.

Widgets and other user-facing components. I'm still surprised at how many Voice 2.0 vendors don't make it simple for designers to add talk without knowing three programming languages and four APIs. Delivering Talk in ready-to-install UI components expands reach and embedability. 

How does Skype fit in?

Skype doesn't. This is an architecture Skype cannot deliver today.

Should Skype strive to? I believe so.

Skype's downloads earn a measure of customer lock-in. But downloading is a barrier to adoption, a problem as people use multiple devices in their onlives, and an inconvenience. Browser-based talk solves these problems for Skype's own customers.

Should Skype offer white label talk?

Others are quickly filling that gap. Jajah has 9 white labeled users for each Jajah branded user. SightSpeed is very successful in private labeling and co-branding its services. Jaduka only delivers wholesale talk. BT/Ribbit has embedding as its charter. Voxeo is years ahead of Skype on its voice platform.

An embedding strategy is within Skype's reach.

The theme of 2009's Office 2.0 conference?

I'm betting on talkification.

tags: skype, jajah, sightspeed, jaduka, ribbit, voxeo, talk, talkification, talk 2.0, office 2.0, talk20, office20, embedding, embedability, voip

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My "Back to the Future" Experience

When I started learning about the new Google Chrome browser yesterday, ghosts of past PC software were awakened. In a post on GigaOm, Chrome-Induced Deja Vu, I have related how reading about Google Chrome as a web browser brought back thoughts of my days involving Quarterdeck where we had a product that provided application multi-tasking and dealt with memory management issues on DOS-based PC's as early as twenty-two years ago. The post concludes with a summary of my thoughts on where Google Chrome will play a role in the ongoing evolution of Web 2.0.

One final question: Can we ever expect to see Skype have any advantages as a web-based application?

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Skype account hijackings?

"We're still trying to understand how the attackers are commandeering the accounts. There are no reports of phishing emails or other attempts at social engineering. And the Skype client encrypts usernames and passwords during the login process, making a man-in-the-middle attack unlikely."

Skype ignores PayPal siphoning hijack scheme
Dan Goodin of The Register

Skype forum threads on this go back to late July 2008: Password changed while NOT on Skype; Skype account hacked, locked out.

We'll be asking Skype PR to comment.

tags: skype, security, identity, privacy

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