Skype Journal

Three: One Billion Skype Minutes Served

2010-02-09T08:57:00.001-08:00

Skype's Linda Summers told Monday's Mobile Monday London audience that Hutchison's 3 mobile network served one billion Skype minutes on its 3 Skypephones and other Skype-enabled phones in the UK, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Australia and Hong Kong. Those Skype calls run through Skype's Skype Lite servers, a potential Skype as a Web Service Platform.

Update: Minister for Digital Britain the Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP rings up the "billionth minute."

Thanks to James Body for the tip, to Paul Downey for the notes.

tags: skype, statistics, stats, trends, audioboo, gips, hdvoice, omtp

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Icons for a data portability policy – a few thoughts

2010-01-27T05:36:00.000-08:00

I sat down with the DataPortability Project's Elias Bizannes a few months ago to organize the elements of a model portability policy. Your site's portability policy will be part of your Terms of Service or End User License Agreement. Your portability policy should help your sites and services communicate the data portability parts of your relationship with the people who use them and your business partners.

I'm heading down to an all day privacy forum co-hosted by Lauren Gelman and Mozilla this morning to discuss what browsers might do with a "privacy" icon.

The Clusters

We clustered portability policy questions into five stacks: Start, Sync, Access, Share, and End. I sketched five icons:

I cleaned them up a bit, but they are still rough:

Between the five, you'll see questions about the lifecycle of your relationship with a site, from its start to its finish. You'll also see questions about the power to manage your portability through interoperability.

The questions

We mapped these questions for your portability policy to the icons.

The questions can be answered by choosing Yes/No or from a short multiple choice list. Policy explanations, links, and actionable information are optional.

These questions are the work of the DataPortability Projects ToS/EULA Working Group over 2008 and 2009.

Start.

How well do you welcome me, my history, my friends?

Are your import and export APIs and formats documented?

Yes
No
Suggested: If Yes,where are they documented?

Do people need to create a new identity for this site, or can they use an existing one?

New Identity - The person is expected to create a fresh identity that is used on this site. This site does not trust a third party to authenticate identity.
Existing Identity - The person can register an account that is accessed using an identity authenticated by some third party. This product assumes that, by selecting a third party to authenticate their identity, the person accepts that third party as trustworthy.
Suggested: If Existing Identity, what identity services will you support?

Sync.

How do you keep my data fresh?

Must people import things into this product, or can the product refer to things stored someplace else? Can this product work with objects and information whose "authoritative home" is another product, or can this product only work with things that it hosts directly?

Must Host - In order for this product to work with a thing, it must be hosted directly.
Can Refer - This product has the ability to access and work with things that are hosted by third parties, assuming that the third party allows this.
Suggested: If Can Refer, what items can be stored elsewhere and under what conditions?

Can this site accept updates that users make on other sites? In cases where the product tracks or manages things that the person has stored on some third party product, can this product watch the third party for updates?

One Time Import - This product only sees the remote thing at import time, and does not watch for changes.
Watch For Updates - This product watches the third party for changes, and updates its own view of the remote thing to match.
Suggested: If Yes, what types of items and under what conditions?

Access.

How well do you help me use and manage my information?

Can the person allow other sites to use the things they've created or updated here? Does this product provide a way for third parties to authenticate a person and read or write?

No Access - The person must use this product to read or access whatever it manages.
Third Parties Can Read - The person can provide the third party with authentication credentials, and can read data managed by this product.
Third Parties Can Write - The person can provide the third party with authentication credentials, and can write data managed by this product.
Suggested: If Yes, what technical protocols are supported and how can users manage the authority they give other sites?

Can the person download or remotely access a copy of everything they've provided to this service? As part of their standard use of most products, people import or create things. Does this product provide an open, DRM-free way for people to retrieve or access via third party all of the things they've created or provided?

No Access - This product does not offer the person the ability to download the things they've provided.
Remote Access - The product provides an open, DRM-free way for people to download all of the things they've provided to the product, or remotely access it using a third party product.
Suggested: If Yes, how and in what forms?

Do you disclose where my data is being kept in the real world?

Yes
No
Suggested: If Yes, where can I learn where my data is kept?

Can I control where my data is kept in the real world?

Yes
No
Suggested: If Yes, how can I exercise those controls?

Share.

How well do you help me share well with others?

If person updates something here, is that change stored only by this product or can the person ask this product to store it elsewhere? Can this product accept some other site as being the authoritative home of a thing it knows about?

Must Be Authoritative - This product assumes that it is the authoritative home of all things it manages, and does not update third parties.
Can Update Remote - This product can work with a third party that is assumed to be authoritative. All updates made by the person using this product are also forwarded to the third party.
Suggested: If Yes, how does it work in practice?

Can the person download or remotely access information that others have provided to the product? In cases where the product allows download or remote access, can the person export or access all of the data to which they have access, or only data which they have directly created?

Provider Only - This person may only export or access data which they have directly provided.
Full Access - The person may export or download any data to which they have access on this product, subject to reasonable usage and abuse rules.
Suggested: If Yes, how and in what forms and with what other services or protocols?

End.

How well do you support a graceful exit from our relationship?

Will this site delete an account and all associated data upon a user's request? If the user creates a password or account for use with this product, does the product provide a way to cancel the account and erase all data associated with it?

Immortal Accounts - Accounts or passwords, once created, are assumed to live for as long as the product is available. Desktop applications and other stand-alone products that do not have host services may have no way to remotely revoke accounts or passwords.
Data Expires - If this product acts as a hub, the data it copies from other sites will expire in a set amount of time. This product must be linked to a place where it can refresh or synchronize data in order to stay current.
Accounts Deleted Upon Request - This product has the ability to remove a person's account and all relevant data, and will do so when requested by the person or third party with appropriate legal standing.
Suggested: If Yes, where can I find the procedure to request deletion.

Do you give notice before terminating the account?

Yes
No
Suggested: If Yes, how much notice do you give and in what forms?

Can you recover a terminated account?

Yes
No
Suggested: If Yes, how thoroughly, under what conditions, how quickly, and how is recovery triggered?

Do you have a posted appeals process or dispute resolution procedure?

Yes
No
Suggested: If Yes, where are the procedures posted?

Going Forward.

The questions and the clusters are works in progress. We're open to better questions, clusters, and definitely better labels and designs. These are just placeholders for better, official art.

I hope they serve a few common goals.

Make it easier to learn and understand the overall scope of a portability policy.
Make it easier to find the parts of a policy you care about.
Provide the visual part of semantic encoding that browsers and search engines can use to discover and understand where and what a site's policies are stored.

Things to do with the icons:

Confirm the policy asks the right questions
Prioritize and boil down for the Goldilocks Test: Not too much, not too little, just right
Design an icon for the whole portability policy
Design UI/UX behavior for what happens when you click on the portability policy icon
Make the icons work better everywhere (cultures, visual impairments, sizes) and vet for semiotic conflict and mark infringement
Semantic encoding (microformats, anyone?) that works across access methods
Write the legal layer, creating plain language boilerplate that works for the business, for their lawyers, for site partners, and for users. Vary for world legal systems. Translate.

Join DataPortability.org's general mailing list to help or the low-volume announcements only mailing list for updates.

tags: dataportability, dataportabilityproject, dpp, icons, icon, portability, policy, portabilitypolicy

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Skype Journal FAQ: Do I pay roaming when my son Skype's me from Argentina?

2010-01-26T09:41:00.001-08:00

Q. My son Skyped my mobile phone from Argentina. Will I see expensive international rates or roaming fees on my next bill? – Dad in USA.

A. No. That was a local call as far as your phone company is concerned. Your son only paid "SkypeOut" rates, about $1.20 per hour. Aren't you glad your boy learned to use the Internet?

tags: skype, pricing, skypeout

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Vivu plugs multiparty video into Skype for Windows

2010-01-25T00:34:00.000-08:00

$10 a month gets you multiparty video conferencing, screen/application sharing, browser and phone access for your guests, and video broadcasting. Vivu's VuRoom for Skype plugs-in to your Windows and Mac Skype clients. VuRoom launches your session using the Skype client. Vivu notifies your invitees to your call through a Skype chat. They can launch into the room through their own copy of VuRoom or click on a link to the browser version. Your meeting uses Skype's encrypted, high quality audio channel. Here's a flash demo, an offer for a 15 day trial account, and details on subscribing to VuRoom.

Vivu isn't the first company to offer multiparty video for Skype, but their timing is excellent. Hundreds of millions of Skype users now appreciate video calling, paving the way in customer appreciation and behavior. This plug-in helps Vivu extend its market reach to Skype's large user base and builds on the love and trust people have for the Skype brand.

Vivu's core business is hosting webcasts, some with ten thousand attendees, and virtual meeting rooms. It's a highly competitive space: Apple iChat, iVisit, MeBeam, Paltalk, PeerMe, SightSpeed, ooVoo, ekko, TokBox, Dimdim, and WebEx are prominent in supporting multiple parties in video chat as part of the meetings.

Skype could easily target this market segment as it turns to business markets. Will Skype compete with partners like Vivu for customer attention, as they have with one-to-one video calling software partners and with desktop sharing software partners?

tags: skype, vivu, vuroom, video, videochat, videoconference, videoconferencing, software, plug-in, iChat, iVisit, MeBeam, Paltalk, PeerMe, SightSpeed, ooVoo, ekko, TokBox, Dimdim, WebEx

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Skype gave away $12.9 billion in free international calls in 2009

2010-01-22T03:22:00.000-08:00

One in nine cross-border minutes was a free Skype-to-Skype call last year. That's $12.9 billion in international calls Skype gave its users for free assuming Skype's customers would pay a world average market price of roughly $0.24 per minute.

Did Skype take those billions from telephone companies?

Just a little.

Telephone companies don't offer much in the way of differential pricing, charging more to people who'd pay more and less to people who'd pay less. So they leave a large underserved market.

Skype is happy to serve them.

Skype is also making the market bigger. When you make Skype-to-Skype calls, you don't worry about the cost of the call; just your time and your Internet connection. Skype voice calls can run for hours without anyone feeling anxious about using up minutes or the phone bill. So not only is Skype bringing underserved callers into the international calling market, Skype is encouraging them to speak longer and call more often.

Looking at the chart, people have been substituting Skype's free/cheap, simply priced, IM-style calling for expensive, unpredictable, and hard-to-dial PSTN calls. This bids down the market price of all calls. That's been going on for years; the average price is one fifth of what it was fifteen years' ago. It also slows the growth of PSTN calling as people switch to Skype.

The trend line shows Skype serving 75 billion minutes this year and 100 billion in 2011. That assumes Skype doesn't do anything new, like improving virality, usability, availability, presence, accessibility. You know: things that bring more people in and get them to call more people, more often, for more minutes.

tags: skype, competition, international, longdistance, pricing, chart, stats, statistics, trends

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Skype weighs in on Clinton's response to China Internet freedom

2010-01-21T14:59:00.001-08:00

Skype wasn't a target of the recent attack on Google and thirty other companies. Google is considering leaving China, where they believe the attacks originated. The United States government has not adopted a position until today's speech by Hilary Clinton on Internet Freedom. Here is Skype's official response to the Secretary's speech. I'll comment below.

SKYPE LAUDS U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT FOR PROTECTING INTERNET’S FREEDOM TO CONNECT PEOPLE ACROSS BORDERS

WASHINGTON, January 21, 2010 – Skype, the global internet communications company whose mission is to enable the world’s conversations, applauds Secretary Clinton, her senior adviser for innovation, Alec Ross, the State Department and the U.S. government for embracing and defending the principles of freedom of expression, privacy, and the freedom to connect to the Internet, as well as for their use of Web 2.0 tools for 21st century statesmanship.

“Conducting international relations by encouraging online interaction is an example of the Internet’s power to change the way governments and people around the world engage as part of one global community,” said Staci Pies, Skype’s Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs. “Secretary Clinton’s concerted effort to transform the State Department’s role from traditional ‘government-to-government diplomacy’ to ‘people-to-people diplomacy’ is a clear recognition that more and more people around the globe are turning to technologies like Skype to freely connect with one another across borders and to increasingly facilitate diplomacy, interaction and understanding.”

It seems State heard Rebecca MacKinnon's guidance on how not to save the Internet by focusing on human rights to connect. How will these high minded aspirations become policy? Can we expect tariffs on goods from censoring countries? "This product made by people with a censored Internet" product labels?

tags: skype, clinton, china, freedomtoconnect, freedom, freespeech, us, usa

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Skype for Kindle? No way, says Amazon.

2010-01-20T22:50:00.001-08:00

Wouldn't it be cool to have book readers that could IM and offer presence? Maybe take or make phone calls? Now that Amazon announced it will open its Kindle book readers to third party developers, Skype could build an app for this new platform.

No it can't. Amazon warns "Voice over IP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way are not allowed."

I can think of three reasons for this ban:

Amazon is worried about using up a year's worth of data plan with one long phone call.
Amazon contracted to ban VoIP at the request of its mobile carriers.
Amazon wants to reserve VoIP for a future Kindle product. The Amazon phone?

Kindles have a mobile phone built in and a lifetime data plan, apparently a dream VoIP device (although better speakers, a microphone, and a webcam would be nice). Amazon will require apps to pay for data transfers at $0.15 per megabyte. So I'm betting Amazon is most concerned with keeping the costs of their mobile plan affordable for users.

tags: skype, amazon, netneutrality, voip, blocking

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Christopher Dean speaking at ITExpo Thursday

2010-01-18T20:52:00.001-08:00

The VoIP industry conference in Miami, Florida, hasn't published the title of Skype's chief strategy officer's Thursday morning keynote. If you're attending, drop a line to tips@skypejournal.com or @skypejournal. Here's hoping Dean will speak to Skype's VoIP channel strategy, Skype's role in wideband audio VoIP, and Skype's struggle for access to mobile broadband.

Skype trunking lets your phone system dial out through the Skype network at SkypeOut rates. Now that Skype trunking products are shipping for legacy PBXs (see VoSKY's SMB gateways), Asterisk-based switches, and some Cisco, ShoreTel, and SIPfoundry PBXs, what will Skype do for the VoIP hardware and service distribution channels? When will Avaya, Nortel, Mitel, NEC and others offer Skype trunking? What does the channel need from Skype? Can Skype offer the channel meaningful commissions?

Have the hundreds of millions of Skype customers changed consumer expectations for all audio quality? Is Skype driving demand for HD telephony? What barriers remain to upgrading the mobile and enterprise networks to HD audio?

On the regulatory front, is Skype's appeal for net neutrality, for an open Internet, for equal access getting any support with the VoIP industry? The VoIP industry serves incumbent telcos and opposes their political agenda at great risk. Can Skype frame its issues to earn mindshare at ITExpo East?

tags: skype, voip, itexpo, vosky, asterisk, shoretel, sipfoundry, avaya, nortel, mitel, nec, trunking, skypeforsip

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Skype Dialtone: 22 million online.

2010-01-18T17:50:00.001-08:00

22,268,233 Skype clients logged in at the same time, up from the 21.5 million record last Monday.

Here's the updated trendline going back from the beginning.

While a straight line explains 97% of the data, a polynomial regression fit gets us to 99%. The curve guesses 26 million people online at the same time by year's end. This on a base of more than 520 million user accounts.

My crude estimate puts active Skype users, people who log in over a two week period, about 132 million. This allows for different time zones and for people who use Skype for very short sessions during a month.

tags: skype, stats, statistics, trends, online, trend, charts, graphics, performance, dialtone, dialtone density, chart, simultaneous, concurrent

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Tip: Include Skype Calls in Your Ustream Broadcast (Mac)

2010-01-13T09:59:00.001-08:00

This instructional video is courtesy of lockergnome. Ustream.tv lets you broadcast a live video over the web. Here's how to add Skype calls to your show with a Mac and Audio Hijack Pro.

tags: skype, ustream, ustream.tv, broadcasting, streaming, video, tip, tips, tricks, howto, production

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CES: Reclaiming your dead gear is good for the planet

2010-01-13T09:19:00.001-08:00

[Editor: I'm sorry for the extreme close-up in the first minute. Finger slipped on the camera.]

When your old phone is burned, shredded, melted or otherwise recycled, chances are good that CWG will touch it. CWG of Bohemia, New York, keeps old phones out of landfill.

Your mobile phone company collects old phones from customers, then pass the gear to CWG. CWG sanitizes the gear, erasing customer data; fear of leaving personal or company data on a phone is a top reason for not recycling phones. CWG then salvages phone parts and tinier components from old handsets. Returning those parts to the phone company service department can save thirty to sixty percent on repair parts inventory.

If the people who put your phone into the ground are morticians, companies like CWG are the transplant team harvesting organs to save other phones.

tags: cwg, ces, ces2010, 2010, recycling, mobile, phones, hardware, reverselogistics, privacy

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Skype Dialtone: 21.5 million simultaneous online – new record

2010-01-11T23:54:00.001-08:00

Dialtone is a promise. It's the promise of connection. To humanity, to family, to government and social services. It's a promise your phone will ring when someone calls.

Skype Journal,
20 August 2007

Skype's dialtone continues to grow. 21.5 million people were logged in on Skype's network Monday, 11 January. Compare this to Tencent's QQ instant messenger network, boasting a dialtone of 75.5 million at the end of 2009q3.

Skype's dialtone reached 20 million on November 9, 2009. That puts growth at 25K more people getting online daily, net of people who leave the network, in the last 63 days.

How fast is that growth? If everyone at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show signed up during its four days, they'd be skyping by now.

This continues a fairly linear trend.

Skype's dialtone is a product of:

The number of people with accounts.
The amount of time they spend logged in on any given day or over week.

Dialtone is good for Skype. It measures the chances that someone you know (or someone you don't know) is available to talk. Dialtone shows the strength of Skype's network effects, its capacity.

Skype encourages dialtone growth with every strategy. Device choice, so you connect how you like. Wi-Fi access, so you connect wherever you are. Usability so people stay connected and use the network. Skype for Business, so people use Skype even more at work.

tags: skype, stats, statistics, trends, online, trend, charts, graphics, performance, dialtone, dialtone density, chart, simultaneous, concurrent

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Why is collaboration underserved by software?

2010-01-06T13:32:00.001-08:00

The founders of Helsinki startup Flowdock say you need online/collaborative services to focus on teams, combining the real time aspect of Google Wave and the simplicity of Yammer. You need to be able to stay in close touch with your team without complexity while organizing the team's data. On YouTube.

tags: collaboration, finland, coordination, communication, simplicity

CES2010: Make a Skype call. Take a Skype break.

2010-01-06T09:10:00.001-08:00

Skype is sponsoring the email stations. Or should we call them Skype stations? This one was in the Venetian around the corner from the press room.

Nicely done. Useful to attendees (Vonage sponsored free phone call booths in the past). Visible and memorable. Presumably low cost.

Skype has a much lower footprint at this CES than before. No eBay booth, no lavish parties, no press conference, no sponsored VIP zone. They're taking meetings and will be reporting from the show floor for the Skype blog.

tags: skype, marketing, promotions, ces, #ces2010, skypestation, kiosk.

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Glee TV Show music team follows the sun with Skype

2010-01-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

And they sing, too.

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

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

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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CES2010: Skype for Television

2010-01-04T21:15:00.001-08:00

The user interface is very similar to the ASUS video phone. I'll have more for you from CES tomorrow. For now, here's their blog post, the @skypeonyourtv twitter page, and text from Skype's news release:

Skype-enabled Televisions

Skype is already renowned for popularizing video calling and bringing people closer together through rich, real-time communication. With Skype embedded into Internet-connected HDTVs, the company is creating a new experience that will allow people to communicate from the comfort of their living rooms.

The new HDTVs will deliver familiar Skype features including:

Free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls

Calls to landline or mobile phones at Skype’s low rates

The option to receive inbound calls via a user’s online Skype number

Skype voicemail, if it is set up

Being invited to participate in voice conference calls with up to 24 other parties

Support for up to 720p HD video calls, depending on the availability of high-speed broadband

and a HD webcam

At CES, Skype announced partnerships with LG and Panasonic to offer Skype–enabled HDTVs. Skype software will be embedded into Panasonic’s line of 2010 VIERA CAST-enabled HDTVs and LG’s 26 new LCD and plasma HDTVs with NetCast Entertainment Access™. Both lines are expected to be available in mid-2010. Both LG and Panasonic will offer specially-designed HD webcams that are optimized for Skype video calls as separate accessories that can be plugged into the televisions.

These webcams support 720p HD and include special microphones and optics that can pick up sound and video from a couch-distance.

“The popularity of Skype video calling has increased substantially in recent years with an average of 34% of Skype-to-Skype calls now including video,” added Silverman. “For many people who are video calling on Skype, they have expressed a desire to communicate with their friends and family from somewhere comfortable, and preferably on a big screen. Logically, this led to the development of Skype embedded on HDTVs.”

Skype recommends uninterrupted high-speed broadband of at least 1 Mbps symmetrical bandwidth to achieve 720p HD-quality video calls on either a PC or television.

For more information about Skype-enabled televisions, please visit skype.com/go/TV or view a demonstration during CES at the Panasonic (Central 9405) or LG (Central 8205) booths.

tags: ces2010, skype, panasonic, viera, netcast, lg, hdtv, ces, hd, webcam, webcams

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CES2010: Skype 4.2 supports 1280 x 720 HD video calls

2010-01-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

I have good news and bad news from Las Vegas.

The good news: Skype for Windows 4.2 Beta will triple your screen resolution from High Quality 640x480 to 720p HD 1280 x 720. Download the Beta now (full install). You'll need a 1 Mbps connection between the two callers. You'll also need a new HD webcam and PC with a 1.8 GHz dual-core processor.

The bad news in three parts:

First, it's just for Windows now. No word on when the Mac or Linux versions will support HD.

Second, HD webcams that will support Skype HD video aren't shipping. The first ones will ship in March from faceVsion (the FV TouchCam N1) and from Skype's close partner, In Store Solutions (Freetalk HD PRO and Freetalk HD PRO PLUS). They will be available through Skype.com.

Last, Skype has not published open specifications for webcam manufacturers, explaining how to design for and integrate with Skype. So hundreds of webcam makers won't be able to meet public demand from Skype users. It's still who-you-know business at Skype.

faceVsion will offer demos of its upcoming webcams at the Palazzo during CES.

tags: skype, video, hd, hidef, highdefinition, 720p

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Call for Startups: StartupCamp Telephony #sct

2010-01-03T12:03:00.001-08:00

"Ready, Set, Pitch" your startup at StartupCamp Telephony Edition (#SCT)Thursday, January 21, 2010 from 5:30 PM - 10:00 PM, Miami Beach, Florida. "Five startups will be selected to give brief 5-minute “pitch” presentations following which the panel and audience will ask questions, and provide 5-10 minutes of valuable feedback. Early stage companies wishing to be included in the pitch roster should [apply to present]." Participation is free.

This first SCT will be held in conjunction with Rich Tehrani's Internet Telephony Expo East 2010 (ITEXPO), Thomas Howe's Cloud Communications Summit, 4G Wireless Evolution Conference, Digium Asterisk World, and Machine-to-Machine: Transformers on the Net Internet telemetry conference. The audience will be a great fit for entrepreneurs seeking partnerships, press, or a corporate investor.

Deadline: Apply to pitch by Tuesday, 5 January, end of day.

tags: startupcamp, startupcamptelephony, telephonystartupcamp, #sct, pitchcamp, startups, voip, telephony, communications, itexpo

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Intercontinental Exorcism via Skype Video Call

2010-01-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

An Israeli rabbi tries to dispossess a Brazilian student, according to The Jewish Chronicle. Over Skype. I'm not making this up. A video of Rabbi Batzri and his backup team on the Skype call.

“After it was determined that it would be extremely difficult to bring the student to Israel, arrangements were made to remove the dybbuk using Skype and a computer, permitting the rabbi and the student to see each other,” kikar.net said.

Aside from avoiding possession-by-dybbuk, this story shows how small communities in diaspora continue to strengthen ties to each other over the Internet.

People now ask if you can do the work over a Skype video call before buying airplane tickets. Skype's free in-network calling also means you can take all the time your exorcism needs; hours in this case.

Another proof point that Skype disintermediates international telephone companies and airlines.

tags: skype, religion, dybbuk, dybuk, brazil, israel, video, exorcism, judaism, hebrew

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Phil Wolff's 67 Reckless Predictions for 2010

2009-12-30T14:25:00.000-08:00

In 2010...

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

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

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

tags: skype, future, predictions

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

2009: The Year even Clooney lost out to Video Communications.

2009-12-29T17:16:00.001-08:00

Guest post by Larry Lisser, the man behind the Telephony2Market blog, instigator of the first Startup Camp Telephony Edition (21 January 2010, Miami), and an Emerging Communications Conference alum. He's the go-to consultant for helping emerging communications startups position, package and get to market growth.

Recently, I made the obligatory trip to George Clooney's latest movie, 'Up in the Air.' Predictable results followed: Clooney played the same guy he often does and my wife was just happy to have watched his pretty face on the big screen for two hours. What I didn't expect was to see how central video communications was to the story line. This got me thinking.

There can be little debate that the year 2009 was the best yet for video communications. After years of false starts (i.e. before widespread broadband) and then a somewhat remarkably slow start even once its quality issues were no longer, video found its legs this year. Indicators of video's accelerating market momentum were everywhere, coming at us in the forms of mainstream media coverage, viral user base growth and of course M&A activity.

The acquisition roster proved to be the strongest evidence yet. By the time the year was done, we counted three buyers and four deals with bets aimed squarely on the future of video over IP communications. Grand total: in excess of $6B. No small bets by the buyers of Tandberg, Skype, LifeSize and SightSpeed (in order of transaction size).

Now back to Clooney. He played a hired grinch; someone who traveled the world every week to deliver pink slip news on behalf of his firm's corporate clients. Early in the plot, an upstart member of his own head office team tried to re-write his playbook though - and eliminate travel expenses - by introducing video as a means to fire people from afar.

Clooney pushed back (charmingly, of course), professing that what he did for a living required in-person communications and could not be done as effectively by camera. I'll let you discover the rest at the movies, but suffice to say that I came away with a few year-end revelations about video:

What we once thought to be the obvious and pervasive applications for video (i.e. travel replacement), may not end up being the ones that spur exponential growth. Think video as a component of a process and not just as an advanced form of communications.
The video enabled call center is coming. Actually, it's already here but few of us have experienced it real-time. Imagine for a moment the difference in empathy you and an agent might exchange during a heated customer service conversation about a canceled flight - if you were looking at each other.
I'm shifting terminology from 'Video-Conferencing' to 'Visual Communications'. The former has become too limiting. Conferencing implies just that, while visual communications can and will mean so much more.

So the year ends with bankers, end-users, the media and now Hollywood having told us that 2010 and beyond hold much more than just promise for video communications. As Andy Abramson put properly into context for us this week, if VoIP was the industry of the decade, the next ten year will belong to video over IP. Or Visual Communications, if you prefer.

tags: skype, video, trends, 2009, upintheairmovie, termination, firing

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

Gifts for the Skype crowd

2009-12-24T00:58:00.001-08:00

Gear: The Better to Hear and See All Year Long

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

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

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

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

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

Software: To Record and Share

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

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

Skype Journal Video Grooming Kit:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UK broadband miles behind its counterparts

2009-12-20T16:11:00.001-08:00

Guest post by Shahul Hameed, broadband analyst at VAC Media. Shahul reports on UK broadband provider performance, technologies, and markets for VAC's Broadband Suppliers site.

Will instant downloads ever happen here? Can we play online and watch videos without interruption? We have been expecting these changes with our UK broadband services a long time.

A recent study by Broadband Suppliers states our international peers, especially South Korea and Japan, are miles a head of the United Kingdom. Even though the UK ranks among the top thirty richest nations, the UK's telecommunication infrastructure is worse than rest of Europe and most of the countries in the world.

South Korea, for example, is the first country in the world to bring fiber optic cable connections to every school nationwide. Online games are a national event.

The maximum broadband speed offered in UK is 50 Mbps while the average monthly bill shoots up to 10 times higher than other countries. Expert analysis claims houses in most part of the country still connect to exchanges using old BT copper wires. Copper wires do not have better data carrying capacity compared to fiber optic cables. Moreover, the longer the wires are from the exchange, the slower the speed will be. The fiber optic cables have been laid in major cities while other parts of the country still wait for network expansion.

The Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) recently announced that the UK is worse on broadband penetration by standard measures. They also reported that one in every five users (21%) express dissatisfaction with broadband speeds. 16% are dissatisfied with the price of the plan and 13% with the reliability and performance of the connection. Almost 26% of customers say broadband providers set a wrong expectation about connection speed.

Some of the major factors affecting speeds include:

Line capacity of the ISP's
Cable quality
Distance between the residents and exchange

Awareness about the speed of the broadband is mixed. Many people are well informed about the factors affecting speed and choose the fastest ISP, while almost 40% are unaware of the head line speed. Broadband suppliers continue to mislead the public regarding download speeds and tag customers with higher prices. This was also reported and criticized by Ofcom this year.

The UK Government should speed up the process of laying fiber optic cables and increase the coverage of wireless networks. Else we will remain in the 26th position or fall further when it comes to the quality of broadband service in the world, while competitors like Japan and South Korea are future ready.

tags: uk, broadband, rok, southkorea

Free Speech Activists Use Skype Data Channel To Bypass Government Censorship

2009-12-15T04:06:00.000-08:00

Skype Journal is blocked by China's government. Millions work around censorship and monitoring with networking tools like GTunnel. The GTunnel proxy on your PC connects to GTunnel servers. The client connects directly, through the TOR network, or through the Skype network. Connecting through Skype assures your packets are encrypted from beginning to end. This hides your IP address from servers. This also circumvents blockades of target servers like mine.

GTunnel is run by Garden Networks for Freedom of Information, a member of the Global Information Freedom Consortium. When you combine GTunnel with UltraSurf, FreeGate, FirePhoenix, GPass, and Ranking you get a complete suite for surviving online censorship and monitoring.

Caution for Chinese users: Skype cannot assure what you download from TOM-Skype does not include spyware. So download the international version from the Skype.com site or another independent source.

tags: security, censorship, iran, china, gfw, encryption, anonymity, gtunnel, anti-jamming system, jamming, blocking, blocks, blocked, globalinformationfreedom, gift

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

Collaboration Lego Style

2009-12-14T10:25:00.000-08:00

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

tags: lego, collaboration, family, commercial, house

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