Skype Journal: Monday In-Box
June 12, 2005 02:59 AMSociologists keep trying to explain that phones are a rich medium for research. My Social Fabric is a tool for helping you visualize, analyze, and manage your own contacts, associates, friends, and family. When was the last time you called your mother? Can't wait for the Skype plug-in. via the We make money not art blog, via Emily on Smartmobs. Visualizes the state of your relationships, including how often you contact people and how.
In the media...
Skype Me! (The Book), is coming out soon. By Markus Daehne of the German Skype forums.
BusinessWeek cover package for June 20, 2005: The Power of Us: Mass collaboration on the Internet is shaking up business.
The 35 employees at Meiosys Inc., a software firm in Palo Alto, Calif., didn't know they were joining a gang of telecom-industry marauders. They just wanted to save a few bucks. Last year they began using Skype, a program that lets them make free calls over the Internet, with better sound quality than regular phones, using headsets connected to their PCs. Callers simply click on a name in their Skype contact lists, and if the person is there, they connect and talk just like on a regular phone call. "Better quality at no cost," exults Meiosys Chief Executive Jason Donahue. Poof! Almost 90% of his firm's $2,000 monthly long-distance phone bill has vanished. With 41 million people now using Skype, plus 150,000 more each day, it's no wonder AT&T (T ) and MCI Inc. (MCIP ) are hanging it up.How can a tiny European upstart like Skype Technologies S.A. do a number on a trillion-dollar industry? By dialing up a vast, hidden resource: its own users. Skype, the newest creation from the same folks whose popular file-sharing software Kazaa freaked out record execs, also lets people share their resources -- legally. When users fire up Skype, they automatically allow their spare computing power and Net connections to be borrowed by the Skype network, which uses that collective resource to route others' calls. The result: a self-sustaining phone system that requires no central capital investment -- just the willingness of its users to share. Says Skype CEO Niklas Zennström: "It's almost like an organism."
WaPo letter to the editor: Someone Pays for That 'Free' Phone Call
Regardless of whether one finds Niklas Zennstrom's unusual business ventures right or wrong ["File-Sharing Pioneer Turns to Free Internet Calling," front page, June 4], it is important to note that his "free" Internet file- exchange and "free" phone services are not actually free and require a complex infrastructure that is maintained and paid for by someone.Jonathan Krim's article on Skype Technologies SA made it seem as though the lack of a traditional telephone network, with poles and wires and technicians, somehow means that Skype does not require any infrastructure to operate. While the service may be free to the public, the Internet on which it depends is a complex hardware and software network that is maintained by an assortment of private and public entities. This doesn't come free, which is why Internet users must generally pay a service provider for access and why many useful Web sites are festooned with advertising.
If Mr. Zennstrom had to pay for even a micro-fraction of the infrastructure that make his "free" ventures work, he would have been out of business before he started.
ERIC WENOCUR, Silver Spring
Skype makes friends...
Distribution agreements in time for summer... Mobile phone distributor Brightpoint, strong in retail and college markets, will promote Skype through its channels. In a similar arrangement, Intel will bundle Skype
.
"Intel will revamp a heap of its software utilities and bits and bobs in the second half of this year. ... It will also introduce a series of promotions in the second half of this year, including Premium Video, Digital Media Adaptor, Remote Control - a Logitech Harmony remote - and a VoIP Skype offer as bundles."
In the world of products, a little irony: Packet conditioner and policy manager supports Skype. The same system blocks KaZaA.
Popular Telephony announces they're shipping what I call a "Something-Skype Right Now Product": PeerioBiz with Gateway for Skype Peer-To-Peer VoIP System for SoHo. This leverages Skype's hotness and user base, fitting Peerio's decentralized architecture. More telephony vendors will follow.
Another meaning for mobile: Skype on a USB memory stick from U3. Just made for the millions who use Internet cafes. And the rest of us who want to keep their personal Skype voice mail, contacts, and call logs off a company computer.
Someonenew.com launches the German version of their dating site.
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Comments (1)
Thanks for the wonderful news bits! Good job.
Posted by: Rick at June 13, 2005 1:06 PM