Skype Journal: Communicating Through Others

June 29, 2005 08:59 PM

Last week at Supernova I ended up sitting next to a guy who really knew how to flood the back channel (IRC) putting his own spin on things. Just before lunch I learned he was Tom Coates, who consistently writes a blog with a great point of view. Yesterday I discovered he had paraphrased nicely what I'd said:

"I ask people two questions - 'what's your skype strategy?' and 'what's your presence strategy?' - Skype moves your use of voice from telephony to a kind of intercom where rather than closing a line down you just temporarily mute it. The social net reflects a revolution in the way that we use our tools. There's always been a tension to use a communications technology to get things done, but now communications technologies are being used to connect, to create communities..." plasticbag.org

Thanks Tom! It was great to meet you in person.
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Comments (2)

Is flooding the back-channel a good thing? Nice to meet you in person, too!

Posted by: Tom Coates at June 30, 2005 1:57 AM

I am not so happy with the idea of temporarily muting a Skype connection. As far as I know it doesn't allow others call me during this time, right? But I agree that it might make sense from time to time.

Posted by: Steffen at July 1, 2005 4:17 AM