I'm sat in the Internet cafe in Stockholm Arlanda airport burning my last few Krona coins. Fighting with a Swedish keyboard brings back fond memories of being a code monkey in a Norwegian bank a decade ago. Anyhow, in my hotel and here I've noticed that the both seem to be using some kind of transparent proxy. If a web page doesn't load right, and a duff version is cached, you need to shift-refresh to... ... continue reading.....

Skype is an option on two of Dell's cooler laptops, new to the U.S. Anything that gets Skype in front of American consumers is good news for Skype marketing and eBay.

Skype's is a vendor relationship specific to one Dell request for proposal. This is a tiny relationship compared to Google's broader alliance with Dell, where Google Desktop and the Google Toobar will be installed on consumer computers and some business systems. Google Desktop usually comes... ... continue reading.....

by Vikas Rangarajan, senior software engineer, UmeVoice.

Rise in mobile VoIP use

As VoIP applications such as Skype become more ubiquitous, there is an ever increasing need to ensure effective use of VoIP communication in a wide range of environments. Skype is available for a variety of mobile platforms. A new breed of wireless-wifi converged devices is... ... continue reading.....

Skype was a big hit at the eBay Live Germany event in Dusseldorf on May 26-27.

My German Skype buddy Claudius Henrichs worked at the booth for Skype. He had this to say,

"The Skype booth definitely had the most visitors of the whole show and proved to be the most attractive both by the look of the booth and the products presented. I got asked...

Over the past few weeks I have been using my 12-year old Nortel M9417 dual line phone as the primary telephone handset on my office desktop (wood version). It continues to access my PSTN services in the normal manner yet accessing Skype is as simple as picking up the handset and dialing **. This is all... ... continue reading.....

A Skype Journal Exclusive. It is a great book, a great read. It belongs beside your computer, (Windows, Mac OS X or Linux) not on a book shelf. "Skype: The Definitive Guide." The book is rightfully portrayed as the only official guide to Skype, every chapter reviewed and approved by Skype staffers. Written by Skype insiders Harry Max and Taylor Ray (more on them later this week) with a foreword... ... continue reading.....

Over the past three weeks I have had the opportunity to evaluate four Skype Phone products from VoIPvoice; I will review them individually in upcoming posts. However, in addition to being Skype Certified, all four share some common features and traits, including the ability to just attach, install and call:

• At my home office, I make my Skype and SkypeOut calls via their UConnect USB-Phone Converter, using my 12-year old Nortel M9417...

Last week, Skype changed the NorthAm VoIP landscape with free SkypeOut until year end. Skype downloads picked up right away.

This week Vonage speculators caught on about 24 hours too late. Vonage, its bankers and investors took in half a billion dollars. That'll buy them a mix of time, talent, features, and paying customers. We'll see how well they use it. 

StreamCast Networks' little litigation engine... ... continue reading.....

With the turbulent migration to VoIP occurring in 2006, it will be interesting to track usage and subscriber data to support the impact of VoIP and Voice 2.0 business models. A couple of items that appeared this week:

Skype vs Vonage in the UK: Heather Hopkins of Hitwise, an online Internet usage monitoring service,... ... continue reading.....

I'm listening to IMS architect Colin Pons from KPN. Wow. An operator that gets it.

He sees IMS as a technology that (in his words) makes the Internet more important for customers. No walled garden, preserve the end-to-end principle. Deploy it as a big application-layer intelligent router that ties together value-adding services. (What he... ... continue reading.....

by Steve Smith, Lavalife Chief Scientist

I'm a huge user of Skype, as my friends and colleagues know. I've helped shift the management of several companies over to Skype as a productivity tool. One of the main reasons I use to promote Skype is the value of the seamless pyramid of communication: presence ⇒ IM ⇒ Voice. However, some factors are interfering with this value, and I think there's a paradox in the... ... continue reading.....

At the end of the second day of trading Vonage (VG) closed at $13.00 with over 11.3 million shares traded today; down 24.6% from the IPO price. There is some interesting and inisghtul commentary coming out:

Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch: My Thoughts on The Vonage IPO

So really, this reaction to the stock price is not a reflection of how VoIP will do, for VoIP, especially with new and different services coming...

Interesting news. Let's hope they make it work. Seems to be mostly about Skype enabled advertising.

Here is an example of a Skype enabled ad from Euroland:

News links...

Skype Forum

MyWay

Yahoonews

This looks like it will play well. Yahoo and eBay have connections and cash; Skype has the cachet. My guess this partnership will help ratchet up the Skype numbers.

Yesterday I received an email from SightSpeed announcing

On May 24, 2006, SightSpeed will release the next version of our award-winning video calling service. This new release will include significant new beta features, including SightSpeed Phone Out, which you can use to make great quality, low-cost telephone calls from your PC or Mac.

Key Points:

• SightSpeed expands its voice capability from pure 'VoIP to VoIP" to "VoIP to PSTN" (Phone Out launched...

Maybe you have experienced callers who have hung up by the time your mobile phone starts to ring because Call Forwarding took so long. Your caller experiences too many rings; you experience a lost call and no voice mail. Anyone who lurks on the Skype Forum knows there is some confusion around the Skype Call Forward function.

Let's see if Neil and I can help you decrypt Skype Windows Call Forward. Neil Lindsey is a... ... continue reading.....

The public version of Skype is now 2.0.0.107 this fixes a security bug.

The beta 2.5 release has both new features around SMS and many bug fixes. Get it here. New version number is 2.5.0.91. I have used it; I am happy with it.

The change logs for both releases are here.

The Skype product "Skypecasts" get a new blog to inform users with comments, tips and tricks from the makers of Skypecasts. Product news, featured Skypecasts.

Meet the publisher, Dan Houghton of Skype.

Dan tells me,

"I am older than I look. And Bill, I also want to include success stories -- people that have used skypecasts in unusual and effective ways. So please have your readers...

The dot-mobi domain names are now available for registration. Skype.mobi is is still available if you want to scoop Skype.

Here are a number media links that tell the story:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/24/mobi/index.php

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6075779.html

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2156716/mobile-firms-act-secure-web

This move helps validate the Orb Networks and SoonR technology.

Your mobile phone will soon be a more capable device. Media goes mobile. Now to get me a new mobile device.

VoIP/Voice of Manchester, UK yesterday announced the release of its Cyberphone-W for Mac to the U.K. market. A Skype Certified Skype phone for the Mac . From the press release:

.... This product broadens Skype's appeal to consumers who prefer to use a conventional telephone handset and who opt not to be bound to their PCs by headsets.

The Cyberphone-W for Mac has been designed to...

With almost two months experience as a  Skype Journal Associate Editor, it has become apparent that a Skype Journal editor could become a test technician for every product with aspirations to work with Skype.  However, time is a limitation and one needs to somehow define that gray border between evaluating a product and providing consulting on product management issues such as user interfaces, installation and configuration conflicts, Skype API integration and even Skype Certification. Rather... ... continue reading.....

Jean Mercier, Oostakker, Belgium

"Look how Skype users online are jumping up", says
Matthew Rabinowitz. Mathew is a US citizen living in Germany as well as a Skype fanatic. He has been harassing me for the last few days on Skype chat.
Of course I knew that Skype had launched free SkypeOut for calls inside Canada and USA on May 15! I am... ... continue reading.....

This week sees two events that demonstrate funding of the VoIP-enabled space is alive and well.

Andrew Hansen comments on Benchmark Capital's $15M financing of Bebo, a social network with 24 million members in a space dominated by MySpace and Facebook:

I am pretty confident saying that Skype support was a major (allbeit not the only one) factor in their success. Skype is wildly popular in the EU/UK/EMEA due to high telephony...