My parents are kleptomaniacs. Just don’t tell them I told you. The garden shed is bursting with stuff. The loft is full of old boxes. The shelves teem with ornaments. (eBay will have a good fiscal quarter the sad day they shuffle off this mortal coil.) And the drawers under the bed are stuffed with toys from our childhood.

Which turns out to be quite useful when you yourself have kids and an endless supply of goodies starts to emerge for free from Nana and Grandad. I’ve been reading this picture book to my older daughter, where a little boy hunts around for his lost pet froggie.

Very cute.

Speaking of which, I think we all know of a very cute voice application that’s currently hiding behind a log and looking a bit lost. Whatever happened to Skype’s mojo? Why wasn’t Skype 2.0’s arrival a case for dancing in the streets?

I can forgive the ringing noise being replaced by an extract from the opera Ode to a Kathmandu Stomach Upset. (Believe me, the full work is quite an experience. I’ve been there.) As a customer, I’m not too fussed whether video is a plug-in or comes out of the box. Tweaks in colour schemes and icons don’t impress me. (I’m male. It’s the way we are. I think my mum is still hoping I’ll notice when they’ve redecorated without having to prompt me first.)

No, what’s important is this. Make it work. And make it easy.

Let’s take the former one first. I bought a Plantronics DSP-400 USB headset a while back. It came “Skype certified” together with a small SkypeOut credit. I’m still happy with it. But it’s also very annoying to use. Because I like to listen to music from my laptop with real, quality headphones. Sometimes I unplug the headset when I move my laptop about, or want to use it on another PC, and Windows takes note and resets my audio devices to point to the built-in stuff. No matter how often I set my preferences in Skype to “Plantronics headset”, it keeps being turned back to Windows default each time I unplug. This is, needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), not a good experience.

It’s a design snafu in Skype. The actual requirement isn’t to select one device from the list, but I should be able to select the preferred order for audio devices it has seen. If the headset is plugged in, use that. Otherwise, revert to the next preference.

My laptop doesn’t have a built-in microphone, and I never plug one into the microphone jack. I should be able to de-select that as an input. Which means anyone calling me when I have no headset plugged in needs to be warned “Martin doesn’t have a microphone plugged in yet”. This case should be handled intelligently.

Perhaps USB headset owners are too small a minority to make this a priority. But then don’t waste your brand karma on declaring it Skype approved.

Another example is the new video chat. I’m pretty convinced that the video degrades the audio quality. My in-laws have low-speed DSL (256k down/128k up). Just audio is fine; add in the video and the sound gets choppy. This is bad, bad, bad. I can guess what’s happening. Skype uses an audio codec supplied by GIPS. The video is probably a separate thing, and not integrated. Asking GIPS to create an integrated codec that prioritises voice to maintain a minimum bit rate will cost Skype Inc mucho dolula. The audio codec API probably doesn’t make it easy to manage the bandwidth use. So we get a kludge, and the “integrated” product isn’t any better than the third-party plugs-ins. It’s more “overlayed” than “integrated”.

Sadly, Skype’s also having a mid-life attack of feeping creaturism. In the rush to add more feature tick-box items, usability and simplicity is being sacrificed. I think I’d find grouping of contact quite useful. But the user interface is just too ugly and obscure. Hint to Skype UI designers: screens are 2-dimensional. There are information architectures other than “list”! (As I’ve whined on previous occasions.)

And why have my SkypeOut contacts suddenly been elevated into the middle of my Skype contacts? This is a case of the product turning against me. Every time you call someone more than once it asks if you want to name and remember that number. Was a useful and harmless feature as long as the list of remembered numbers kept out of sight. But believe me, the UK Passport Office isn’t one of my buddies. And I’ve only just finished successfully suing Expedia in the small claims court after a car rental screw-up last summer. They’re not my friends, either.

I can only imagine the stress and turmoil the development team are going through as the eBay deal sinks in. But these problems smack of leadership issues, where priorities are not clearly being spelled out, and strategic alignment is being lost. If I were in charge right now, the edict would be “no new features!”. Let the API do the work for you. Focus on making what exists even easier. Make every use case or problem be handled ever smarter. The only exception to the rule is anything that integrates eBay merchants and transactions into telephony.

We’ve already got plenty of VoIP tools that kinda work, sort of, as long as you don’t hit any snags or unusual situations. Skype’s positioning is around simplicity, reliability and ease of use. Lose sight of that, and your cute frog will be forever lost.

Martin reads to us from his Telepocalypse weblog.

Skype recently announced a new set of website buttons. This is the first real use of their expanded range of Skype tags. This allows you to integrate calls for text, voice, add a contact, file sharing, and voice messaging just by clicking on a website. It's convenient and provides lots of potential to create new communication solutions.

The latest transparent drop down is really rather neat. It provides all the different ways to contact me. It's quite an advancement. Follow the link to get yours.

Skype buttons can be used on your website, blog or even in your email signature to let other people contact you easily. Share Skype

Then I began thinking about it. What's different here? I took a closer look at comparing the old and new buttons.

This is an orginal early Skype call button:

The new buttons:

First time round I almost missed it. No it's really true. Skype has dropped "Skype" from all its buttons. Maybe they think the branding of the buttons is now so strong everyone gets it? Maybe they did some research and many people seeing these buttons on websites failed to understand their meaning? Perhaps I should be asking them first why they dropped "SkypeMe"?

I thought about this and my response is very much from the heart as a user. Asking questions now would ignore my judgement and reduce the impact of just blogging it. I can sum it up in one sentence. I don't want you to Call me I want you to Skype me.

Here's my logic: Skyping is a multi-dimensional communication tool. I want a Skype experience. That includes chat and voice messages and buddylists etc. I don't want you to call me. I'm not thinking "shooting the breeze" on a telephone. I was almost the first in the world to put a SkypeMe callto tag on a blog. I wore it as a revolutionary badge of honor. It was a statement and an invitation. It became part of our vocabulary - marketers and brand managers will know how utterly powerful that can be, when their brand enters consumer parlance.

In some countries "call me" is the thing you say when running down a hall when you don't have time to stop or be polite. It's not a call to action. By contrast Skype was defining behavior and providing a sense of access and urgency. You are here, you are on my site, here is my invitation. Add presence and the availablity info increases exponentially. From the Skype perspective, you had a unique brand property in Skypeme.

I thought I'd check with a couple of my buddies. Dina's comment summed it up for me.

"hmmm some of the new buttons are pretty nice to use with friends. Am not sure i would change the old SkypeMe button though for clients in an email signature .... it just seemed more business-like. Why have they removed 'Skype' from the call me tag? I kind of liked it .. it made me feel more on-the-edge, like i was using something special. I know it made many of my clients inquire about what Skype is ... and some even adopted it. Call me as a button is confusing too ... i already have my landline and mobile number in my email signature ... and i think i may confuse my clients with this additional Call Me button."

There are some schools of marketing that believe you only want the consumers saying the shortened name or using it as a verb. Did Xerox ever talk about anything other than copying? How did Miller Genuine Draft become MGD etc.? Here Skype has become a verb and we understand SkypeIn and SkypeOut and we now have a callto tag that says "Call Me". Is it just me or has it all gone flat? I can't see the hype or the excitement in Call me. And effectively, you are asking me to change my vocabulary again, having thus far carved a unique position in my mind. Competitors can come up with similar Call Me buttons - none could have used Skype Me. What then is your unique badge?

To make matters worse I watched an SBC commercial on television tonight. Guess what the tagline is? I don't have it perfect... the thrust was SBC "Beyond the Call". When I see it again or remember I will insert it.

I looked some more at the branding and the tags. They are all bigger than the smallest before. The drop down conceptually is really rather cool. Still how does it fit in with my email signature? Is it business like enough? The speech bubble may be alright for Skype staffers but really you must be kidding if you think I'm going to add it to my signature. So overall the selection is way down. Not as many colors and limted shapes. Which brings up two more issues.

Look at the drop down Call Me tag again. (Leave a VM if you want to test it). Now why did Skype fail to incorporate a download Skype link and tie it into the Skype Affiliate program at the same time. (BTW I think if you don't have Skype installed it automatically takes you to a download Skype page although I haven't confirmed this I know it is possible.)

Then think some more. This drop down tag is a perfect way to send a message to contact a company. Thus why isn't there a "SkypeUs" option. That suggests you are getting the generic number for the business. With the latest advances in Skype 1.4 for Windows with call forwarding there are many new ways to encourage Skype onto the business site. For business I could provide a whole set of encouraging options. Some others may want to put the "Call Us on Skype" as the button. Or "Call us Free on Skype". Both these last two promote a key benefit. It's free. The cost of developing them isn't very much. In the end downloads will tell which ones people want.

Thus we have some real progress in the implementation of Skype tags. The current group needs a quick expansion.

There are also options that could significantly enhance these tags. For example the tags could provide my picture, or a company logo. Whatever is put in the Skype profile. I'd also look more to the "buddylist" development. When or if we get headless clients. It could be those buddylists that we are simply scrolling though on a site to connect. Online by department etc.

So there you have it. A strong response. I'm not that interested in adopting these tags although I will use and incorporate the drop down tag. My strong response is a gut level one. I would have loved to debate it with whoever developed it. If I had I would have had more context to write this blog post around. As it is, there isn't a story that satisfies me this was the right move or well done. Questions I could be still waiting for answers on:

• Why do you want to adopt "Call me" rather than SkypeMe?
• What assortment should we have? How many variations? Where will it be used? By whom etc.
• Have you asked other users?
• How are you planning to promote the new tags?

It's quite possible I'm all wrong. Still I'm a Skyper for one and I still want a "SkypeMe" button. Is that too much to ask?