Jaanus Kase. Skype's Chief Blogging Officer who visited Phil in Oakland, is also the Chief Skype Forum Officer and has recently completed leading the transition of Skype's Forums to a new platform that provides both visible and backend improvements resulting in a much more resilient and secure forum ecosystem. Key issues included login protocol, security and anti-spam measures. So what's changed? From Jaanus' Announcement: Welcome to the new Skype Forums post:

Here are the most important changes.

• separate forum logins discontinued - you now use Skype Name
• new forum platform - means more security, less spam, new features
• layout and skin changes - you can now use the Skype Emoticons and Skype My Pictures
• admin team reorganization - see below, "Who's who"
• structure changes

The most important "first use" change is the "Identity Re-claim" process for transitioning to using your Skype login information as the login to the new forums. But it's effectively the usual Skype login web page process; you do need to think about what you want to use as your Forum Display Name (which is independent of your Skype Name and becomes your identity on Skype Forum posts). The details are on the Announcement page linked above.

Jaanus, on his personal blog, has written a much more detailed description of the more than year-long process his Skype team went through in identifying problems with the previous php-BB-s platform, determining the objectives of the "forum remake", deciding on a new platform (Invision Power Board) and then executing on the transition in as seamless a manner as possible. In addition to making the change in login protocol, the most important considerations was to not lose access to three years of user feedback and passion. Makes for an especially good read if you're involved in managing a similar user forum.

Our congratulations to Jaanus and his team for such a successful transition. And may the user passion continue to be expressed!

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I had some feedback at mesh earlier this week as the Skype announcement of free SkypeOut for calls within North America broke during the lunch break Monday. Others have now commented in both the blogosphere and traditional media; it is interesting to read their thoughts:

• Om Malik (who had just been a keynote Conversationalist at mesh Monday morning): SkypeOut.. Is It Really Free?
• Andy Kessler Will SkypeFree KO Vonage IPO?
• Alec Saunders: Pennies Dropping.... to Zero
• Jon Arnold: Skype - Free Outbound Calls - Good Deal Gets Better
• Andy Abramson (VoIP Watch): SkypeOut Now Free in USA and Canada
• Business Week (registration may be required): Skype Goes for Broke
• Light Reading: Skype Freebie is Defensive (Note; Jon Arnold was not at VON Europe as reported in this story; I can vouch that he was at mesh.)
• Globe and Mail, Mathew Ingram (a mesh Founder): Skype VoIP freebie could put Vonage on the ropes in which Skype Journal's Phil Wolff is quoted.

So the key follow-up questions are:

• Is this the death knell for the Vonage IPO? (or will we learn a new business model on how to operate on zero margin? been there; done that - see the paragraph "Another recollection" in this post on the early history of Internet browsers)
• Will it build Skype's North American user base significantly? (A key measure would be to see 175 to 200 million registrations worldwide by year end.)
• How and when will Skype/eBay leverage the resulting user base for additional revenue generating services and products?

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The One Web Day dinner last night started something important for me.  Susan Crawford asked important questions. Why do I love the Internet? What has it done for me? What have I done for it? What can I do to leave it better than I found it?

I first used ARPAnet in 1979 to pass my project's logistics data to modelers at the Naval Postgraduate School. I was used to terminal based computing, even modem access to timesharing systems, but this was different. This was our computers talking to theirs, peers becoming a network, if only for a little while. It changed our work, slashed time from our project, gave us access to distant talent.

And it became the Internet.  

We're starting now, in cafes and schools and hospitals and offices, around the world. We're seeding activities "to create, maintain, advance, and promote a global day to celebrate online life: September 22, 2006." One Web Day, an international holiday. How will you mark One Web Day this year? Add your project idea to the wiki. 

Tags: events, onewebday, onewebday06, onewebday2006, skype

Here's three Skype products that aim to enhance your Skypeing experience that leaves me questioning exactly what I'm buying with Skype Certified. The three products are the VoSky Chatterbox, Jawbone Headset and the Motorola Wireless Interenet Calling Kit. Each provide a different angle on bettering the standard Skyper's headset and as you might expect each has their pro's and con's.

VoSky Chatterbox.

This simple USB device provides an easily portable plug and play speakerphone for Skype. It's simple to use and requires no additional software to be loaded. It has a volume and mute button on top and works probably as expected, as a low cost speakerphone. I'd liken it to the solution we had as kids when we could finally plug in a speakerphone box between the old phone and the whole family sat around. In principle great, in practice it left something to be desired. The Chatterbox is a little like this. It works. It's also no substitute for a decent headset. The caller on the other end of the line will know and possibly complain. Handsfree solutions curently work better with a good set of speakers and a proper stand mic. Locate them correctly and the caller won't get a any feedback. Many laptops work as good as the Chatterbox. If you feel the need try it. Just don't expect it to be a Polycom and ready for the office. For kids it may be more robust than a headset - read youngsters talking to Grandma.

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Deal done. Retail VOIP in the offing? Views later.

eBay has agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global Internet communications company, for approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration.

Skype generated approximately $7 million in revenues in 2004, and the company anticipates that it will generate an estimated $60 million in revenues in 2005 and more than $200 million in 2006. For Q4-05, eBay expects the acquisition to be dilutive to pro forma and GAAP earnings per share by $0.01 and $0.04 respectively. For the full year 2006, eBay expects the transaction to be dilutive to pro forma and GAAP earnings per share by $0.04 and $0.12 respectively, with breakeven on a pro forma basis expected in the fourth quarter of 2006. On a long-term basis, eBay expects Skype operating margins could be in the range of 20% to 25%.

The acquisition is subject to various closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Full text of news release...

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A small business operator brought this Skype support answer transcript to my attention this morning. They have been trying to buy minutes for multiple Skype accounts using the same credit card. Currently if you try to buy 10 or 20 employees SkypeOut accounts they will block your card or accounts. The dialogue below from Skype support confirms it. I'm sure Skype knows this is costing them real money. Is there a solution? Short term Skype could solve it by offering gift certificates or an allowance or topup program like Apple provides for iTunes. The only idea I have for getting around it are listed below.

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Balder Lingegard, Goteborg, Sweden called me today to see if I could shed some light on this message he recieved when went to top up his SkypeOut minutes:

"Apologies, but due to security measures, we can not process your request at this time. As a new SkypeOut user, you are restricted to one purchase at a time. The option to purchase more credit will reappear well before your existing credit runs out. Thank you for using Skype."

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Skype please allow me to control voicemail durations. In the lastest beta release of 1.2 for Windows it is now possible in the default to send a voice mail of up to 10 minutes. It's just way too long for me to tolerate. Please allow me the capability to specify the length for incoming voice mails. Others may want three minutes etc.

Long voice mails have a potential danger. They could be advertising etc. That's frightening. At the moment my voice mail is open to anyone. If they are not on my buddy list, and not prepared to leave a message or send some chat context then they didn't want to talk to me. Thus voice mail is a screening device. However, I may need some additional screening tools, otherwise I'll be on buddies only.

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I'm baffled by the direction that Skype's payment system is taking. We know there have been problems. Now there are new outbursts in the Forums about "Why VISA payment options are gone. They are certainly gone for US residents (at the moment). Commerce in America without Visa or Mastercard? You gotta to be kidding. I presume they will return soon.

I agree with those of you who can't make sense of this move, I only hope that they catch enough flack that they get the credit card option back up and running agin as soon as possible.

Skype though has gotten venture capital money, so I sent the VC who funded them an email about Skype's not being able to recieve CC payments from existing clients who had been used to paying for Skypeout with a CC. They after all are in it for the money and will likely tell someone at Skype to hurry up and fix the problem as well as explain the logic of their decision.
Skype Forum

Have you been using the Skype keypad to log into a conference call or get your voicemail? Depending on where you are imay or may not be working. This is not new, however it does need a fix. We see this an opportunity for Skype Journal to get out there and run a few tests plus capture some feedback from users. We'll test retrieving mail from mobile numbers, dialing in to free conference calls etc. It's simple enough. If we get failures we'll let you know.

Problems with DTMF tones relate to some of our SkypeOut termination providers. To effectively troubleshoot and identify issues we need to know approx time of call and number called (contry and county prefix is OK, no full number neccessary) for the cases when DTMF codes failed.

This is going through troubleshooting now, issue #11115, visible to closed betatesters.

Skype Forums

What can you do?

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There's been a thread going around the Skype Forums. It's now easy to find. The example like the one below was the same for Elizabeth Albrycht. I introduced this post in my previous post "Skype in Africa - Mom". This post won't refute the "potential" of the fix - (I could run the patch for a week and then do a System Restore, although I think messing like this with Windows is crazy!). It will show that I get the same problem that the "Patch" aims to fix although the causes may or may not be the same. While this patch is given as the answer there is plenty of feedback to suggest it fails.

I stop hearing my friend after anything between 1 word to 10 mins of talking, but usually after 20-60 seconds. He can hear me. The network tab in my task manager shows a slight reduction of incoming traffic at the moment when problem starts, but the steady stream in both directions remains as if everything with the traffic is OK. forum.skype.com :: View topic - sound problem after upgrade from 1.0. to 1.1.

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