design

Second Life IM catches up a bit

Phil Wolff | November 30, 2006 04:41 PM

Yesterday's Second Life client update improved in-world instant messaging and presence. From the change log:  

  • Added: a new Profile tab shows a web page of the profile owner's choice without launching a browser. (more than Skype)
  • URLs in chat and IM are now clickable links. Supports http://, https://, secondlife:// (hmmm, wish skype: links were clickable in 2L)
  • Log IMs and/or chat (hmmm. Are my Skype moods and presence logged?)
  • Permit friends to see you online/on the map (Presence, availability and location. I'd like that, maybe let GPS or cellular tower codes update Skype via SMS/texting?)
  • Conference IM multiple friends by multi-selecting in the Friends list (multichat! only one step to conference calls.)
  • See who granted you permission to modify their objects in the Friends list. (this personalized presence is almost relationship brokering: who can see and do what with me when, where and in what ways.)
  • Set whether you show as online in Search (Spreads your presence data, making people-search more actionable.)

2L's on a great trajectory: 

  • it's matching features with the popular IM clients,
  • expanding presence depth and accessibility, and 
  • making it slightly easier to blend the outside world into the 2L experience.    
READ MORE: Competitors | Technology | design

Skype's London Office hosts Mobile Social Networking on Mobile Monday, 11 December

Phil Wolff | November 29, 2006 10:37 AM

Are you a mobile phone software developer? I've been going to MobileMonday events for a long time, mostly in the Bay Area, always great demos, active vendor participation, tasty schmooze. Stuart John, Skype's mobile product manager, is hosting the London MoMo 11 December at Skype's offices. 2 Stephen Street, W1T 1AN (map). The theme this month is mobile community, specifically mobile social networks. Should be hot, especially with the announcement of YouTube for mobile.

Skype 3.0 Folder Pollution

Guest Blogger | November 22, 2006 11:03 AM

by Jean Mercier, Skype Numerology Blog.

picture of directory of folders used by Skype for Windows 3.0It has been a "very very old complaint" on the Skype Forum that Skype placed some folders in the "My Documents" folder (Windows XP version), without a gentle way to move them to another place!

And version 3.0 is even worse! I am angry too :-(

But the "My Documents" folder isn't the only place where you find Skype folders: i noticed - excluding multiple Skype accounts - 4 main places. You can probably reduce it to 3 main places if you have only one Windows XP user account!

I counted 31 folders in total, excluding the 250 folders in the "chatsync" folder! Therefore, total number of folders in my case: 281! Pfewwww!!!!! And again: this without counting the other Skype accounts folders!

Some comments on some selected folders:

  1. This is a new folder with version 3.0 :-(
  2. An old one, I always delete the bunch of ugly Skype avatars after the installation of a new version
  3. Also an old one: I store all my Skype related stuff there
  4. A new one, that i deleted, but Skype created it again, without recreating the deleted wallpapers
  5. The first (1) folder with the name "Skype"
  6. Plugins, also new since 3.0 i guess
  7. Ooh no ...I thought Skype was used mainly by business people!
  8. Second (2) folder with the name "Skype"
  9. A user account I never use
  10. my main user account
  11. I didn't want to show the content of this folder: it contains in my case exactly 250 subfolders, i guess with my chat history in it!
  12. folders of spare accounts or folders of other people who used their Skype account on my computer (this happens!)
  13. third (3) folder with the name "Skype"
  14. ooooh, here all the ugly Skype avatars, that i usually try to delete, are stored again!
  15. and here again the wallpapers!
  16. new since 3.0
  17. new since 3.0 i guess

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Wednesday morning scan

Phil Wolff | November 22, 2006 03:54 AM

Technology and Products

  1. MobiGater GSM-to-Skype gateway, plugs into your PC, passes Skype calls to your mobile phone. Also lets you speed dial your Skype buddies from your mobile, ringing them on Skype. From Bulgaria to 20 countries

  2. Accessing Skype APIs with Ruby. Pretty easy, if you know the Ruby programming language.

  3. Moodgeist pinger for Linux. The better to let the universe know how you're feeling. Even if you're using Linux.

  4. 10 Things to Know About Skype Ap2Ap Programming. Read this before you code. Adrian Cockroft.

  5. Skype on Solaris. More Sun bloggers spread the word.

  6. US Robotics' webcam. Is the 9640 cheaper (at $40) and smaller than the Logitech Fusion?

Advanced topics

  1. Project San Dimas, an experimental eBay desktop, built on the Adobe Apollo platform using web services. Congrats to eBay's Alan Lewis.

  2. Nokia: Hyperlinking Reality via Phones. "Nokia researchers are working on a system that allows physical objects to be identified and connected to the Internet through mobile-phone screens."

  3. MashupU. Anyone from the Skype developer community available to teach at MIT, 15-16 January 2007?

  4. Everything is Miscellaneous lecture. David Weinberger's speech mp3 (46:53, 22.5 MB) at the Scottish Learning Festival.

  5. Cooperation Commons. Research project by the Institute for the Future and Howard Rheingold to study cooperation and collective action.

  6. A Voluntarily Loosely Organized Organization. How does Skype support emergent management practices?

Business

  1. Boom when UAE's Etisalat opens up to Skype? Skype Wi-Fi phone vendor Belkin is hoping UAE lifts Skype ban sooner than later.

  2. Death of the phone company: "There will be a custom communications experience generated dynamically for every context, and it may be personalised for the individual communicators."

  3. Death of Skype: Australian ISP: "Skype packets, in the world that we are heading to, will be able to be seen by all telcos and all telcos will have the capacity to prioritise or de-prioritise those packets."

  4. ISP Xtra: No Skype shaping. Computerworld: Despite terms of service which allow it,

    Telecom's retail ISP Xtra says there is no rate-limiting for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications, contrary to reports in the media and complaints in web and Usenet forums. "Applications such as Skype can be used," Xtra spokeswoman Lenska Papich says. No traffic management is applied to Skype, she adds.

  5. The future is bright .. The future is 3 .. How 3's switch to flat rates for mobile data unleashes explosive growth. Great essay, by Ajit Jaokar, about taking down the "walled garden" (controlling everything in the ecosystem) in favor of an Open Garden. via John Furrier.

  6. WordPress follows SixApart and SocialText into Corporate IT. SixApart needs this: one enterprise vendor is a novelty, four is a market. See also Traction and Blogtronix. Skype may benefit from enterprise adoption of other social media like blogs and wikis if they jump on the knowledge management and collaboration memes, and further integrate Skype into blogs.

  7. Ten Worst Internet Acquisitions Ever. Skype is number 9. Others: Hotmail, MySimon, BlueMountain, Lycos, Netscape, GeoCities, Excite, AOL, and Broadcast.com. A hard meme to kill.

  8. The Peanut Butter Manifesto. Yahoo!'s Brad Garlinghouse rocks. Messenger's executive sponsor bets his career on focusing Yahoo!

Click-to-Call: Skype 1, Google {Many}

Jim Courtney | November 16, 2006 10:47 PM

... in a game where, as in golf, the lowest number of strokes wins! Google announced a Click-to-Call feature for Google Maps yesterday. So I go to Google Maps, select Businesses, enter "restaurants" into the Type of Business box and "Mississauga {Home Postal Code}" into the "Where" box. And I get:

Click on B for Golden View Restaurants (where we obtain our annual New Year's Eve party food) and I get the pop-up below on the left. Click on Send to Phone and I get the pop-up asking for my phone number and my carrier -- except there are only U.S. carriers listed (and all Telco 1.0)! 3 clicks plus 10 characters (to enter your phone number). Except I live in Canada ....hmmm ....

Or, since I have installed the Skype 3.0 Beta with its Click-to-Call feature, I can simply pick up my UConnect-enabled Nortel phone, dial **, (or pick up a USB-connected VoIPvoice Cyberphone) and click on the Skypified link under the restaurant's listing on the left:. I then click OK on the "Start SkypeOut" confirmation window. Call initiated; no Telco 1.0 carrier designation required! (And note that Skype 3.0's Click-to-Call recognizes that it is a Canadian phone number.) One click to place the call; one to acknowledge that there could be a charge involved.

A simple example of what Martin is talking about in his Telco 2.0 "Death of the Phone Company" post.

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From email to IM, and onward

Phil Wolff | November 12, 2006 01:22 PM

Last month I came across my mother's stash of "we're having a be-in party" stationary, left over from the early 1970s. Those cards were a carry over from the 1940s and 1950s when my mother grew up. The formal etiquette of mailing and invite and RSVPing became kitsch before it became corny then classic then retro. 

danah boyd: what i mean when i say "email is dead" in reference to teens.

"I'm part of the generation caught between email and IM where IM feels more natural but most of the folks just a little older than me refuse to use IM so i'm stuck dealing with email. Today's teens are stuck between IM, MySpace/Facebook, and SMS. There's another transition going on which is why there's no clean one place. IM replaced email for quite a few years but now things are in flux again. Still, no matter what, email is not regaining beloved ground."

Young people are more flexible in learning, and older people more easily adopt the tools and norms that feel familiar from their youth. There's more than one reason why computers have QWERTY keyboards; they made transferring skills from typewriters to computers feel familiar.

People also follow their cohort's lead when it comes to building social capital. Aren't most of your friends around your age? That's just the way social networks usually expand. So you're going to use the conversation and social coordination tools that dominate your social network, and your cohort.

Skype is riding this wave, of course. So it's interesting to watch Skype's founders stick a toe into another wave, social video, with The Venice Project. Are you too old to ride it?

Memo to Skype Phone Product Managers

Jim Courtney | November 7, 2006 04:57 AM

As mentioned elsewhere I have had significant exposure to a variety of phones that have been designed to work with Skype, either as the primary purpose of the device (Skype WiFi phones, Skype Cordless phones) or as an application within a more versatile mobile "personal assistant" platform (Windows Mobile platforms and, by year end, Symbian platforms such as the Nokia N-series). In addition I have now had the opportunity to work with a few wireless phones made by Nokia and Research in Motion (Blackberry). A few comments that could help Skype ecosystem product managers going forward:

Battery life: many of these phones have a battery life of four to six hours idle time. Probably best to license RIM's Blackberry power management -- I can get four to five days of idle time on my 8700. Any device that will have a hope of broad market acceptance should have at least two days idle time.

DTMF tones: This is a fairly basic and widely deployed feature of the Voice 1.0 phone infrastructure; yet I am constantly amazed at the cavalier approach taken to making sure "TouchTones" work with any Skype client, whether a softphone or a hardware device. Here are some of my experiences:

  • Skype itself would not work reliably with DTMF tones prior to version 2.0; that issue has been resolved at this point (within the Skype client's "Dial" tab).
  • The Skype WiFi phones do not support DTMF; therefore they limit the usefulness of SkypeOut when calling businesses that use IVR systems or other services, such as voice mail systems, that require a DTMF response. I have also experienced USB phones with the same issue.
  • At the other extreme the RTX Dualphone and VoIPvoice Cyberphones do provide the appropriate support; the Sony Mylo aslo supports DTMF but you have to remember to put their unique keyboard in NUM mode to enter the tones.

Chat: I view Skype as having two primary features: Instant Messaging (presence and chat) and Voice. For USB phones, the IM activity remains on the host PC; however, for PC-independent devices there are issues:

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Skype for Pocket PC 2.1 Released -- Setting Wireless Expectations with Reality

Jim Courtney | October 26, 2006 10:18 AM

Today Skype released Skype for Pocket PC 2.1, a release whose accompanying documentation reflects the reality of the limited resources of handheld mobile devices. A full list of new features is available here; however, key items include:

  • A new multi-chat interface which supports chats with several participants.
  • Skype Launcher, a small 'launcher" application that checks available memory and verifies that Skype is installed correctly. (Hopefully this will avoid the situation I previously encountered where sometimes I had to reboot a Windows Mobile device before Skype for Pocket PC would start if other programs, such as SliingBox Mobile, were running.)
  • Built-in call management that detects incoming mobile calls (via your normal mobile service) during a Skype call and offers the user the choice to hang up or ignore the call. You can switch to Skype calls when in a mobile call.
  • Detailed contact search including specification of country, city and language as options.

However, buried in the details are the following that reflect a more realistic approach to Mobile Skype:

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Voice 2.0 - It's About Building Unique Communities

Jim Courtney | October 24, 2006 03:22 PM

Last week's Voice 2.0 Conference in Ottawa exposed examples across the entire range of infrastructure and services that lead to voice-related applications. Martin Geddes led off with a keynote asking What's telephone for? What's the unmet user need? Where's the money and What's next? Sam Aparicio of  Angel.com provides an excellent commentary on Martin's presentation ending with Martin's economic model for Voice 2.0 telephony:

  • Martin talks about an inversion of the model. While most of the money was being made once the call was connected, now most of the money is to be made pre- and post-talk.
  • Before talking you have devices, connectivity, privacy, presence, availability, directory and integration
  • After the call, social networking.
  • Google managed to create $400B of market value by exploiting digital social gestures around hyperlinks, but Telcos still fail to see how CDRs are a goldmine.
  • Some of the growth areas: B2C (I'm soo glad he mentioned this...), C2B -- whenever you cross the trust of a social boundary. An example: In Finland, some people organized a grassroots, non-official Voice Idol type system, creating tons of value for the carriers without much of their involvement.
  • Some examples of new thinking: considering a cell phone as a retail outlet you get to carry with you wherever you go.
  • In the end, whoever controls the context in which conversations happen. (Following the Starbucks model, where they get to capture the bulk of the value generated by the chain starting at the bush of Juan Valdes). He mentioned how, in the future, when in a hotel, options for room service will be in a buddy list.

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Push and push to talk

Martin Geddes | October 23, 2006 11:06 PM

Some more random thoughts on how our minds have been poisoned by 100+ years of Bell (or was it Meuccian?) telephony.

The signalling system in the analogue era was very simple. I want to talk, your phone rings, you pick up. We then enter a manual signalling exchange. "Hello, this is Mary." Confirms I got through to the right number and callee. "Hi Mary, this is Kevin calling. Is this a good time for a chat about next week's meeting?". Identity, availability.

Now imagine a system where we could press the green "call" button on our mobiles either once or twice. Pressing once would just request a call with the person. They would then have a queue of "people who want to talk to you", and those present/online would appear in that queue in time order. I could even, if calling from a PC or other rich UI, suggest times to call back. My phone would have a special ring for returned calls.

Alternatively, press the green button twice and make a normal interruptive "ring now!" call.

continue reading.....

Gizno

Martin Geddes | October 20, 2006 11:00 PM

I could do a long critique of every softphone out there, and there's plenty to pick apart. I thought I'd just select one little detail to show why the portal IM clients and Skype remain top dog: they just deliver what the user wants, no hassles.

Every time I log in to Windows I get this:

Go away! Shoo! Don't irritate me with unnecessary login screens. Fade into the background. I don't want to think about you until you're needed. (If the wireless Internet connection comes up too slowly, it also tends to crash.)

I suppose I should also point out some of the other usability issues. As Amazon long-ago discovered, the way you present the login/new user screen makes a big difference. If it's confusing (high cognitive load) people bail out, probably (rightfully) assuming the rest of the experience inside will be equally bad.

Gizmo fluffs this with a strange radio button layout. In the user's mind, registering is a different process from logging in, even if the information requested is identical. The drop-down text entry box is the wrong cue for creating an account name, because it implies a selection of existing data. (Yahoo is superb at managing this process in a crowded namespace.) Gizmo operates from the perspective of the programmer, not the user. Contrast with Skype:

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Seeking a Level Four Skype Interconnection

Phil Wolff | October 9, 2006 10:33 AM

Marcelo Rodriguez rounded up five products that connect Skype and SIP products in his post, Is a Skype-SIP Peace At Hand? 

We all want interop, and these products are gaining loyal followings. They build audio pipes between SIP and Skype voice callers. We've been calling these Level Three Skype integration in our Skype Journal Connectivity Maturity Model. 

    Skype Journal Connectivity Maturity Model

    Level 0. No connection.
    What's VoIP? What's Skype?

    Level 1. Skype indifferent.
    Devices doing nothing but input or output like the most basic of USB phones. On the software side, the only software is Skype.

    Level 2. Skype aware.
    Configurations are Skype-aware or Skype-smart devices, like the Kensington Vo300, the YapperNut YapperBox.

    Level 3. Skype conversant.
    Level 2, plus audio pipes between apps, especially across the SIP barrier. You call with your SIP phone, something happens in between, and my Skype phone answers.

    The move from Skype to SIP at Level 3 costs you all the benefits of rich conversation. You lose:

    • Availability and geopresence
    • Mood messages
    • Caller authentication
    • Access to caller profiles
    • Launching text chat or video in the same call
    • File transfer and folder sharing
    • Voice messaging
    • Access to Skype voicemail
    • Skype multichat and conferencing
    • Broadband audio quality 
    • End-to-end encryption
    • Chat/call permalinks 
      (e.g. skype:?chat&id=%23leedryburgh%2F%24evanwolf%3Bd5b446f89da627a3)

    Level 4. Skype equivalent.
    Level 3, plus restoring most of the missing elements. 

Does this model work for you? What's Level 5? What do you call it when the other system has capabilities beyond or different from Skype and you can't translate them?  

Hands on the Kensington Vo300 USB Speakerphone

Phil Wolff | October 4, 2006 10:04 AM

I like the new USB speakerphone for Skype Kensington is shipping the United States. kensingtonVo300pack.jpgThe Kensington Vo300 USB Internet Speakerphone (product code K33378US) is small, unassuming, very fast to set up, and tightly integrated with Skype for Windows XP, release 2.6 or later, MSRP $89.99.

Designed for laptop users so it emphasizes mobility. Just for scale, I took a snapshot of it on my stove (left). It's 5 inches wide (13 cm), 4-3/8 inch high(11 cm), and less than an inch thick (2.25 cm).

kensingtonVo300hookup.jpgKensington's distribution muscle will make this one of the most visible products in consumer electronics. Now at Amazon ($70), soon at Office Depot ($76) and Best Buy.

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What if we could make money with the Moodmessage in Skype?

Guest Blogger | September 30, 2006 11:09 AM

Guest post by Hans Blaauw

Many many months ago I wrote a Skype plugin called Mood-o-Matic. It could retreive information from external databases and publish it in your mood. It was limited because Skype did not support clickable mood messages. Now they do!

There seems to be nothing in the EULA about what you are allowed to put in the Mood message (I just checked with some Skypers).

So in theory I could recruit 10000 popular people that are willing to display ads in their Moodmessage when they are away or busy. Imagine, each of these 10000 highly popular people have 25 other people in their list. That would make a interesting audience for advertising.

What if you would have the possibility to get free credits if you would put these ads in your Mood message, interesting?

It seems to me the Mood message can be used for many more things. What if it would support widgets from Widgetbox?

Adobe flashes on VoIPifying the web

Phil Wolff | September 22, 2006 11:17 AM

The Masked Adobe Entrepreneur In Residence With Permanently Attached Mobile PhoneHow do you voice enable the whole web? With Adobe Flash. My host walks me into his tiny war room at Adobe North. The tables strewn with copies of VON magazine, and Sinnreich's Internet Communications Using SIP. The white board has an architectural map on the left, laying out the technologies he'll need to build, buy or partner, and revenue models for each. On the right he's listing interconnect standards for call termination.

The goal is audacious. Outside of Microsoft, however, Adobe may be the only place on the planet with a hope of making VoIP ubiquitous. My host, an Adobe entrepreneur in residence, is building a startup to "just add voice." And video. And conferencing. You know, voice 2.0.

He assumes Adobe makes platforms for developers, not end products. So he's looking at companies like Skype and Yahoo! as potential customers, not rivals. He wants to help them build applications without worrying about the telecom plumbing.

  • The MySpaces of the world should be able to call their own directory services from Flash but let Flash make the connection.

  • The Salesforce.coms should be able to design a video customer service widget without worrying about the cameras or the codecs.

  • Amazons could create live chat rooms for clusters of related books without invading customer privacy or setting up data centers.

These businesses add value with their social networks, their workflows, and rapport with their communities. They don't want to be in the "Skype" business, just their own. Among other things, this means Adobe doesn't need to convince every user on Earth to get an Adobe ID; people will use existing namespaces.

Adobe builds on others' value by creating baseline, ubiquitous infrastructure. Making commodity features from expensive, risky, perishable, complex systems. It's a platforming strategy. If Adobe's growing voice team (open Senior Product Manager and Computer Scientist - VoIP) can make coding for calls simple and elegant, a million flash designers and developers will add it to their toolkits. Contrast that with the hundreds actively developing for the Skype API.

Adobe is already active in the telecom industry. They license flash to mobile phone manufacturers, promoting the Flash developer channel's flash apps to carriers. Some of the most compelling mobile experiences are courtesy of Flash designers. About 70 million devices have Flash embedded.

Flash is also important to the advertising industry. 77% of banner ads are in Flash, says Adobe. If you think click-to-call advertising has a future, wait until you have click-to-talk-with-a-satisfied-customer or click-to-join-the-concert-in-progress.

If the Masked Entrepreneur can make it work and sell it to his internal stakeholders, it will be part of the next major release of Flash in 18 months or so. Adobe says the "Flash player is installed on nearly 98% of Internet-connected desktops."

That's a short window for Skype and Microsoft to respond. Skype product management has pretty much deprioritized developer requests since Summer 2005 to plug into the Skype cloud via a "Naked Skype", "headless Skype" or "Skypenet." Skype could be offering web services and server software that cleanly plugs other systems into the Skype cloud. They aren't working on it according to several sources within Skype's development team. Will Adobe's signaling wake up Skype to the industry power of being not just a social network but the leading infrastructure provider? Skype management didn't return calls by post time.

Sorry, could you repeat that?

Martin Geddes | September 13, 2006 10:04 AM

I was being interviewed for a podcast last night. As always, the purpose of the "stupid network" is to enable crazy new things, not connectivity arbitrage. The setup was that I'm in my hotel room using the woefully over-contended in-room Internet access. The caller could only record calls made using his landline phone, so he called me on my SkypeIn number.

The audio experience was OK, but about that of a typical cellular call. Not ideal for a podcast.

This does, however, provide great fodder for a "Voice 2.0"-ish story. Normally, VoIP uses the UDP protocol for media transmission. If the packet doesn't get there within 300ms, or whatever, forget it. No point in asking for reliability and re-transmission of lost data. The TCP protocol is used for signalling and other purposes where a reliable, in-sequence connection is required.

continue reading.....

Presence: Hidden in public view

Martin Geddes | September 10, 2006 09:19 PM

I'd like to send my wife an SMS. In Skype I've got a group called "Family", which includes her entry. However, she hasn't filled in her mobile number in her profile, because that means exposing it to anyone she adds to her buddy list.

I can instead create a new entry for her mobile, or enter it directly, so this isn't a massive deal. I could even hand some bonus money to a telco and SMS her from my mobile. It does serve to illustrate a bigger point, though, on how different communications systems can create value by managing privacy differently.

There are several ways of technically resolving the situation. A simple one is that I have a local copy of her profile that I can extend and annotate -- a proper object inheritance mechanism. Another is that I can request her number off her.

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Google UK tries click-to-call

Phil Wolff | September 10, 2006 10:10 AM

Google UK ads were discovered with little green phones. I walk you through the experience (it works). This is a grand way to get your feet wet in the click-to-call business. You'll learn things. Like what happens to an advertiser when the phone rings off the hook ("all operators are busy"). Customer privacy concerns. Keeping it simple. 

Offering Skype and GoogleTalk options should cut down operations costs, compared to ringback services; you don't pay for two long distance calls.

Click-to-call's live interaction may be one of the biggest business challenges for advertisers. The skills for running a call center are very different from mastering a shopping site. And converting customers in a conversation is different than pulling through your site's shopping cart.

For example, there's often a gap between customer and advertiser time zones and hours of operation. Scheduling a call back should improve response rates, not to mention avoid waking small business people at 2am. Letting callers choose "Please call me around 9am tomorrow" is another. Click-to-voicemail during off hours or when overloaded is another.  SalesBuilder's Call Me Now is a great example of the state of the market.

Other coverage:

The walkthrough...

1. Go to Google.co.uk

2. Search for jet2

You might see search results like this. See the ads on the right?

Search results for Jet2 on Google.co.uk

3. Click on the ad with the phone.

ad with a phone for Holidays from Leeds

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Reading for a Wednesday night

Phil Wolff | September 6, 2006 04:20 PM

Skylook 2.0 for Skype and Buy Skylook 1.0.3 Now!Outlook is coming next month, beefs up sophisticated alerting and remote controls. The coolest thing is it uses Skype to bring live activity in Outlook to your mobile phone when you're away from your desktop. If you live in Outlook, take a look at their preview page for screenshots and a 10% discount coupon.

15 Apps for Recording Skype Conversations. I think this is the most complete list at the moment. Good job, Andy Boyd. 10 for Windows, 5 for Mac. I'd add YapperNut's Amy recorder for Windows, free download, and bundled with the YapperMouse mouse+phone for Skype. Any recorders for Linux or Skype mobile? For Skype video calls?

Dragon NaturallySpeaking logoTranscribe your Skype conversations. Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 for Windows is out, $99 upgrade. This should be built-in functionality for enterprise versions of Skype. One of the ways you add value is convert Skype calls to text, and post them to team blogs as meeting minutes.

Skype for Windows Beta Preview updated today. The latest version 2.6.0.74, a hefty 12 Mb, takes care of a few rare but nasty bugs and adds a Google toolbar for Internet Explorer with a Skype button on it. (I'm waiting for a Firefox googlebar, please.) The Help | Check for update menu command won't tell you there's this newer version.

Keynoter simulSkypecast from South African conference today. Stephen Downes on learning objects.Skype Live logo Downes almost always make me angry when he talks, because he rudely challenges my worldview with facts and logic. And then, maybe minutes or days later, it sinks in and I get it. This was a fast and free way to bring the world into a conference, hopefully others will take note.

FireOlive.com is a Google News + Skype mashup. Call in with Skype or phone, record your thoughts on a news topic, and your message goes live on the site within 2 - 5 minutes. It's blindingly simple, and addictive. I can't wait for this to become a common feature on other news sites like digg or slashdot.

Skype developers can win $2,000. Funambol put a Skype PIM Plug-in on its hit list of extensions with open bounties. They want to sync a user's Skype data with the Funambol mobile app.

China to be First Internet Nation next year. More broadband users than US, fertile ground for consumer VoIP and net television, say two research firms. As important as North America is to eBay this year, I'll bet China takes on new importance for both eBay and Skype next year. vnunet article.

Got a tip? Leave a note!

The Babes of VoIP

Phil Wolff | September 3, 2006 01:35 PM

Ken Camp makes a call to Women in VoIP to gripe about the few females at internet telephony conferences like those run by Jeff Pulver and Rich Tehrani and Tim O'Reilly.

In the last episode, the Office 2.0 conference had 53 men and 1 woman speaking. Gender imbalance? The organizer invited friends and strangers and that's how his personal network fell out. Reactions include asking speakers to step down, boycotts, the F-word. And building lists of women.

At least in the United States, women start more small businesses than men and are graduating at higher rates from high schools and engineering schools. So there is a vast pool to draw from. So if that's not the problem...

It's not about finding women speakers. It's about

  • making it easy
  • to find smart people
  • with experience as speakers
  • on a given topic,
  • in a time frame,
  • for a budget,
  • outside your social network's event horizon,
  • and selecting or deselecting for personal and professional characteristics, like religion, gender, ethnicity, and culture. (BlogHer clearly wasn't shooting for gender balance.)

Essentially, discovering the right strangers to invite to a conversation.

    The world of matchmaking.

    Of dating.

    Of job search and recruiting.

    Of Skype's people search.

They are markets of individual conversations. People offering a service and wanting a service, sharing a market. (Remind me sometime to talk about micromarket asymetry, where power is unequally shared among those who have and those who want.)

Conventions collect conversations into packages. Even open space and unconference events, where speakers are selected last minute by the attendees, fit this definition.

Secondary markets come in several forms. Convention programmers make markets for their conversation bundles (called conferences). Others show up as media, like podcasts of interviews or talk radio.

diagram: anatomy of a call, before, during, afterSystems which make matches efficiently (like the Monster.coms of the world) are often ineffective, making good matches. That's why some sites at least try to wrap the match in magic (Dr. Phil's advice to the lovelorn) or science (Ph.D. verified psychometric tests).

Back to women...

Diversity of thought and experience keeps markets, and conferences, vigorous. Balance proven relevance with serendipity, assuring somebody challenges your worldviews and assumptions. My favorite events leave me unsettled; perturbed from my usual orbit.

For example, I went to Blogher, a blogging conference for women (mostly). I'm in the red shirt in Hollyster's The Men of Blogher flickr set. Among other things, I was an obvious minority among 500 women, at a gathering where women's subcultures so clearly ruled. Speakers made meaning differently. It was less about painting a vision, than about sharing stories. Not so much sharing facts and observations as it was about bringing facts into the context of life experience. Not necessarily the way I blog or speak.

I'm looking forward to the Office 2.0 discussions, not this metathread about gender. More on how Skype fits into the Office 2.0 context soon.

Sony Mylo suffers from Sidekick syndrome

Phil Wolff | August 9, 2006 08:48 AM

Skype did a great job packaging Skype into the new Mylo. And I'm desparate for a device like this that lets me carry Skype around. But Sony's Mylo doesn't deserve this moment of love. Like the T-Mobile Sidekick, Mylo:

  • is a closed device and platform when we need open platforms;
  • only has Wi-Fi when we need the ubiquity of wireless edge networks; and
  • lacks authoring tools when everyone creates, mashes up, and publishes photos, sound, and video.

Definitely not for the MySpace generation, despite the great job at embedding Skype, Yahoo! and Google IM clients.

Save Mylo, Sony.

  1. Add a good still and video camera. We're sharing our work and our lives. I want this to replace my mobile camera phone, but you are betting it won't, at least for now. Please try! 
  2. Add audio, video and photo recording software. Surely Adobe is ready to come out with pocket versions of ImageReady, Audition and Premiere.
  3. Add authoring (or at least uploading) tools for blogs, vlogs and podcasts. A browser can only do so much, even with Web 2.0 goodies.
  4. Publish developer tools and seed an open ecosystem. I want to code rich clients (feedreader, please) to run on Mylo, especially apps that work offline.
  5. Open the device to third-party apps, without prior Sony approval. So I can buy Mylo editions of Quicken, Flight Simulator, QQ, and embedded Firefox (with extensions). It's much easier to be closed, but a Sony bizdev tax is a barrier to user adoption.
  6. Add AIM. Still being used by millions, even adults.
  7. Let me use Skype without a plug-in earbud (built in noise-cancelling microphone). Just one thing to carry, please.
  8. Support the U3 flashdrive standard for better desktop integration.
  9. Bundle more memory. 1 GB is too small to do the job needed, and an insult at this price point.
  10. Support IMAP and POP3 email servers. How can Sony segment work from life when work and life are blended for most people?
  11. Talk through GSM and EDGE data networks. Wi-Fi-only is premature in most places for most people.
  12. Add bluetooth. The better to play with desktops, cameras, and mobile phone.
  13. Lose the big orange and blue lights (or at least make them optional). Nobody around me needs to know when I'm using Mylo or I'm online.
  14. Add batteries. So you can do all that and sustain the long battery life you offer now.

Mylo represents a great stab in the right direction. Product managers trade off time, features, cost, quality, risk and prices. Here's hoping Mylo continues to evolve and expand into a development platform to rival the Playstation, Windows Mobile, the Palm OS, and Symbian.

P.S. Good luck to the musician Mylo, who's had no Google juice competition until now.

Sony saves Skype

Bill Campbell | August 8, 2006 09:33 AM

Sony saves Skype users who feel tethered to their PC. Sony announced an agreement with Skype to integrate Skype software into Sony's first WiFi broadband communication and entertainment device, the mylo (My Life Online) personal communicator.

It looks like an awe-inspiring product. I can't wait to test drive it.

sony.jpg

The mylo personal communicator will offer a rich array of Skype features, including

  • Skype to Skype, SkypeOut, and SkypeIn calling
  • Call history and voicemail
  • Skype chat and multi chat with animated emoticons
  • Contact add and search
  • Full profile viewing and automatic Skype sign-in

The Skype Certified Sony mylo personal communicator will be available in September at Sony Style stores, sonystyle.com and at retail outlets across the United States. Price point is about $350. Read more about it here.

  • Slide-out QWERTY keyboard.
  • Large 2.4 LCD colour screen
  • Internet Browser and e-mail client (Opera)
  • Three-hours continuous talk time on Skype
  • Small: Approx. 4 7/8 × 31/32 × 2 1/2 inches (123 × 23.9 × 63 mm)
"The mylo personal communicator puts the fun parts of a computer in the palm of your hand,"
said John Kodera, director of product marketing for personal communication devices at Sony Electronics."

The Sony mylo ranks as a "must have product"!

Click to transact

Martin Geddes | August 7, 2006 04:38 PM

Last night I ordered a whole bunch of components to upgrade our main PC and satisfy my wife's Warcraft addiction. Today I got a text message as follows:

There is a problem authorising the payment for your order E123456 . Please ring us on 0870 0123 4567 to resolve this. Thank you for your custom.

Of course, you call the number and have to re-dictate your order code to the agent.

There was also an email with the same message. Now, with a URL, you can add in parameters at the end. Just tag on "?param=value". But the telephone system doesn't understand URLs, and there's no standard way of encoding phone numbers in SMS messages and emails to be able to extend the system just in case you do have a click-to-call capability. (Yes, I know about SIP URIs. The potential is there; a standardised deployed system is not.) There's no way of me pressing the "call" button on my mobile and the order code being passed straight back to their system.

continue reading.....

Operating Skype in stealth mode

Bill Campbell | August 7, 2006 10:57 AM
"Skype video is fantastic. I had three video IP surveillance cameras installed in my retail store to monitor the cash counter and they just did not have a useful frame rate. I need Skype. It will work great but I need it to operate without popping up when I call the remote Skype Client. What can I do?"

I understood this man's problem instantly. I met a woman who ran a cappuccino shop a few years back who was losing a ton of money by staff pocketing the money instead of ringing it in the cash register. Her profit was back the moment she installed a video cam surveillance unit.

However, you cannot eliminate the pop up of the Skype Application when the call comes in. So how did this man solve his problem and get Skype working in stealth mode?

Easy. Set the Skype Application to run under another account in XP while the computer runs in the normal log-in account. Do not use the "Right Click and select, Run As... to set up the second Skype Client. Insead set up the surveillance Skype Client using "Log-in" command at the Start Menu.

Skype now has a happy retailer somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean.

The Nokia N70 - Full marks, at least on paper

Martin Geddes | August 3, 2006 10:37 AM

I was recently provided with a Nokia N70, which I've been watching my wife play with. (You're only getting my N90 out of my sweaty hands by swapping it for one of these.) [Disclosure: Riddled with conflict. Get over it.]

Firstly, some unexpected praise. Since the included manuals were encrypted in Finnish, I downloaded the N70 PDF manual off the Web. I'd really urge all tech writers to drop what they're doing and go take a look. It's stunning. The shortcuts and stuff you really need are all at the front. It's based around the user and their scenarios ("how do I..."), not the phone and its menus and navigation structure. The layout is crystal clear. The language is simple. The corporate BS is hidden near the back. The important bits use bold and colour to let your eye flit about and find the facts you want. Someone's put as much -- if not more -- effort into this than has gone into the phone UI. Bravo!

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SMC-Skype WiFi Phone works in Australia

Bill Campbell | August 3, 2006 08:08 AM
Readers' opinions on Skype products are best. The new SMC Networks Wi-Fi phone certainly gave my down under Skype buddy Rick Gainsmith a big lift last night. Christmas in Australia came early.

IMAGE_00001.jpg

Rick and his family operate one of the most prestigious home furniture stores in Australia. They have been using Skype in their business since almost day one. (Reminder: Skype's 3rd birthday is less than 27 days away... what gift will you give Skype?) Rick buys everything Skype so I value his feedback on the new SMC Networks Wi-Fi Phone and asked him to share his experience with our Skype Journal readers. Here is what he had to say...

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From little seeds do great ideas grow

Martin Geddes | August 2, 2006 07:09 PM

True or false? You decide.

There will be three desktop clients through which you conduct your life. Browser wars ("Episode 1" ... or was that 4?) was only the beginning.

  • The browser. "Their stuff" -- your lens on the outside world -- discover, read, and transact.
  • The messenger. "Our stuff" -- your lens into your social world -- connect and converse.
  • The manager. "My stuff" -- your lens onto your own digital artifacts -- search, edit and view.

Skype is/was the "new Netscape". Perhaps a few billion dollars was cheap...

Having played with Nokia Lifeblog 2.0 for a while, I think this is kind of a transformative moment for how we interact with the last category. It's still at the Mosaic-like stage of development (go read your browser wars history), but it's useable. I look forward to the Windows Explorer paradigm going the way of MS-DOS.

No time to blog further on this one. Time to let the idea stew and simmer.

Stew and simmer through the telepocalypse.

Fixing telephony and voicemail, part 23

Martin Geddes | July 18, 2006 01:46 PM

I had a quick conversation earlier today with a vendor who was sitting in the departure lounge at SFO airport waiting for a flight. He is based in the UK, and this is roaming on a US network.

Here's how the sequence of interactions went.

  1. He calls my SkypeIn number.
  2. I get an incoming call from a UK cellular number. Assume a UK-based caller.
  3. I don't have my headset plugged in, or Skype set up to use my USB headset instead of default Windows settings. Scabble around to retrieve headset, plug in, configure.
  4. I call his number back, it goes to voicemail. He hasn't answered me.
  5. A minute later, I've got a new voicemail in Skype from him. He gives his context and contact details.
  6. I call him back, he answers.

There are lots of places here where the telephony user experience broke.

Firstly, Skype's device management is a total mess. I need to be able to tell Skype my #1 preference is for my USB headset, second choice is the USB handset I'm trying out. I want to set the PC built-in microphone to "never", as I don't have any such device; and my laptop doesn't have a built-in microphone.

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The Basic Skype Protocol Issues

Guest Blogger | July 17, 2006 11:27 AM

by: Julian Bond.
picture of Julian Bond
Julian is CTO of Ecademy, an online network "connecting business people." He Skype-enabled the Ecademy website to facilitate communications amongst members. The following is a post he made on the Ecademy Skype Directory Club forum in a discussion of the "code cracking" news.

Here's some ways to think about this. The first point is to understand what interop means. There are 3 ways of linking IM/Audio/Video networks.

  1. At the network level. Transparently route chat, voice and video by linking the networks. Skype can't do that because there is no central network. MSN, YM! and AIM have a big centrally controlled part of the system even though a lot of the communication is P2P so they can link, at the cost of running that big central system.
  2. At the server level. This is what some Jabber servers do. Because all communications go partly through a server they can be switched. It's the same as 1) except that anyone can run a Jabber server.
  3. At the client. GAIM, Trillian and others let you have one client that speaks multiple protocols. You need an official account with any system you want to talk to but it blurs the differences between them.

So if there's a library that can be built into client code that duplicates the Skype protocols, 3) can be built. And 2) can be built where it's appropriate (eg Asterisk PBX).

Then look at two conversations that are happening on the Skype forums already: (i) Building audio/video stream access into the Skype API and (ii) release of a Naked Skype which is a library that provides the API without having to have the Client.

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Skype protocols opening up, ready or not.

Phil Wolff | July 13, 2006 01:30 PM

The VoIPWiki Blog reports a Chinese firm reverse engineered Skype's communications protocol. It allows Skype-to-compatible softphone calls.This is credible; I've talked with a member of the team that built a Skype-compatible softphone. They hope to go public by month end. We're eager to discover if they will publish the protocols, offer Skype-compatible consumer software, offer Skype-compatible engineering products to other developers, sell their firm to a bigger company, or simply offer consulting services.

I've also used a demo version of software that crawls the Skype cloud, downloading profile data. From another group. This is not "the Skype database" but the natural white-page listing that all users put in their public profile. Skype's servers, and the financial data kept there, are not touched by this system. Screenshots:

Both systems build on detailed knowledge of Skype network parts not on Skype's servers.To build a Skype-compatible client, they had to figure out:

  • how to see and navigate through the Skype cloud, to find a Skype client.
  • publish their own client's profile into the Skype cloud, so a Skype client could find them
  • negotiate starting the call session, including encryption and

Publishing the Skype calling protocol would create new opportunities for products and developers:

  1. Third parties can build Skype connectivity into their own software, no longer requiring an official Skype client.
  2. It may open up creation of Skype-compatible server software. So your salesforce system could IM you.
  3. It could open up Skype to PBX integration. So you might preserve Skype identity, authentication, encryption, and presence while routed through an Asterisk server.

The profile probe is a slightly different issue. In this case, software that mines the Skype cloud for profile data is working with "dirty data." The collection is unverified, often clearly faked (an unbelievable number of people live in Antarctica), old, and incomplete. It does have some gems. Correction: The cloud has email addresses, hidden in the Skype user interface but used to locate friends. The cloud has email addresses, but they are hashed and not human readable. 

I'm not sitting at the management table, but Skype has several choices.

Open. They're already on the path to opening up more of their apps at the API level. Skype could embrace this at the protocol level too. This is the hardest thing to do, but may pay off in the long run. Exposing these protocols is the only way for the Skype network to become an industry standard. And it would put Skype in a position of leadership the way Microsoft is for dot net, Sun is for Java, and Adobe is for Flash.

Switch. Skype could change the protocols, breaking the new software. This is a costly and temporary solution; tricky but doable. Replacing Skype clients for updates is hard enough; getting everyone to migrate could kill the brand love. It won't be long until the Chinese engineers figure out how to get in again.

Quash. Skype might try to blow out the startup's fire. eBay has a powerful combination of PR, lobbyists, litigators, and business allies. Even in China. Skype could try to accuse the startup of piracy. My guess is Skype will tread litely. These tactics rarely work in China and often tarnish the reputation of the outsider applying the pressure.

Ignore. Skype has enough to do. Wait and see.

Invest. Buy the team, put them to work. 

Jim Courtney says technology does not a brand make. It takes quality control, aesthetics, user experience, customer services, an ecosystem of ancillary products, and integration with other systems. Skype's and eBay's marketing are a higher barrier to entry than technology.

Skype personnel were not available for comment. Hat tips to 9Skype, Jan Geirnaert in Malaysia and Lee Dryburgh in Austria.

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iTnEnLoEvPaHtOiNoYn - telephony innovation

Martin Geddes | July 5, 2006 09:30 AM

In case you've ever wondered if there's any scope for innovation in telephony (geddit?), here's some points to ponder.

First, check out this post by Douglas Galbi, in particular:

Good sensory design of communication services requires understanding behavioral goals. Consider, for example, voice quality. High voice quality might mean transmitting the full audible range of a person's voice, and nothing else (no "noise"). Research indicates, however, that persons are able to identify locations based on their acoustic qualities. If the goal of a voice conversation is to transmit specific information in speech, then ambient sound is "noise". But if the goal of a voice conversation is to make sense of the other's circumstances, then ambient sound might enhance communication, particularly for a mobile device.

So, what about the pre-call context exchange?

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Skype gets eBay tab, catches up with Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!

Phil Wolff | June 21, 2006 11:22 PM

The eBay Live press room computers featured a version of Skype just for eBay users, release 2.0.41.107, no beta version yet. screenshot of 'eBay & Skype' about splashIts eBay tab is new, and points to the same kind of eBay-via-browser-in-rich-client experience you can find in Windows Live Messenger, Google Desktop, and AT&T Yahoo! Messenger with Voice Beta (version 8). This Skype client for Windows is just available from the eBay site, not yet part of the standard distribution.

Can you tell who put out this blurb?

eBay Plug-In: The eBay plug-in gives people direct and timely access to the eBay marketplace. It provides the ability to track watched eBay listings, monitor bidding activity, and view items recently won. People can effortlessly stay on top of all their eBay activity from within [insert downloaded software here]. The eBay plug-in was developed using eBay's open APIs through the eBay Developers Program.

From a Yahoo! news release, but it describes pretty much what everyone else is doing. Mashups across sites, using multiple APIs to deliver services through rich clients. So Web 2.0.

You know the difference between Skype and all the rest? The rest have open plug-in architectures including support for web apps and web protocols. And Skype doesn't. It's almost a year since Skype promised such support, so we take renewals of those vows with a huge grain of salt.

eBay likes to deploy in small, measured steps, adjusting along the way. Let us know what you think.

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If only I had an API...

Martin Geddes | June 2, 2006 08:47 PM

Many people have commented on how Vonage is pimping its IPO to its own customers by sending them a voicemail.

This voicemail doesn't make their phone ring. I'm not sure if they receive any notification of it. In all, it's fairly unobtrusive.

Anyhow, I'm currently completing a questionnaire from my business bank: "Which of the following types of communications do you recall ever receiving (from us): ... [ ] Courtesy phone calls from our Call Centre". There then follows: "Which is your preferred method of contact..." and the predictable list of existing channels.

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Skype identity crisis?

Guest Blogger | May 26, 2006 02:29 PM

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 direction Skype is taking.

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Dear Michigan Telcos - Part 4. Skype helps relationships more than you do

Phil Wolff | May 22, 2006 10:45 AM

I warned you not to ignore Skype and its cousins in my first post. In my second, I explained that Skypers are experiencing today the "communications of the future" you promised generations ago. eBay's building on this to create a new intangibles market. As I pack for my trip to the Telecommunications Association of Michigan's Politech conference, let me tell you something else you may not know.

Skype and its cousins are social media. greetings from michigan postage stampThe calls they support may be transactional but are just as often threads in longer conversations, moments in a relationship timeline. So Skype builds in features that transcend the call and focus on the people and organizations in your life.

Users have buddy lists, the kind of speed dial that's alive and updated every minute, that keeps friends and colleagues and sales prospects close to each other and engaged. eBay says about a third of Skypers use it in the workplace. So project and process communication, small team coordination, collaboration even in the same office, are big applications. And it's not because Skype is free. It's because Skype builds social capital.

It helps people stay in touch through "presence." Before you call you want to know availability. And not just what someone's calendar says, you want to know what they're up to and where they are. Skype's simple moodies ("what I'm up to these days") and geopresence (My Skype should be saying I'm temporarily in Lansing but that my home time zone is Pacific) signal status.

Not all conversations are the same, obviously. So Skypers tune levels of intimacy for each call. They start with chat and if they need more can switch to voice or to video with one button. Like a good Leatherman multipurpose tool, people mix the blend of modes to the person, the topic, their sense of urgency, how well they know each other, how prepared they are at this moment for this level of intimacy (nothing like getting a video call when you are in your pajamas). 

After the calls, Skype keeps a history on my PC. All chats can be archived. All conversations are logged. I can see my own call patterns, who I talk with most. I can read what I promised in chat. With permission I can record calls and play them back when I'm less emotional, or for a coworker taking over an account. All of this makes me smarter about cultivating my relationships.

And all of this is so 2005. Watch for companies like iotum to run apps that help Skypers better manage my attention in the context of my many conversations and relationships. Watch for tools to analyze my social networks and map the social proximity of strangers, and friends of friends.

By the way, we haven't talked about lock-in. I know you're used to contractual terms that meet your every need. But real lock-in is in friends. What does it mean to Skype to have a human hub bring her rolodex into the network? To really exploit all these features to manage these precious connections? To leave the network, you have to take your friends, and they have to bring their friends, and so on. Switching costs become a matter of losing your buddy list, losing your conversational history, being less capable of sustaining those relationships. Social capital lock-in is one of the strongest barriers to switching you may ever experience.

So Skype puts all of these relationship tools in your customers' hands. And makes it simple. And fun.

What do you do as a Michigan phone company?

You have my phone bills, but when was the last time your robot called and suggested adding a frequent caller to my speed dial? Or letting me know that I haven't talked to someone this week that I usually talk with every Monday? You have the data. Do you expose it in anything but a billing context? 

You don't.

You force people to write down their contacts on paper. At a time when we have more contacts to administer, and information overload threatens our competence, let alone our sanity. In perilous economic times, who you know can be the difference between employment and bankruptcy. And as our population ages, those with friends live better, live longer, stay healthier. Yet POTS makes us keep precioius relationship data in our heads.

It's no wonder that people are bringing their friends into Skype's social network. Skype makes those relationships easier to care for, to attend, to garden.

As we measure our wealth in friendships and family, Skype makes us wealthier.

What do you do?

How I Skypified a conference room on a budget

Guest Blogger | May 11, 2006 10:25 AM

by Stephen Klosky, Director, Federal Systems Engineering, Dataline, Inc.

ConferencingSkype Journal LabsI often demonstrate Skype and its capabilities to business associates. Crowding around a monitor is sometimes awkward. At my desk, I have a laptop, a docking station, and a second monitor which works well for me and one or two guests. For larger groups, I needed a better setup, so I decided to "Skypify" the nearby conference room.

Skypified Video conference room

Before

The typical setup in conference room before the upgrade was to take a portable LCD projector and connect it to any of the laptops in the office. The projector pointed at a whiteboard or a blank wall. This setup was functional, but had some drawbacks. Cords ran across walkways, image quality took some time to tune and setup correctly, there was no audio support, and there was no pc based VTC support.

I did have some gear available for the project. The IT department had purchased a Polycom ViewStation H.323 station with a TV for a monitor. This setup was on an A/V cart. This was attractive because the remote controllable camera could be used for the video part of Skype. Also, the mic pod could be used for the Skype microphone.

View on flickrView Stephen's complete photo set on flickr as a slide show.
There were several network drops - 100baseT Ethernet ports available in the room. Additionally, there was a spare Windows XP Professional workstation available as well.

Shopping on a $510 budget

So, there were definitely some areas for improvement. My plan was to add a stereo for sound reinforcement, a USB video capture device for the video support, a ceiling mount kit for the projector, a wireless keyboard and mouse setup, a ceiling mount kit for the stereo speakers, a manual pull down screen for the projector, cables, mounting hardware and power strips.

I was on a non-existent / small budget, so, after a brief eBay session, I found the items I needed. Fortunately for me, I work for an office with quick approval processing and was able to get the upgrade approved in about an hour or so. After getting the approval, I went back to eBay and ordered up the gear. Here is a spreadsheet I used to track the gear.

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Three Skype Products - Three ?'s

Stuart Henshall | February 27, 2006 08:25 AM

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.

voskychatterbox.png
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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Design & Usablity - YackPack

Stuart Henshall | January 24, 2006 04:30 PM

YackPack.png
An interesting panel on design and usability. Most interesting is BJ Fogg sharing his useablity thoughts behind YackPack. This is really a neat application. I'd heard about it but not followed it up in the past. In his case he's actually subscri bed to twenty six packs right now. The interface is very simple. He keep reinforcing taking things out that people aren't using. Basically Yack Pack is a fun method for broadcast audio messaging. Both voice and text are available. Check out the explanatory video. It's intriguing. Here's an example of how to send an audio blast to a group of friends or pack.

It's a great example, with the use of pictures, the simple click, record and send. In many ways not all that different to the voice message feature in Skype. YackPack certainly illustrates where Skype could go with audio / video blasts. There's no reason this couldn't be developed and copied in Skype particularly now that SkypeWeb exists. Is it a priority at Skype? Probably not. Should it be? It's an example of a feature that is "new" thus Skype had the opportunity to innovate in this space and hasn't. When video blasts are restricted to your buddylist "spam" is not a problem. Similarly, additional groups that you might subscribe your SkypeID to would be a value added service. Note that networking groups would probably pay the subscription. Enough said.

Tag :

Skype, where are you?

Martin Geddes | December 19, 2005 08:34 AM

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 frogwhereareyou.jpgthis 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.

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Skype RemindMe

Phil Wolff | November 28, 2005 08:53 AM

Uri Levanon visualized what I wrote about in my Skype as Personal Memory and Skype as Collective Memory posts. His designs highlight alerting.

skypeasmemorydiagram.jpg
This diagram shows a reminder in the Skype contacts tab tying a to do list and tags to a contact.

skypeasmemoryinboxreminder.jpg
This mockup shows the same reminder but in your Outlook Inbox.

When we talk about the value of social capital, alerting like this helps us exercise our relationships and do the most we can for our friends, families, and colleagues. You really must see all of Uri's visualizations and his walkthrough of this user experience.

READ MORE: Skype杂志 | Technology | design

Redesigning your site for Skype toolbars: Four tips to boost commerce

Martin Geddes | November 10, 2005 04:59 AM

Excellent service deserves some praise. I needed a new transformer for our low-voltage kitchen light, because the old one was cutting out. Big bad vibes to manufacturer Brilliant whose customer service was worse than useless. Our plumber (another story - leaky shower, insurance claim, big hassle) recommended Edmundson Electrical for getting a part. They were superb — the guy helped me find the right part, called me back after checking with a colleague, and the price was good too. I’m pleased to have done business with them.

But go take a look at their web site. Now, I’ve upgraded my Flash player this evening because of a security alert. But when I went to view their site in the old version of Flash using Firefox, it didn’t work at all. Usual moral of story, don’t use Flash unless it adds value. I had to load it in another browser, and even then because of the Flash I couldn’t just cut’n’paste their phone number into Skype to check their opening times (not on the web site - duh!) and whether the part was in stock. (There’s a Flash-free version, too — hope your auto-detection works better than it did for me.)

With the release of the Skype browser toolbars, now is a VERY good time for merchants to go and take a look at their web sites and re-think their customer contact strategy. These toolbars are going to change how people use telephony.

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Proof by arm waving

Martin Geddes | September 23, 2005 10:14 PM

What’s wrong with video conferencing?

The usual answer is that we don’t have our makeup on straight and pick our noses during conference calls, and don’t want this stuff broadcast and recorded.

I think the answer is simpler. There’s nothing to point at!

Without having something to gesticulate at — other participants, a diagram, the window — you’re left limp and lifeless. So perhaps there’s a Superman-style blue backdrop screen type of technology that can re-insert those elements.

Whatever it is, it’ll have to be pretty clever to do it.

Posted by Martin via Telepocalpyse.net

READ MORE: Technology | analysis | design

eBay: Skype's first Enterprise Customer

Phil Wolff | September 14, 2005 01:20 PM

I just got off the phone with two teenagers from Brooklyn, New York. Gamers, both, who wanted to check that I was really from Skype Journal. It wasn't enough looking at the Skype Journal web site, they wanted to hear me talk, to say aloud "hey, I'm real and I'm the editor here."

There's a lot of getting-to-know-each-other going on in agoras. It is a practical, personal thing. It improves decision making because so much of our trust metrics are based on first impressions. I'm reading Blink now, because it is so on-topic.

Most of Skype's users have been individuals and their friends. And when used in businesses, they have, mostly, been small or home businesses. Skype just hasn't had the plumbing needed to do large scale or complex organizational telephony.

That changed Monday.

eBay directed Skype's management to continue undermining telcos everywhere. But they also added a charter: Skypify eBay. And that makes eBay Skype's first enterprise customer.

We'll be covering and analyzing this, but I see several excellent outcomes for Skype's ecosystem of users, developers, portal partners, and hardware vendors.

  1. Skype will have specific problems to solve with measurable results. A year from now eBay will be getting a report that says "18% of Elvis Figurine auctions started a Skype call; 83% of those resulted in a sale." Focus on user behavior is a killer app. Skype can learn to listen differently and more. Cross-fertilization ahead.

  2. Skype will address scale and complexity. How do you let 5000 people into a conference call for a hot auction? How do you extend the Skype names and profiles to work with eBay's more detailed and commerce-focused user identities? How can I dial a "room", like a product or a market category, instead of a person? The solutions should look good for all users, especially as they are rolled out in software, public APIs, specifications, and protocols.

  3. Skype will open the client to eBay's developers. There is too much to do and everyone will want to expose their own parts of eBay through the Skype client. Remember, Skype is eBay's live, in-the-now, Offical eBay Time desktop presence. Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, and every other portal are busy packing the best of their web sites into their clients. As Skype opens up their UI to eBay's internal developers, they will open it up to the independent developer community too.

  4. Skype will professionalize its operations. Skype hires brilliant designers and programmers. To Skypify eBay, Skype must shift being a garage band to becoming a symphony, from hand crafting code to becoming a sophisticated design studio and software engineering factory. The alternative is for execution to stifle innovation. As Tallin's agility embraces engineering discipline, everyone will see a new flowering of volume, speed and creativity in Skype's products and platforms.

  5. Skype will mobilize eBay. As Skype's software continues to migrate to phone and PDA devices, eBay features will come too. You won't have to be at your computer to follow an auction, to bid, to browse Craigslist, or pay your bookie (you use PayPal for that, don't you?)
  6. A house of repute. They will work out how to blend reputation derived from social relationships (Skype), transactional behavior (eBay), and institutional certification (PayPal).
Skypifying eBay's front office will build Skype's products and competencies. In two years they will be leaping out of their skins, ready to take their newfound knowledge and skill to Amazon, Monster, FEMA, GM, Samsung and the rest of the Online Global 5000. A delightful outcome for all concerned.

READ MORE: analysis | design

eBay buys Skype

Dina Mehta | September 12, 2005 03:51 AM

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.

eBay will host an investor conference call to discuss the announcement at 5 am Pacific Time today. A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed through the eBay's Investor Relations website at http://investor.eBay.com. An archive of the webcast will be accessible through the same link.

Full text of news release...

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Skypemonkey

Phil Wolff | September 7, 2005 08:18 AM

How do you open up your software's user experience to outside parties?

It's distressing to hand your hard fought, crisply crafted, sophisticated design to imperfect strangers.

But you must.

It's key to learning new things. To multiplying the value you create by the curious, concerned, and committed. To meeting more customer needs. To lock-in.

So what's the best way to do it?

Prior art includes plug-in standards, high level human-computer interaction specifications and browser based methods.

With plug-ins, you parameterize everything within a few fixed guidelines. Think about Adobe Photoshop plug-ins, all looking more-or-less the same, but packaging different calculations in one consistent set of controls.

Sometimes a plug-in definition restricts too much. Kai's Power Tools went outside the Photoshop client to create user surfaces that better served user goals than anything possible within the plug-in UI spec.

"An interface is about hiding complexity from the user, It's about guiding a process, without cognitive understanding of what goes on beneath. Interface design is the art of enveloping the observer in an enticing, "try this" exploration with ever-new elements and designs as the tools to triumph in new territories." - Kai Krause

Ever wonder why it's easy to learn a new Macintosh program? Apple's famous UI specs for the early Macintosh OS guided the design of Mac apps.

Enter the AJAX era [wikipedia], a universe of loosely coupled, thoroughly decentralized, OS-independent applications. Where 14-year-olds can create toolbars for Firefox that produce new navigation of Flickr's photo site. Where users record and share Greasemonkey scripts that rewrite web pages so phone numbers become clickable SkypeOuts. Where Vonage users write and share desktop widgets to show Vonage status, minutes used, and performance. Where a weekend hack shows a Google map of a Craig's List of apartments renting near you.

Ten years' ago users were putting up words and pictures on the web.

Five years' ago users were storing them in databases.

Now we're creating applications, in a wave of design riding atop existing data, databases, and services.

The elements are straightforward, even if creating an effective platform remains an art.

So here's my first cut wishlist to open Skype's UI.

  1. Open up your embedded browser to users
  2. Let us open arbitrary web pages
  3. Open up your tabbing and menuing navigation, subject to to
  4. Expose its document model
  5. Add JavaScript
  6. Add Java
  7. Support the web2.0 protocols: RSS, Atom, XML-RPC, SOAP, etc.
  8. Support Flash
  9. Open up the messaging/alerting system
  10. Open up the help/documentation system
  11. Build a toolbar system, so I can configure feature sets
  12. Docking of external UI components/widgets with or within the main application
  13. Skin the UI, so I can distribute my enterprise's branded skin or my Natasha Lyonne fan club skin.

Let

  • engineers add functionality,
  • designers adapt function to specific purposes,
  • partners to channel their content, and
  • users to make their copy of Skype their own.
Create a safe and flexible place, and they'll experiment and play.

Can Communities of Interest support Katrina refugees in diaspora?

Phil Wolff | September 2, 2005 02:50 AM

Hurricane Katrina refugees lost more than property. They are uprooted, sheared from the close friends and hundreds of acquaintances that make the social fabric of our lives. We can help them reconnect with old roots and plant new ones.

Goal: Help people easily form "tribes" sharing common affiliations or goals.

Examples: Survivors from a neighborhood. New settlers in a town. An extended family. Schoolmates. Coworkers. Health care workers seeking certification in a new state.

Specifically: Make it simple to provide the online/offline tools that help groups form and sustain themselves:

  • Phone trees.
  • List serves.
  • Blogs and wikis.
  • Conference calls.
  • Chat rooms.
  • Buddy lists.
  • Meetups.
  • And directories so people can find and join groups.
Some of this has started, a little here and there. We need a comprehensive and integrated approach to make communities from strangers.

Live Analysis of Phone Conversations

Phil Wolff | August 12, 2005 11:47 AM

"When will Skype open access to their codecs?" Doc Searls asked me at the Always On picnic. It's not clear they will. If they do, the Jerk-O-Meter is an example of the kind of application you could build. A project of the MIT Media Lab, it analyzes voices during the call, telling users how much they are paying attention. Per their project page, "The current version of the application runs in Linux on the Zaurus VOIP phone. It uses Ron Caneel's code to extract the activity and stress levels in real-time."

The Skype API doesn't expose the audio stream; you must work through the operating system to get at it. The same is true of the upcoming Skype Video.

There's money in analyzing and transforming media streams, whether for call centers (like the Jerk-O-Meter), annotation services, call/video quality boosters, semantic content detectors, translators, relay services, or simple stress/lie detectors. The Skype API should safely expose the media streams, and provide mechanisms for user authorized manipulation and substitution of that media by a friendly application.

It won't be easy, but the market value is huge.

Personal presence

Martin Geddes | August 7, 2005 01:15 PM

She walks in and sees me with my headset on.

"Are you on a call?" she asks.

As it happens, I'm not. But maybe my headset needs an LED on top to show if I'm on a call, listening to music, or just inert!

READ MORE: Technology | design | wishlist

Designing Skype's Human Experience for Scale

Phil Wolff | July 31, 2005 08:19 PM

A list of my 329,001 fellow IBM employees.

Alphabetically.

By first name.

"How do we scale up the number of quality human relationships one person can sustain by many orders of magnitude? In an increasingly connected world, how does one person interact with a hundred thousand, a million or even a billion people?"

Adrian Scott on Edge.org

Useful? No.

(Just an example, folks; I don't work at IBM. I used to work for Adecco, which employed 3.5 million people. You should have seen Adecco's employee directory around the year 2000, but that's another story.)

Let me clarify Skype's opportunity.

Overload.

Being true to "It just works" even when there's too much.

  • Too many names in the cloud. Which Gupta do you mean? When there a billion profiles in the cloud, every query will turn up too many results.
  • Too much information about each person in the cloud. Our profiles will expand to look more like CVs/resumes and biographies than business cards.
  • Too many conversational media and styles. Not just phone calls, but phone+text, text+video, video+game+text, voice+blog+irc, voice+desktopsharing, stressanalyzer+voice, etc. How should I contact Bill about his article at this time of day?
  • Too many inquiries or calls in a day. Can Skype help me be Oprah popular without being rude? Can I avoid distractions gracefully? Can Skype help me prioritize whom I should call?
  • Too many changes to the profiles of the people in my contacts list. As my contact list grows by a hundred or more each month, people already in my list are changing where they live, where they work, what they look like, whom they know, what they do for fun, what they care about, what they've said and done lately.
  • Too many contacts. How can I make sense of the 50,000 people in my address book? Can I find someone based on something said in a conversation we had? How are my contacts related to me and to each other? What should I do to keep our relationships current?
  • Too many and too rich an archive of prior call attempts and conversation records. I text, talk, or vid with Stuart a few times a day. When did we first mention video when talking about Skype? When I've had Skype for 10 years, I'll easily have gigabytes of archives (after SkypeVideo, maybe by year end). How do I find those conversations? those urls mentioned or people quoted?

I have just two eyes, two ears, and 24 hours in a day.

Skype, please help me manage today's and tomorrow's ever accellerating information overload.

The more I live in Skype,

  • the more I bring my work, family, social, and civic life into Skype,
  • the more I depend on Skype across my mobile phone and laptop and TiVo and Xbox360,
  • the more my memories are stored in Skype's logs and archives than my email or my brain...

Skype, please help me:

  • Spend my precious time wisely.
  • Find relevance.
  • Discover and create meaning.
  • Lubricate and propel my relationships.
  • Hold more efficient and effective meetings.
  • Help others do likewise.

Thanks.

Twist in the tail

Martin Geddes | July 24, 2005 10:21 AM

I'm really unhappy with the information architectures we adopt to display presence information. Many of you will be familiar with the work of Edward Tufte and his innovative displays of multidimensional and fluid data on 2-dimensional static paper.

We need to do better with presence data, because that data is going be become a lot richer. So, inspired by Tufte, let's see what we can do. I'd like to introduce to you my little pet Tod the Tadpole. As you'll see, I was diagnosed with disgraphia horiffica and have the drawing age of a 3 year old. Never mind.

(A friendly wag suggested this should be Simon the Sperm, but as a family blog I'll demur…)

What this does is adds some more dimensions to our presence display. The most obvious one is a temporal history of our availability. In the example, when the tadpole tail is high, you're available, when it's low you're not. The time scale is squeezed up as a log scale; the last minute and last hour might have the same pixel-width; the far end of the tail might be summarising whether you where around at all last week in just a few pixels.

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READ MORE: design

Just a game

Martin Geddes | July 21, 2005 04:55 PM

I can recommend this short but thought-provoking article over at The Mobile Technology weblog.

In essence, it critiques mobile J2ME and BREW because they're denied access to the communications-centric functions of the mobile handset.

I've long thought the same thing. What I'd like to see is these environments deploy "opaque objects." This means that they would be able to query and manipulate things like your address book, but without actually seeing the data. Only the phone OS would see the data itself; the program would just hold an object handle. Functions like iteration through the address book, comparison, and set operations, would all be offerred. A number of user interface components would be offered native to the device to perform standard operations like the selection of one or more contacts, or the addition of new entries.

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WigiWigi Video moves to beta

Bill Campbell | July 12, 2005 02:53 PM

Ashod's WigiWigi Video application has moved to the beta stage.

The User Interface is still a bit crude for mom to use but the one-to-one video quality and fluidity is setting the bar higher for all contenders in this market.

ScreenShot152.jpg

I will be doing more testing during the week and keep you posted. Right now it is for geeks only. But I don't think it will be that way for long.

Blog this Chat

Phil Wolff | June 16, 2005 10:30 AM

Uri Levanon and I were kicking around a few ideas. Here's one: Blog This Chat.

Imagine a chat window.

a thumbnail of a Skype chat screenshotpicture of two blog-this buttons

See those two buttons in the right column?

The first says "Edit and Post to Blog."

The other says "Post to Blog (MyCSS)."

Lots of chatter on Skypenet.

Some is blogworthy.

Let's make that easier.

The first button would copy the text of the chat to a blog writing tool or launch to a new-post-page in your browser. So you can comment and tune it up before posting.

The second would bypass the editing process and just post a draft to your blog. Bonus points: nifty formatting that makes Skype chats and chat archives so readable (CSS stylesheets and graphic assets).

How much would you pay for this feature?

How about if it helped you post your audio or video recording to your blog, filling out all the podcasting info?

SixApart, are you listening? Blogger? 20Six?

READ MORE: design | wishlist

vSkype video conferencing adds multi-user and collaboration

Bill Campbell | June 14, 2005 06:57 PM
Exclusive to the Skype Journal.
Today Santa Cruz Networks ships the beta release of vSkype, the first multiuser video conferencing extension to Skype for Microsoft Windows.

So begins the Skype Video War. What a cool arms race. There are three groups in the race. The IM people upgrading audio and video (AOL, MSN and Yahoo!), the Skype third party developers, and Skype itself.

Two weeks ago the story was Spontania’s Video4Skype release. Now Santa Cruz Networks realeases vSkype. This means the 40 million Skype users have these features, and Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo don't. CEO Stuart Jacobson says, "vSkype adds two cool new experiences to a Skype user: multi-user video and desktop sharing."

The screen shot below says more than my words can. It is an international conference I hosted from Kelowna, B.C. to: Opole, Poland, Toronto, Canada, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA, Sweden, and Bucharest, Romania.

I have been playing with and testing a pre-beta release of vSkype. It has been a thrilling week. Thank you Santa Cruz Networks ─SCN─ people for the opportunity and for putting up with all my whining and nagging.

Now I get to share with our Skype Journal readers the fascinating story of a development team who in eight weeks went from strategy to product deployment in the market. I’ll cover the product, the company, the cool features I like, test results and interviews with CEO Stuart Jacobson and CTO Barry Spencer.

First: vSkype is Easy to Use

This should look like a familiar process to any Skype user who has added a contact to a Chat.

A Skype chat message with a conference link is sent to all those invited.

Tip: In fact it would be a good idea to create a persistent chat for all the participants.

One click and you add another buddy to video conference as shown in this video conference session: France, USA, Poland, Sweden, and Canada.

Seasoned talent driving vSkype.

"We’re a group of battle-scarred veterans", says Santa Cruz Networks developer, Bernie Vachon, ex-Borland like 3 of his work mates and also an ex-Canadian from my neck of the woods. Interesting contrast to the younger demographics at Skype. CTO Barry Spencer, who has his hands around the core video technology, tells me, "I was employee number 23 in Lotus just ahead of Jim Manzi".

When asked what he brings to the table, Itzik Cohen, VP of Marketing and Business Development explains it to me this way,

"I am a 6 foot 9 former Israeli pro basketball player who was employee # 38 at WebEx. Video is the hardest thing to do on IP. I want to do what Skype did for video- just make it usable. The future is no more blind dates. We have a lot of interesting technology to make video a fun experience… eye candy, backdrops, gaming. We have a great leader in Stuart, who brings incredible wealth of experience and a calming influence, along with strong investor/board members like Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Robert Troy (Geneva Venture Partners). vSkype is just our first plug-in. We plan to release plug-ins for every major presence network out there. We have a consumer strategy and a strategy for business grade services."

These SCN guys feel like seasoned players!

Cool things I like…

  1. It is encrypted end-to-end

  2. Collaboration: I can share a PowerPoint or any other window on my desktop or even my whole desktop!

  3. When one party talks their name under their pic changes colour

  4. I can detach a video pic and resize it. Shown below. This is part of the vSkyper team at SCN. I detached Sam's pic to a separate window. Sam is the SCN in-house anthropologist. I guess they hired Sam for his videogengic eyes and Sam wanted to do a PhD thesis on old people in Silicon Valley! (Grin)

  5. Best is last. I can do a video call with myself! This is just perfect for anal retentive testers like me. You get to tune your systen and camera without wasting any one's time. To make a test call to yourself just go to Start > All Programs > vSkype as shown here View image. The result is shown here View image

Results from the Skype Journal Testing Lab:

I like to test 4 key performance indicators. In the end you the user will decide what you like best. These tests are so our beta testing group doesn't end up deadlocked like the UN. Opinion doesn't count in this court. Nor do fancy PowerPoints.

  1. CPU Utiliization
  2. Resolution
  3. Fluidity/Frame Rate
  4. Bandwidth consumption

vSkype performed remarkably well. CPU utilization was between 5 and 10 percent.

Resolution even in a 5 party video conference call was better than 300 lines per inch View image (that's really good) and it did as well as Video4Skype on the eye chart test with viewers in a conference being able to read 12 point type.

Fluidity was just okay. Fluidity is the ability to move your head or hands without any jerkiness in the video. Finger test counts were behind by one finger (about half a sceond) so lip sync was not as good as I would like to see it.

Bandwidth consumption is difficult for me to rate. SCN use a neat technique called elastic bandwidth (that Barry Spencer is a clever fellow). vSkype uses all the bandwidth you have available which makes for a great video experience, but it makes it really difficult for us beta testers to do comparitive testing! All I can say is if you want a good video experience get a broadband connection with more than 128 kbs upload speed if you can.

Let's hear from SCN CEO Stuart Jacobson

Tell me about your corporate culture. You seem to be an older lot. How does your demographics compare to others in the valley?

Barry and I are a bit older but our average age is late 20 and early 30s. I am happy that you didn’t comment about our maturity vs. age. Although we are twice retired and living in Santa Cruz, we are still having fun!

Do you mean the Silicon Valley or the San Joachim Valley? The valley is multi-ethnic and so are we. We even have a Canadian on our team. We speak 8 languages among us. I have lived in India, China and Marin County. Itzik used to play pro basketball in Europe before a great run at Webex. He has lived in France and Israel. Jean-Marc was born in Paris and speaks with a real Parisian Accent. Alex is from Mexico. Our lead engineer, Jeremy lives here and in Russia. At the moment he is on vacation with his family in Germany – which is why you are seeing so much of Barry! We re as diverse as the valley!

What are the advantages of having a team of old guys vs 13 15 to 20 year olds?

Older guys don’t make as many mistakes. More important, they actually understand how computers work. Video is hard to do and still taxes processors. To make is work on the internet were bandwidth varies, and to make it work in more that just a P2P configuration, you have really understand how to manage resources and optimize instructions. Most programmers today use Java or VB. They don’t worry about overhead and do not have to know, nor can they know, what is really going on. Older guys learned how machines really work and know how to manage and optimize with scarce resources. We like to team experience and wisdom with energy and enthusiasm!

Why did Stuart Join SCN? Who found who? What unique things do you bring to the table? What gaps do you fill?

Communication is good for us all and can be a very profitable business. I joined because I think it is time to use the internet to help people communicate more often and in more ways and because there is a huge opportunity to win big. I was originally introduced to SCN by Joe Costello, our board member. Joe sat on the Saba Board. Recently I was also reacquainted with Robert Troy from Geneva Venture Partners. Geneva and Robert were involved early on with Oracle while I was their and funded old colleagues of mine who built the CRM business (Seibel and Salesforce).

Is an IPO on your radar screen?

No. I have been through 3 IPOs. Even if the market were right, my answer would be the same because it is not the right time to think about an IPO. At this point we are focused on building a great user experience, making real-time communications fun, finding interesting ways to encourage its usage in group settings, and making money.

From a Skype Plug-in perspective who is your end user?

That is a good question! One of the reasons we are releasing our product in beta is to better understand this. The Skype community is vast and wonderfully diverse. We are learning as we go along. Our colleagues over the hill in Silicon Valley are interested in using the plug-in to manage their outsourcing partnerships and clients in India and China. We have also had interest from various religious and special interest groups interested in everything from motorcycles to politics. We have also had interest from tutors and educators, especially those focused on teaching language. They all want to meet on line and in groups.

Are you a video conferencing tool, a collaboration tool or a content producing tool?

As you know, we have a large library of content and camera games that we intend to leverage with vSkype. We know that allowing users to play group camera games will be a hit in the Skype community. Our tools for conferencing are fairly complete and we think they will also be useful to Skype users. Collaboration is a big word and an industry on its own, our collaboration is light but useful.

At heart, we are a technology developer and our strategy is to enable our partners and their customers to utilize our tools to have fun, make money, and improve their customer satisfaction. If we do this well, we will make lots of money.

Did you know Tim Draper personally before you came to SCN?

No.

What is your vision for SCN at the end of 2006?

Our vision: People will come together on the internet and use it to communicate more and in different ways. As the internet becomes unwired, opportunity to communicate and share will grow. We want to be a core enabling technology provider facilitating this.

By the end of 2006 we believe that millions of users on all of the presence networks throughout the world will be using our products to communicate visually, meet in groups, play games online, and show their friends what they are doing right now!

Now let's hear from the CTO Barry Spencer

.
When will you move to a P2P architecture like MSN did and like what Spontania have?

We already have P2P running. It will be an option included in our production release. We decided to start with the hard stuff first (a server solution that supports both one-to-one and large groups) and offer users a broader range of services – many of which can only be delivered using a server architecture. Once we determine how it is being used, we will optimize our P2P solution.

What are the advantages of P2P?

Performance may be faster with computers that are geographically close in a P2P environment. There also is no bandwidth cost, but this cost is dropping radically. The advantages of a server based solution are many and include groups, security, scalability, reliability, and better support and management in corporate environments (e.g. bandwidth control, firewalls, NATs, etc), There are also additional features that can be offered like centralized archiving, video mail, and games.

What is unique about your technology? Why did you build your own codec? There are some really good ones on the Market like the VP6 TrueMotion.

Our technology was designed to support groups and other add-on services such as sharing. Our technology has built-in QOS for the Internet; it constantly adapts to fluctuating bandwidth and prioritizes multiplexed data accordingly. It also provides centralized bandwidth control for shared connections. Our multipoint architecture allows us to cheaply scale to support large groups of up to 200 per call. Designed specifically for the Internet, our solution securely goes through firewalls, NATs and proxies.

The Challenge

How will 3rd party video plug-ins compete with Skype video? Will the war end before Skype announces their free video? Who knows? who cares?

For us Skypers the vSkype beta is on their web site. Go play. Get thrilled, as I did, by a new Skype experience.


Many thanks to my Skype buddies Ben, Peter, Kevin D, Kevin L, Sanks, Carlo,... … the greatest beta testers in Skypeland whom I get to work with. Lucky me. - Bill Campbell. Skype me

Most requested video features

Phil Wolff | June 13, 2005 01:13 PM

I suggested a bunch of video features that I wanted. A dozen of you took the surveyI'm On The Air to pick the top ones. Here they are, with a tie for second place and a three-way tie for fourth.

    First place:
  • Supertitles with my name and a title - like a newscaster.
  • Tied for second:
  • Integrate with my calendar, reminding me of scheduled video calls
  • Video-enabled voicemail announcements. Especially if they can be customized to the caller.
  • Tied for third:
  • Let me play powerpoint and talk over it.
  • Lurkers on a video call, people choosing not to share video but participating on audio or text only.
  • Translator services, bridging language and culture gaps during a call.

Of these six, two bring other tools into Skype calls, and four help you overcome real life communication challenges.

READ MORE: Video | design | wishlist

Just video isn't good enough

Phil Wolff | June 8, 2005 03:12 AM

I'm On The AirOK, I've got the video bug. I'm excited. It's making a difference in my work.

But I want more.

Put the processing power and richness of a PC to work.

  • I wanna be able to edit what I show on the fly, mixing in live sources (other web cams) and static assets (pictures, video files, web pages).
  • I want to mix screen capture - a la screencasting - in with my video.
  • I want to be able to do supertitles with my name - like a newscaster.
  • I want to have video-enabled voicemail announcements.
  • I want bumpers, those little bits of video they stick at the beginning and end of programs.
  • I want to fade in and fade out.
  • I want to lower the pitch of my voice by three notes.
  • I want the text of a group chat to crawl up the wall behind me via green screen.
  • I want a teleprompter.
  • Let me play powerpoint and talk over it.
  • Let me show a window from my desktop in a corner of my outgoing feed so I can show real time charts from live call-in surveys.
  • Feed the audio of what I'm saying into a separate file and route it to my speech to text application, leaving a transcript.
  • Feed that audio file to a third party web service for transcription and annotation.
  • Automatically save the video from my call and make it easy to upload to a server in the background for vlogging and vlogcasting.
  • Let me rate this conversation for adult content using one of the commonly used schemes from around the world.
  • Activate an external device to let me know there's a video call coming in.
  • Give me another actuator to indicate I'm On The Air (so those walking by know they are at risk of walking in front of the camera).
  • Integrate with my calendar, reminding me of scheduled video calls
  • Put a bug in my ear so someone in a separate call can feed me lines
  • Serious backchannel support.
  • Lurkers on a video call, people choosing not to share video but participating on audio or text only.
  • Live relay service, transcribing speech to text in real time for the hearing impaired. Transcribing their sign language to speech and text for the rest of us.
  • Translator services, bridging language and culture gaps during a call.
  • Matchmaker services, that put two people together on the call, back away for the call, then, after, gently ask each party what they think of the other and share the feedback gracefully and politely.
These are computationally demanding, if for nothing else than for doing things on the fly. Some just won't work on 2005's generation of computers.

Who will challenge the hardware market and put Moore's Law to use?

Care to vote on these features? Click here to take a quick survey. First 100 visitors only.

READ MORE: design | wishlist

Deep Throat: Lessons for Skype and Skypers

Phil Wolff | June 6, 2005 09:28 AM

Marquee of the Grand Lake Theater, Oakland, California says: We salute W Mark Felt, an American patriot and a hero! Where is today's Deep Throat?The marquee of the Grand Lake Theater, Oakland, California says:

"We salute W. Mark Felt, an American patriot and a hero! Where is today's Deep Throat?"
Just a reminder: We require anonymity and pseudonymity in the Skype client, API, and network. Whistleblowing hangs in the balance.

READ MORE: activism | design | wishlist

Skype Voice Messaging... the sweet and sour

Bill Campbell | June 2, 2005 11:58 AM

The new Skype Windows beta release 1.3.0.29 has two new features I like.

1. Voice Messaging.

Sweet.
As a VM subscriber I can now send a Voice Message up to 10 minutes duration to anyone in Skypeland. That will make Stuart happy. He requested this feature a few weeks ago here.

Sour.
Along with the voice message the recipient gets this "i" for information icon message and an advertisment:

screen capture of Skype client home. information note says 'You can receive voicemails even though you have not subscribed to voicemail service. To send voicemails, get Skype Voicemail.' with a link to the Skype store. Also in the screen: an event count and SkypeOut balance.

So far this is tastefully done. Let's hope it stays that way.

2. The Start Menu is gone and with it some bloat. It is replaced with a Services and Events bars underneath my contacts list both of which can be minimized achieving an uncluttered look.

View the Change Log here. Lot's of positive new changes.

READ MORE: Skype News | design

Skypenet and online reputation systems

Phil Wolff | June 2, 2005 10:10 AM

I was in the middle of some great General Tsou's chicken and the final battle in The Last Samurai when the phone rang. I paused the movie, swallowed and answered. It was a fundraiser for the wrong cause at the wrong time.

I wanted to be able to vote "thumbs down" on the caller, to affect their reputation, to reflect my frustration at their interrupting my breakfast (yes, breakfast).

Like other social networks, Skypenet users can benefit from an online reputation system. In the before, during and after Skype moments, you want to avail yourself of a caller's reputation.

  • As part of a Skypenet enhanced caller ID, you want to screen potential callers. Screen using a bozo filter and white lists; for authentication (this is the real Michael Jordan calling); and for contextual screening (this call is for business vs. social vs. activism vs...).
  • During a conversation you want to assess trustworthyness by context, for example I might trust you to sell me a collectible BB gun (an eBay rating) but not to watch my kids.
  • As part of hanging up, I might want to give feedback to the caller, the caller's employer, the caller's professional network, et al; voting as closure.
Like on eBay, your reputation becomes an asset worthy of defending, so socially normed behavior follows.

As we become concerned about SPIT and telemarketing, reputation systems may play an important part and be a clear business model.

Questions:

  1. Whose existing reputation systems do you trust?
  2. What new ones would you like to see?
  3. Which social norms for communication cross cultural borders?
  4. And which don't?
  5. Does Skype fail to meet or support cultural norms for telephony? How?

READ MORE: Strategy | analysis | design | wishlist

More testing of Video4Skype

Bill Campbell | May 31, 2005 12:50 PM

Video4Skype is clearly a hot item. Slashdot picked up the story today. According to a spontania representative: “we had 3000 downloads just in 24hrs and our server got colapsed. Right now it is up and running so you can proceed to download it.” In my experience that makes it the hottest Skype add-on ever.

The product also received coverage on the PRZoom Newswire.

Nicolas asked me to remove his Skype User ID form the pic in my previous post because he was getting too many requests for authorizations. (Girls… he is happily married.)

I have tested with about a dozen users now. So just how good is it?

continue reading.....

SkypeOut to FreeConferenceCall.com

Phil Wolff | May 28, 2005 01:35 PM

Grassroots activists found FreeConferenceCall.com in the 2004 U.S. election. As long as everyone pays for their own long distance call, it's free of service charges. They're now inviting Skypers to use the service. Their pitch: use SkypeOut to call in and cut your long distance charges to SkypeOut's $1.20 an hour.

Why not conference using Skype alone? Two reasons: scale and access. This service supports up to 96 callers at a time. It also supports Skypeless callers.

What capabilities would make a difference?

  • The SkypeAPI makes it possible to program an app that lets me invite buddies to a non-Skype conference.
  • FreeConferenceCall should be able to take Skype phone calls directly into a conference.
  • Scale text chat to hundreds. When more than four people actively participate in a chat, readers can't keep up. The diversity of opinion within the flow makes it hard to follow threads. So design must address the cognitive challenges: information overload; thread clustering, navigation, contribution; peripheral vision and alerting; leveraging social and procedural contexts; turn taking, voting, and moderation.
  • Augment with white boarding and desktop sharing. These features let parties to a call show presentations or demonstrate real-time screen captures. Some implementations even permit multiple users to share the same app. My dream would be a collaborative realtime wiki for a call, along the lines of SubEthaEdit

Mobile Space

Stuart Henshall | May 25, 2005 12:59 PM

Nice post by Maja Brisvall a design strategist on Skype targeting the mobile space.

The design director at Nokia told me a month ago that his misjudgment of MMS was basically that people don't want to send images to strangers. Well this cannot be true, as Lunarstorm finds that what it's users do all the time is communicating by exposing photos of everything. And marketing director, David Erixon, of Vodafone Sweden agrees, it is to difficult to send MMS, the UI of the mobile phone is flaw.

By moving Skype to wifi phones p2p content will fly. The challenge for Skype will be to stay true to it's vision of being an honest company, avoid turning into a Telco and be wise enough to quickly develop a brilliant design strategy which will set the specifications for how Skype branded phones should look, feel and work. MAJA

Mixed Messages

Stuart Henshall | May 23, 2005 08:12 PM

Mixed messages? Two clips from the same day from Skype's website. Are recent E911 rulings scaring Skype? I find real mixed messages here for consumers too. As a Skyper, Skype has replaced the telephone for me. So it is a "replacement." Yet it isn't apparently a "replacement" service.

If VoIP providers want to win / and work with users to get the "right" regulation in play then better language is required. Users don't care about quibbles. Portray it as a "nomadic service", define it as a "socialnet", or augmented communications. It is both very much more and very much less. It is certainly different. Users know this.

What feedback is Skype getting from country regulators? How are the current experiments in the US, UK, Denmark, Poland, Finland, Sweden, France, and Hong Kong going? (Note Norway is no longer available.)How many numbers have now been issued?

Skypetelephony.jpg

Skypenottelephony.jpg While I'm happy with the service having spent another 55 Euro today on Skype for an English number and more minutes others may want to read the terms and conditions There are not a lot of guarantees there. We understand the emergency dialing, and then most phone companies would refuse to guarantee your number too.

Video Update

Bill Campbell | May 21, 2005 04:13 PM

Last month we did two reviews of SkypeSee here and here. They have renamed the product wigiwigi which I hope won't last as a name.

The lastest version 17w is downloadable here.

This version should be considered a prototype or alpha release, but it is a very good one. The User Interface is rather crude, but it's truly worth playing with it if you are a video geek. It is the finest video quality I and my fellow testers have seen. Here is a sample:

It shows Carlo in Denmark and me in Kelowna, BC, Canada. Christian's photo is the "wallpaper" on Carlo's screen which provides a way to compare the over all quality of the video pics. The numbers below my pic on the right show how we set the call parameters for Quality at 40 and (Frame) Rate at 35. The bandwidth consumed is shown here.

At this time calls are made by entering "Call" plus the IP address as shown here in the lower left of the video window.

View image

Once the call is established you can enter Quality 40 followed by Rate 30.

Now here is a great trick. No other system I have seen can do this. Type in Mirror instead of Call. This places a call to yourself. Now set the Quality to any value from 4 to 128 and the Rate to a value form 1 to 70. You will see yourself as other's will see you.

The resloution is so good I can hold up what I call an "eye exam chart", i.e. a page of 11 point type and Carlo can read it. That is suburb resolution.

The audio quality is good too. All this puts more pressure on Skype to excel. :) :)

I Want to Talk to You --- Signals

Stuart Henshall | May 20, 2005 11:36 AM

Martin Geddes provides a neat idea and wants a less interruptive communication system. Next time I'll send him a voice message! The objective is to send a message "I want to talk to you" with it's own signal. I'm pretty sure I've seen another IM system that has already done this. It effectively sent a highlighter to your buddylist. Thus I could quickly see who wanted to reconnect. Under the SkypeAPI it would then be connected to a contact management system which would provide the topic and follow-up context whenever the caller rang back.

I’d rather see is a little stack of names of people in the bottom right of my screen who want to talk to me. If they go offline, their entry fades out. Maybe the colour signifies the urgency of the request; a slowly draining sand timer icon indicates if this is a time-bound request. Telepocalypse

READ MORE: Ideas & Views | design | wishlist

The Cost of Presence

Stuart Henshall | May 17, 2005 06:12 PM

Ross has a way with transaction costs. My guess is rich presence is exponential. The very RSS "pull" versus Chat "push" that he refers to suggests a deep concern with "control" over interruptions. I'd prefer to believe that rich presence will bring "higher quality" interruptions. Interuptions perturb the system and as a result we learn faster.

So far I've not found the "cost" of presence that Ross refers to. My Skype buddylist now stands at 210. I think I will push for 300 and then start running an analyser on the SkypeAPI to monitor interuptions. There's probably even a way I can rate them. That might teach me something.

However, with the social network as a filter -- coordinates of time, space and activity (what am I listening to, my calendar, use of modalities) can automagically provide a reasonably rich presence. When the cost of presence and interruptions are reduced from the receiver, we may find it more efficient to connect. Many-to-Many: The Cost of Presence
I suspect that "transaction analysis" will provide the wrong inputs. Ultimately "presence" is emotive, and that will be the real persuader.
READ MORE: Ideas & Views | design

CyberphoneK - Integrated Skype Handset

Stuart Henshall | May 16, 2005 05:29 PM

VVcyberphonek.jpgI first saw the CyberphoneK at CES and then more recently caught up with the team at Von Spring. They have already sold thousands. Since then the VoIPVoice CyberphoneK has added some elegance to my desktop. It's a sweet compact design nicely weighted corded handset with full dial pad designed to integrate with Skype. In summary it is perfect if you want a phone, have SkypeIn, and don't mind that it is not cordless.

VoIPVoice is one of Skype's Partners so they've been working with the Skype API longer than most. The integration of calling features is a great illustration of where the SkypeAPI could take The CyberphoneK is designed to integrate with Skype using a small SkypeAPI program which comes with the phone. Simply lifting the headset from the base will bring your buddylist to the top of the screen. You can scroll your buddylist from the phone or immediately dial a SkypeOut number. However, their latest software upgrade does even more announcing calls and enabling you to select who you want to call by simply entering digits like you were dialing their name. If you have a CyberphoneK go to the VoIPVoice site and update your software.

continue reading.....

READ MORE: Products | design

Skype 2005 Webby

Stuart Henshall | May 12, 2005 09:50 PM
Skype won the 2005 Webby Award for Telecommunications. The Webby, called the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, is an award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality. PR Newswire

VoIP Synchronization 911 Option?

Stuart Henshall | May 12, 2005 07:36 PM

Jeff Pulver writes a well balanced piece today on the 911 crisis. I'm wary of what's happening here. Part of that may be because I've never made a 911 call, and can't think of a single person I know that has either. However, taking that too far is like saying I've never had a heart attack or a stroke. Some things are required for the unexpected, and it may be even more important that they are provided on time to someone you know.

Still I believe regulators run the risk of making the mistake thinking that they know what users want. They are wrong. They base their experiences on the phone systems of the past and not on the future. Dealing with VoIP in the US today or any other country is not about addressing Vonage and asking how will they provide an effective 911 service. For those PoIP services aren't the ones defining the emerging user experience and what they will do with it. In fact rushing to reregulating the new with the old is plain stupid. In fact rather than regulating VoIP the solution really requires "opening" numbers to VoIP users while we transition to something completely new. By then the numbers won't matter anymore. This is how I get to that idea.

continue reading.....

READ MORE: Ideas & Views | Strategy | design

Accessible Skype by Summer 2006

Phil Wolff | May 10, 2005 05:09 AM

With injury, age, disease, Rolling-Skyper.jpgor an accident of birth, our abilities shift from the norm. Reasonable people understand it is useful to have everyone participate in society, especially in public spaces. So we make curb cuts in sidewalks for wheelchair access. Traffic signals and elevators chirp or announce their status. We accomodate to include.

I propose Skype and the Skype developer community set a goal:

Skype accessibility for the visual and hearing impaired by Summer 2006.

Some of the challenges:

  • Technical Compatibility. How well does Skype work with today's screen readers? What can we do to make it work naturally?
  • Relay service. Human relay services that help the visually impaired to hear a chat (reading the chat aloud) and the hearing impaired to have voice calls transcribed in real time and video calls closed captioned in real time. Programmers: consider relay initiation.
  • Captioning. When Skype introduces video calls and conferences, how will we caption video from those using sign languages?
  • Controls. What features will help a blind person navigate her Skype address book, search for a Skype user, be notified of voice mail? How will this differ from computer platforms to mobile ones?
  • Alerting and notification. Other tools, including many not connected to a computer, are used to notify the deaf and blind of incoming calls. How should Skype work with them?
  • Other concerns. While the Skype UI is simple, it is overwhelming for some with other cognitive modes like types of attention deficit or mild autism, for others with motor disabilities, and yet for others with sensory concerns like color blindness.

There are technical and business justifications. These new features will lend themselves to other applications. The challenges will strengthen the Skype API. The accessibility will extend the market. And the programme responds to PSTN/mobile telco lobbying.

But that's not why we must do it.

We can leave no Skyper behind.

It is the right thing to do.

Presence at Skype Journal

Stuart Henshall | May 9, 2005 04:57 PM

This post exposes "presence" and is merely an appetizer of what's to come. The following three icons are live and a page refresh "CTRL F5" will provide updates on status if you leave it open and check it from time to time. You may even catch us in a call... and all together.

| Stuart Henshall | Bill Campbell | Phil Wolff |

We believe real-time presence updates are about to change the world. Only the really sharp eyed will notice that we added a presence status indicator to each author on the main page.
callpresence.jpg
I'm in complete control of how and when I broadcast my Skype presence information. We've also added it to our internal wiki. Additional features are being added. For example I want to share "Skyping" (in a call in old language) with my colleagues however don't really want that being displayed on the blog. However this should be optional. On certain sites it may be a benefit to show that you are "skyping" and not just online. Popularity, willingness to talk etc. Layering of presence is the next step.
presence.jpg

Watch for more information! It's coming soon! BTW even with a few colleagues sharing "in a call" / "skyping" information is an interesting experience. It's very different to being a lone blog that says "skyping". When you know your buddies and they are also on Skype at 1:00am and in a call.... it brings new perspectives.

I'm certain the benefits outweigh the initial reservations.