[Correction] Sean Egan leads the Google Talk Libjingle program. Before Google he led the GAIM open IM project. He talks of an API that is running ahead of client development. Great for developers.

(Note, this was recorded on my iPod with iTalk, it is not meant to be IT Conversations. In a few weeks I'm sure many of these will be available there)

Skype’s problem now is maintaining growth. The second challenge is to get Skypers to adopt premium services and think about dropping their home phone. There are many barriers to this. The PC must be always on. There is currently no embedded Skype device. People just don't want to lose their numbers. Free local calling may apply and be an advantage, as is 911. Many early adopters that have Skype have not yet added SkypeIn (lack of numbers availability) or SkypeOut, as they aren’t making either enough calls, or they are making them on another service.

Let’s consider what a Skype partnership with PhoneGnome would enable:

1. Home Phone numbers to be associated with Skype accounts. Thus every PhoneGnome activated with a Skype Account would 1) ring when the home phone rings (anywhere!) and 2) provide cheap SkypeOut rates when dialing out of your local calling area with the home phone. Thus more integrated than doing what I now do. Which is run SoftGnome and Skype concurrently.

2. Backup/Skype solution for when a computer is not operating. All Skype calls would ring the home phone. This is no different that Skype’s call forwarding option that is offered now. However the ring for this service would be free. Device availability could be communicated as well.

3. It would substitute SkypeOut for creating an agreement with another ITSP. It would also enable dial by number for all Skypers who also have PhoneGnome. This would result in many more SkypeOut minutes being used.

4. New service opportunities for the family are opened up. Currently SkypeIn numbers appeal to a small audience. Eg a business line, or access in other countries. Create a SkypeGnome strategy and the opportunity for additional services that cater to each member is increased. Eg one home line, four extensions. Voice Mail on Skype etc.

From my perspective it’s easy. It’s also easy to test. Probably easier for Yahoo who’s IM platform is more SIP centric than Skype's. People don’t like changing their phone numbers. It’s a pain. PhoneGnome reduces the barrier and requires no permission from the current operator or regulators. That’s a strategic advantage.

Niklas Zennström speaks on intellectual property rights. (Tony Hallet, Silicon.com) "Software patents are hindering innovation. Patents should be granted when there is real innovation and real investment in innovation." "We allow third-party developers to develop on our platform. It's a great way to do it. We are helping them be successful. But there is a mental threshold you have to go through. People [at Skype] say 'Maybe we could have done that'."

EULAscan about Skype: customer written EULA reviews. My line-by-line review of the Skype Terms of Service.

Wael Ghandour's Guide to blocking Skype Blocking Skype Using Squid and OpenBSD (Help Net Security). Instructions for network admins.

Macromedia and Jabber make secure IM a selling point to the US Government. (Les perles du chat). Whereas Skype's secure messaging gets it banned? the news release. Government is a largely untapped market for Skype.

overview of the vTraveller USB handset (Gadget Spy). Skype Certified. Dial by saying the names of people in your address book. From VoIP Voice.

Skype + Trillian = SkyLlian (Hesspoint). SkyLlian brings your Skype contacts into Trillian.

Torcamp Rocked! (Alec Saunders) Bohemian 2.0?

Don't Buy DSL From This Man ... If You Can Help It (Tom Evslin). "Ed Whitacre is CEO of SBC, the huge local telecom monopoly which is about to swallow AT&T. The excitement of the progeny buying the former parent may be going to his head." Whitacre is dangerous to Skype. He thinks users and Skype should pay SBC/AT&T for Skype traffic over the DSL or cable line you're already renting.

Popular Post: Bluetooth & Skype (Skype Journal, February 2005).

Flash your smile around the globe. This WigiWigi is the best video application I have tested. Others agree.

"It's great... cool... this is awesome, I love it", commented Adnan Topuz President of AdoSoft INC in Toronto, Canada.

"This is amazing, this is amazing, this is great stuff". Charles Power, CEO of a web dating site Friendsation

This screenshot tells part of the story. It is my fellow tester Johnny in Denmark who was helping me test today.

last week I wrote that Wigi was not ready for prime time. Wait before downloading. Wait no more.

I wrote this User Quidebook to help you get going. Download here.

This amazing program is only 400 KB in size. That is less than half the size of Dialcom's Video4IM application. 10 seconds to download; 10 seconds to install and configure. And it works with any Instant Messaging Client from AOL to Yahoo.

The fluidity of the video is just outstanding. With speed set at 100 percent move your head back and forth like a pendulum. No tearing, no pixelation. The lip sync is perfect.

Look at this resolution of ten point type!

And look at this perfect colour!

Does it get better than this? Yup. Soon Ashod will have multi-party conferencing.

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.

The rumor of Google Talk appears to be rattling the cage at Skype and will shake some egos. This post reflects on Skype's latest PR release which opens the gates on new initiatives. Are they in response to Google Talk? I wrote this prior to testing out Google Talk this evening. I'll let you be the judge.

Party time at Skype over the next week.

...is preparing to mark its second anniversary next week by opening up its platform to anyone who wants to integrate Skype's presence and instant messaging services into their website or application. By opening up Skypes platform to the web, it will now be simple for anyone to connect to Skypes fast growing member base,.... Skype Anniversary Press Release

Underlying the fluff we find two new initiatives that indicate Skype is testing a bolder (or maybe reckless if the news is too premature) strategic direction. Certainly these components support Lenn Pryor's desire to build a broader ecosystem around Skype.

SkypeWeb: Creating a web of availability.

Skype will launch a web presence server solution under the name SkypeWeb. This will be supported in a new client release (we don't know when) which will broadcast your presence data via preferences in the client. Apparently a new bit of code in the P2P network will ping status updates every five second to a presence server. Presence information will be availabie in the form of an ATOM feed which will enable presence updates and also enable contact lists. All list detail is said to be controlled by the user. Thus the Atom feed will push presence data direct from the Skype client enabling contact lists for a circle of friends. The general idea space is good. Details? Client? We don't know yet.

SkypeNet: Stripped down client extends Developer opportunities:

Skype will open up presence and IM functionality to the whole world under the name SkypeNet. It's unknown whether this will include file sharing. SkypeNet is made up of SkypeLite clients --- a headless Skype client, without user interface, that can be integrated into any application. This should let you build Skype servers and web services. It should help Skype become enabled in programs like Trillian, make Skype more interesting for online game publishers, and create opportunities for business applications that need to scale. This is a huge gap in their architecture and, depending on execution, SkypeNet may fill it.

Some of the PR announcement is fluff. Skype has done a tremendous job of building and growing a software platform. Still, the combination of big deal buyers (Murdoch billions) and bragging on registered names (51 million) doesn't sit well with me. It hides the plain truths. Skype at two is still an upstart minnow. It's achieved much. Year One saw the launch of P2P telephony that just worked and free conference caling. Together these reinvented telephony. In Year Two we have SkypeOut, SkypeIn and the SkypeAPI and Skypers who want to do more with Skype. Today Skype has a global following in the 10's of millions talking for billions of minutes.

The industry clearly needs some metrics. However apples and oranges examples isn't the way to do it.

Skype's minutes served are currently flat. Active users are stalled. Releases with substantial features - voice recording, - call forwarding, work groups, contact lists, all seem to be coming along very slowly.

What is slow? From a developer's perspective progress may be very fast. However, from a Skype user point of view, many are now using Skype as a super telephone replacement, often for mobiles, so we expect all sorts of complex new features to be available. They are standard features on other systems. Now Skype adds these two initiatives. Expectations for Skype's next major client release are growing. We want it all and yet, two years after Skype first launched, I still can't do the things with it I dreamed I would like to be able to do.

So, Skype, please don't put your credibiltiy on the line with stretch announcements. The meme is still spreading because Skype is inherently good when I can talk to one or more for free. However, nothing kills a meme faster than the smell of desparation or an empty store. Telling me about presence servers and stripped clients is not the same as delivering them to me. The developer community has provided many gifts. I just hope when you blow out the two candles this week our wishes come true.

We have Podcasting, Skypecasting and perhaps this community variant is buddycasting. While you can't have it today this mock-up from Uri Levanon displays the kind of thinking required to take the IM client to the next level. It also enables behavior similiar to what's seen on Live Journal, Xanga, MySpace etc.

Here is Uri's example. Everyone would have the opportunity to share the topic of their latest mini-cast.

Here's something I'd really like to have in Skype.

An option to share a single short voice message with my contacts list.

Gogelmogel

How would this work in Skype? Why is it such a neat idea?

1. Voice Messaging. Uses the current voice messaging system in a slightly different way. The recording stays resident unless requested by one of your buddies. When requested it is simply uploaded and delivered as a voice message.

2. Enhancements. We already need a topic name for voice mails. This illustrates how topics could add value to a voice message. Additionally, pinging a minicast server for "public" rather than "Buddy" only mini casts would enable this effectively to be a podcast distributed by Skype. It would be good for low volumes. With the topic enhancement you could tag for conversations.

3. Reply enables buddies to jump into a multi-chat for that mini-cast. The behavior is then very similar the high number of comments we see on Xanga, or MySpaces. Quit the multi-chat and you just left a comment. Close it and it will pop back up with the next comment etc. A simple way to network with your buddies buddies. Add a number of of replies counter and it becomes even more interesting. You may even want to sort your buddylist on most active mini-casts.

4. Format. This doesn't need to be audio. It could be video or even just a text message. It's a blog and not a blog. It's certainly social and enables people to find out more about others. Similarly the multi-chat reply means people can comment and leave the thread or stay and get the updates from others. Thus opt-in to multi-chats. Each mini-cast has it own-multichat. The records could be added to profiles etc.