by Pond 嶋 俊. Basic FAQ in Japanese. Give to a newbie with a headset for Christmas. (My favorite cover design so far.)

Skype users share data about themselves in their profiles. SR Consulting sampled 3.9 million profiles for statistics about age, country and gender. Some of their data from October suggests these findings.

Skypers are 30 years old, give or take.

• Average age: 29.7 years
• Mode: 25 years (most common age)
• Percent of users 40 years old and Younger: 80%
• The average age of Skype users within countries ranges from 19 in Lithuania and Bulgaria to 40 in Ecuador.

Oldest countries
Country	Average Age
Ecuador	40
Faroe Islands	39
Kenya	38
New Zealand (Aotearoa)	38
India	37
Sri Lanka	36
New Caledonia	36
South Africa	36
Nigeria	35
Netherlands	35
United States	35
Netherlands Antilles	35

Youngest countries
Country	Average Age
Lithuania	19
Bulgaria	19
Jamaica	20
Latvia	21
American Samoa	22
Macau	22
Myanmar	24
Zimbabwe	24

Some people don't share their age due to perceived age discrimination (too young, too old) and a general sense of privacy.

Europe and Asia beat the Americas.

About 46% of Skypers are in Europe, but Brazil and China have the most Skype users of any country, each with 8.1% of the Skype population.

Skype users found in survey
Continent	Percent in sample
Europe	46%
Asia	28%
North America	10%
South America	10%
Oceania	3%
Africa	2%
Other	1%

Most Populous Countries in Survey with at least 2% of overall population
Country	Percent of Samle
Brazil	8.1%
China	8.1%
United States	7.0%
Taiwan	5.8%
France	5.3%
Germany	5.0%
Poland	4.5%
Japan	4.3%
Great Britain (UK)	3.2%
Netherlands	2.8%
Malaysia	2.5%
Italy	2.4%
	59.0%

Men report their sex more than women.

SR Consulting collected sex data, but 52% of users declined to state. We already know that women often "Decline To State" to avoid problems (harassing phone calls, for example) so this data is not worth sharing, IMHO.

More about the survey

Sebastian Ruell, CEO, said "We comply 100% with the Skype EULA and that we do not collect or store personal data of any kind. We take the privacy of skype users very seriously and avoid data like the person's real name, phone numbers or anything else that could connect the data to an individual person."

Ebay

First off, Ebay finished buying Skype last week. Skype Technologies, S.A., is still a stand alone company, but Ebay owns all the stock. Just over a month from the announcement; speedy, neh?

Steve Dzemidzenka tips us to an ISP-Planet interview with a company that offers pay-per-call advertising on Ebay (vs. pay-per-click); a great read and with one or two insights into models Skype may enable. A related AP story: Online ads urge surfers to pick up the telephone.

Some folks don't like Skype

Skype is still banned on university campuses in France. (Thanks, Alain.) Verso is still selling a filter to block Skype traffic. (Thanks, Mr. Harvey.) Qatar is still blocking Skype software downloads and Skype purchases. (Thanks, Jeff) Can you suggest a reliable way to tell if my Skype traffic is blocked?

From the Skype Ecology

Ipevo launched a family of Skype Certified phones last week, shortly after Linksys and Skype announced a co-branded Skype-only mobile handset and base station. While Skype says the Linksys is certified (via SparkPR), you wouldn't know it by reading the Linksys product literature, the Skype news release, or the product page on Amazon. Everyone else pays dearly for the Skype Certification and brags about it mercilessly; why not Linksys?

Look2Skype, the Outlook plug-in, is upgraded.

Maintaining the key benefit of Look2Skype which is the minimal inteference with Outlook, whereby it doesn't cause it to crash, or slow it down. Some of the new features are:

1. Instant access to all skype contacts from Outlook.
2. Extract callto:// signatures from e-mail.
3. Auto-recognise of skype contacts from e-mails.
4. Free text entry of phone numbers or skype names for contacting. Stewart Bissett

Recovery 2.0

This disaster is in a war zone.

• Families in Kashmir prevailed upon Indian authorities' better natures to open up cross-border phone service, normally carefully scheduled and monitored for security reasons.
• Volunteers are setting up a QuakeHelp Relief Hotline using SMS. Skype was unable to help with a voice line this time (they helped in Katrina relief) because they don't have SkypeIn services in India. Good sources: QuakeHelp and the QuakeHelp blog.
• Pakistan banned public access to satellite imagery of the disaster zone. Security. In a fight-or-flight, clench or relax, response, one or the other response is better. Restricting geo information breaks the decentralized operation of the Internet. You want to open up resources and remove obstacles for the many thousands of online volunteers who can put that data to work. Fortunately, relief workers voices persuaded the UN to re-publish much of the imagery and data. A win for emergent organization.
• The term "Recovery 2.0" is a flexible set of online tools and behaviors that can help invidividuals and groups organize themselves around any crisis. I've proposed a few possible projects on the wiki (feel free to register and add your own):
  • Phone Bank Network; the telephone remains the dominant way people communicate. We need tools to deploy volunteer phone banks that scale rapidly and cheaply.
  • Emergent Relay Service; provide a framework for live interpretation for cross-language and cross-mode communications.
  • Wish I could take credit: Mesh-Networking Cellphones; Why aren't there ad-hoc battery-powered "cell towers in a barrel" that could be "bombed" or floated into disaster zones to turn the thousands of useless cell phones in people's pockets into a crisis mesh network?

Skype at Work

Enterprise Skype isn't even vaporware, but the need is real. For example:

I was wondering if there exists a Skype Proxy server for enterprise use? Essentially, all Skype traffic would flow through this edge device, but would also allow for Skype-to-Skype traffic to stay internal to an organization without having to contact SuperNodes. HTTPS Proxies don't really provide any control of Skype traffic since they blindly pass all traffic since it's so volitile.

Also, is there a product that will allow multiple Skype clients to connect to a PBX simultaneously? Thus, be able to make calls from a Skype client to any phone on the PBX. I've seen some hardware solutions, but they seem primitive and only allow 1:1 communication. I'm looking for large scale many:many.

Thanks, Joe Schwendt

Another case:

Hi guys, I run a 450 person company's IT department. Yesterday Verizon had a man-hole fire and cut our lines completely, so we were phone-less for the whole day. We're a financial services company so you can imagine how freaked out everyone was.

What I was thinking last night is, what if Skype had a great enterprise version, that we could purchase 50 accounts for, and get them set up, distribute mics to our top 50 offices and have a back-up plan immediately in effect

Help Wanted:

We're always glad to post job listings of interest to the Skype Journal community.

Hi. We are currently looking for an Asterisk developer who has experience in integrating Skype to an Asterisk-powered IVR.

Skype me and I'll pass along your interest.

Exclusive to Skype Journal. “Festoon”, not vSkype”, says Itizk Cohen, the new CEO of Santa Cruz Networks. “We have a new product name and a new CEO”, Itzik grinned.

“We are putting fun into video conferencing. We are creating eye candy for our video conferencing application Just like Skype adds expressive media content with its ring tones and buttons”.

Product Manager, Sam Baron walked me through Festoon’s new “Eye Candy”. “When you play with eye candy, Bill, make the Festoon window big."

So I did that...

So I did that with eye candy "Inversion"

If you are part of the pre-baby boom crowd you’ll remember Rowan & Marten’s Laugh-In which played from 1968 to 73. If you are part of today’s generation you all ready know about Rooster Teeth Productions of Red Vs Blue. The video that Marketing Director Max Montgomery put together reminds me of both.

Soon we will be creating great content in Festoon and delivering it to 100's of millions of Skype users.

Exciting? You bet!

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.

Congrats to Skype baby Adelaide and parents!

Skype - Disruptive, Not Compelling. World famous management consultant and blogger turns off Skype: "For now, my Skype strategy is wait and see. Skype is important, and it's disruptive. It's just not yet compelling for those of us in the mainstream."

Symbian phones cannot do it : using Skype for free at ReadytoSurf Wi-Fi hotspots. Step-by-step screenshots for UK skyping with your PocketPC at free hotspots

Costa Rican long distance sales drop 18% since 2000. VoIP blamed. (subscription)

Sorry Gotta Go - sound effects for when you need to get off the phone. I like the office fire drill

Introducing the Nokia VoIP Server to provide IP voice service in fixed and mobile networks. buzzword compliant

Skype: hazardous to network health? Is Skype a good corproate citizen or a freeloader that's stealing your bandwidth? Kevin Tolly says "freeloader"

A cognitive analysis of tagging (or how the lower cognitive cost of tagging makes it popular). the Skype cloud should be a folksonomy of people - better discovery for social network health

eBay Radio. A weekly talk show format for conversation with eBay buyers and sellers. New segment: what's hot on eBay.

Both the Jewish New Year and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan started today. No coincidence. Both religions use a lunar calendar. Hundreds of millions of people use them when you include the Chinese calendar, Hebrew calendar, Hindu calendar, and Islamic calendar.

Lunar calendar support will become more relevant as Skype continues to:

• integrate with Outlook and other calendars;
• offer alerts, reminders, and scheduled calls;
• help buddies negotiate available times for conference calls; and
• support settings that change Skype's behavior based on the day, date, and time.

Skype's massive localization is a strategic advantage. Lunar alendaring and scheduling will build on that.

Skype released a major version of their software for Windows today, Version: 1.4.0.71. Download. Big features for users:

• Call forwarding
  
• Accessibility improvements to the contact list
  
• 26 new or updated language files (Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese Brazilian, Hebrew, Russian, Polish, Spanish, Estonian, Japanese, Greek, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Korean, Romanian, Turkish, Arabic, Korean, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Czech)
  

Features for programmers:

• API: data channel
  
• API: write to profile
  
• API: call forwarding controls
  
• API: expressive content (ringtones, avatars)
  

The Skype change log and official news release...

28.09.2005 version 1.4.0.71

* feature: Call Forwarding
* feature: Skype Test Call Service prepopulated to Contact List for new users
* feature: 21 new emoticons
* feature: My Pictures: possibility to choose pictures from Expressive Content
* feature: RingToneManager for Expressive Content of audio files
* feature: Contact List accessible by Microsoft Active Accessibility
* feature: API: application-to-application communication
* feature: API notifications for contactlist selection and focus
* feature: API: set profile information
* feature: API: call forwarding via API
* feature: API: support expressive content files SET RINGTONE and AVATAR
* feature: API: added OPEN [PROFILE | USERINFO | CONFERENCE | SEARCH | OPTIONS | CALLHISTORY | CONTACTS | DIALPAD | SENDCONTACTS | IMPORTCONTACTS | BLOCKEDUSERS | GETTINGSTARTED | AUTHORIZATION ] commands
* feature: multilingual EULA
* feature: advanced Skype links
* feature: number of friends displayed in Profile View form
* feature: possibility to set connecting sound from Options
* feature: added dynamic messages for help and tips
* feature: possibility to select and copy profile fields
* change: new layout for Getting Started Wizard
* change: Search window redesigned
* change: Add friend window redesigned
* Change: Import Contacts redesigned
* change: quicksearch on addressbar improved
* change: improved call related error messagas
* change: 'minimize' button minimizes Skype to taskbar
* change: warning dialaog added when calling to SkypeOut using callto: links
* change: option to disable authorization message popups
* change: MSN contact importer removed from Import Contacts
* change: upgrade prompt supressed if installer is launched with SILENT or VERYSILENT option
* change: removed latin spanish language
* change: option to view online release notes after installation removed
* change: option to create a Quick Launch icon removed from installer
* change: explanatory text in Profile View if user has not been online recently
* change: month names in Profile are translatable
* change: options dialog is changed to nonmodal
* change: Send Authorization dialog is changed to nonmodal
* change: main window minimum size changed
* change: new language files - Swedish (Anders Olsson), Finnish (Heino Keränen), Danish (Mathias Schwarz), Norwegian (Stig Auestad), German (Claudius Henrichs & Dick Schiferli), Dutch (Kees Koenders), French (Fabrice Imperial), Italian (Conte Daniele), Portuguese Brazilian(Anna Nyström ), Hebrew (Ronen Ben-Naftali), Russian (Viktoria Randalainen/Tatjana Kruti), Polish (Ewa Czekalska/Karol Szastok), Spanish - (David Reche), Estonian (Eve Loopere), Japanese (Tomo Suzumaru(Livedoor)/Mayu Shimizu), Greek (Panagiotis Sidiropoulos/Magenta LTD), Chinese Traditional (Morden Chen/PChome Online), Chinese Simplified (Leon Yang/TOM Online), Korean - (Daum Communications Corp), Romanian - (Paraschiv Ion & co), Turkish (Emin Dede) Arabic, Korean (Eriksen Translations Inc), Hungarian (Mark Bender), Bulgarian (Nikolina Filipova, Nikolay Filipov) Czech (Petr Silon)
* bugfix: shortcut to desktop - dropped always, despite preferences
* bugfix: changed sound channel usage,therefore improving the stability on older operating systems
* bugfix: improved Multi Chat behaviour on multiple monitors
* bugfix: authrequests do not pop up if your status is Do Not Disturb
* bugfix: optimized loading of user-language file
* bugfix: optimizations to have faster log-in
* bugfix: improved unicode handling on win98
* bugfix: status was incorrect in chat titlebar when disconnected
* bugfix: improved URL parsing in chat
* bugfix: addressbar search updated when new contact added
* bugfix: 'start skype when windows starts' option will revert to default
* bugfix: 'Enable All Sounds' option missed one checkbox in Options dialog
* bugfix: wrong folder created to Documents and Settings when changing avatar
* bugfix: toolbar texts not visible on clean install
* bugfix: improved error handling when selected sound file is too big
* bugfix: keybaord navigation in language editor
* bugfix: Ctrl+F in chat window shows non-active main window
* bugfix: toolbar buttons were not updated on some cases
* bugfix: API: Error is returned if OPEN ADDAFRIEND command has too many parameters
* bugfix: API: Using query id messed up replies to NAME and OPEN FILETRANSFER commands
* bugfix: API: During voicemail recording SEARCH ACTIVECALLS returned call id
* bugfix: API: When offline user tried to make a call with query id, error was returned without query id
* bugfix: API: Contactlist change notifications were sent when focused contact actually did not change
* bugfix: API: Other API messages were sent before “attach success” message

SKYPE EXTENDS LEADERSHIP POSITION WITH NEW MUST-HAVE RELEASE

New Features Encourage Callers to Upgrade to Move Beyond the PC,
Be More Sociable and Express Themselves in More Ways

(Luxembourg 29 September 2005) - Skype, the Global Internet Communications pioneer which makes it possible for anyone to make free, high-quality phone calls via the Internet to anyone worldwide, today extends its leadership position as the most innovative and fastest-growing Internet communications offering with the release of the latest version of its award-winning software. This announcement is significant both for Skype's existing callers who can now upgrade to new and powerful features and also for people new to Skype who can experience an even simpler way to start making phone calls for free.

The new Skype for Windows offers callers everything one would expect from an Internet phone and more, including increased mobility options, new ways for callers to personalise Skype with original ringtones, sounds and pictures, better than ever sound quality, as well as more ways to be sociable by making it easy to find and connect to their friends, family and colleagues online.

"Skype pioneered free Internet phone calls, and even with more than 56 million people already registered, we've recently seen our growth accelerate to over 170,000 new registrations a day," said Niklas Zennström, CEO and Co-founder of Skype. "We are passionate about really understanding what motivates people want to make Internet communications a part of their everyday lives, and listening to our callers about what they want from Skype allows us to stay ahead of the game. Today, we are thrilled to be delivering on this promise by offering a new version of Skype which both new and existing callers will find adds powerful and innovative new features like call forwarding and personalisation, as well as offering our best ever sound quality on our simplest product to install and use."

Skype recently embarked on a comprehensive global survey to deepen an understanding of how Internet communications is used by people around the world and what they expect from next-generation personal communications services. According to the independent study, Skype is used once or several times a day by 76% of its callers, far surpassing the usage levels of traditional IM-based voice calling services. Callers also recognized Skype's leadership in sound quality - 72% of Skype users consider call quality to be good to excellent. Skype callers are more international, with 85% communicating with people living abroad. Skype's broad base of early adopters are eager to embrace new features, with 79% interested or very interested in receiving calls from landlines, and 73% interested or very interested in adopting call forwarding, key innovations unique to Skype.

The new Skype for Windows Version 1.4, which was first available in beta in August, incorporates two new premium services requested by Skype callers, and fortifies Skype's role as a preferred complement to ordinary cell phones and landlines. It builds on Skype's already extensive product offering which allows people to instant message, set up group chats, make conference calls, transfer files, send and receive voicemails, call and be called from a traditional phone system, and access Skype over Wi-Fi for extremely low rates.

Skype's new Call Forwarding service will allow callers to forward incoming Skype calls to another Skype Name or up to three landline or mobile numbers when they're away from Skype, at no cost to the caller. Anyone using Skype may forward their calls to another Skype Name free of charge, or forward to traditional phone numbers at low SkypeOut rates. 83% of beta testers who have tried Call Forwarding have found it easy to use.

Skype's new Personalise Skype features also allow callers to easily express themselves with original pictures, sounds and ringtones for as little as 1 euro ($1.20). This new feature opens up a new and exciting market for content providers looking to deliver great applications to Skype's global callers and is initially offered in partnership with American Greetings, Qpass and Wee World. The global ringtone market is forecast to grow to $5.2 billion in 2006, and ringtones now account for over 10% of the $32.3 billion worldwide music market (Arc Group).

The new version of Skype makes it even easier for callers to extend their social network. It's simple for callers to search Skype's Global Directory, and import personal contacts from Outlook directly into their buddy lists. With the Skype Toolbars, users can make one-click calls to numbers and Skype Names from Internet Explorer and Outlook, adding tremendous value to popular desktop applications. Advanced Skype buttons allow webmasters and bloggers to create links that instantly initiate Skype actions, such as conference calls and chats.

It takes less then 3 minutes for new callers to get started with Skype, even if they are not Internet-savvy. A friendly 'Getting Started Wizard' means it's easy to begin enjoying the cost and quality benefits of the new Skype, available immediately for download at www.skype.com.

We publish the Skype Journal Guide to Skype's Plug-In Architecture. One of the exercises is building a voice mail system using the Skype API, in about an hour. If you're handy that way, check out Tom's Networking's How To: Asterisk Answering Machine. Nicely done.

I'm lusting for a midget-sized usb speaker-phone. The minivox 100 comes close, especially at a US$40 price point. But I want topside buttons for answering Skype (and all my other software that "rings"), a volume control, and a mute button. Heaven would be being able to plug my USB headphones into it and a tri-mode rocker button that would let me swtich between speakerhpone, headphones, and both at the same time.

One of the cool things at VON: an Asterisk softswitch server and a WiFi access point mounted on a bicycle. Ridden through small towns in Bolivia, sprinkling VoIPy dust as they go.

eBay buying Skype continue to ripple through the mediasphere.

• Steven Levy for Newsweek. eBay's Bet: The Skype's the Limit. "Right now, VoIP is a mystery to the mainstream (a recent Harris poll found that only 13 percent of the public knew what it was; 10 percent thought it was the name of a vodka)"
• Bambi Francisco of MarketWatch: The things Google makes you do : We're being forced to evolve at warp speed. "eBay's got its verb."
• CNET : VoIP wants to cut the computer cord. "Before softphones can really become widely deployed, the technology will have to be accessible to more devices than just a laptop." Amen, sisters.

Loving TechCrunch, blogging each week of Web 2.0 . It leads to the Web 2.0 Meme Map.

Coming events:

• Sep. 27, United eBay Buyer Meetup Day.
  
• Sep. 27-28, Connect & Collaborate: Social Networking & Collaboration Inside the Enterprise, New York. The worklplace is rife with goals that catalyze action and group formation. Drop Skype into the mix of blogs, wikis, and other collab tools.

  
  

• Oct. 5-7, Web 2.0, San Francisco. See you there.
  
• Oct. 5, Web 1.0 Summit, San Francisco. Drink you there.
  
• Oct. 6, Recovery 2.0, San Francisco. "The web performed amazing work during the tsunami and Katrina disasters... but the web can do better. So on Thursday, Oct. 6 at 6pm PT at Web 2.0, we're holding an open organizing meeting to begin the discussion about what developers, relief organizations, and media need to better cooperate and respond to future disasters, including goals, standards, and communication. This is also an opportunity for those in the area who are working on such projects or want to help can meet."

  
  

• Oct. 10-13, User Interface 10 Conference, Boston. What would Skype's client look like if designed by Tony Soprano?
  
• Oct. 11, Around the Blog, Paris.
  
• Oct. 13, Social Networking 2.0, Palo Alto.
  
• Oct. 13, eBay Seller Meetups.

  
  

• Oct. 17-20, MILCOM 2005 - Military Communication Conference, New Jersey. Clearance required.
  
• Oct. 17-20, EuroOSCON 2005, Amsterdam.
  
• Oct. 18-19, VoIP Convention, Paris.
  
• Oct. 19-22, Pop!Tech 2005, Camden, Maine.

  
  

• Oct. 24-25, Collaborative Communications Summit, San Francisco.
  
• Oct. 24-Oct. 27, VoIP 2.0, the Internet Telephony conference, Los Angeles. Niklas speaking virtually.
  
• Oct. 26-27, Internet Identity Workshop, Berkeley, California. How do you merge PayPal, eBay and Skype IDs with each other and all the other IDs on the net?
  

Are you a Skype user in New York City? Well today's election day is half over and you've probably not voted in this piddling election. Skype Journal stays out of partisan politics, and that's not changing today. But Andrew Raciej, running for NYC Public Advocate has a platform that promises free or cheap bandwidth, bandwidth for every New Yorker, bandwidth in subways and skyscrapers and tenements and schools, bandwidth for disaster preparedness, bandwidth for citizen participation in local government, bandwidth everywhere.

He makes the case that a universal Wi-Fi system is needed for economic development. That it fuels better government, better public education, economic mobility, attracts business, help bus and train riders commute. He says Wi-Fi bridges what he calls three digital divides:

First, New York City as first among American Cities. I love that he raises the spectre of Philadelphia having better municipal connectivity. You can hear New Yorkers growl at that.

Second, NYC competing with foreign cities for capital, talent, culture, and industry. The most wired cities have an unnatural advantage.

Third, high-speed haves and have-nots. "Having broadband access without affordability is like having a highway without a car: you can’t go anywhere." It's not enough, he says, to offer dial-up to the poor in a broadband world. Universal access creates opportunity and a level playing field for individuals and for small businesses.

So in a Wi-Fi'd New York, everyone can be a Skype user. Mobile and laptop users could connect any time, everywhere. And as we know, the more people in a social network, the more valuable the social network is to its members.

These arguments apply to any metro. To Oakland, California, (are you listening Mayor Brown?). To a recovered New Orleans. To Mumbai and Beijing. New York has a slight edge: lots of dark fiber to create the muni backbone.

I met Andrew at the first Web 2.0 conference just before he launched the Personal Democracy Forum online magazine in Fall 2004. He's smart, professional, cooler than me, and eager to make a difference. Now I don't know him well enough to give him a character reference. And since I haven't looked at the other candidates and no longer live in New York I'm unable to endorse him. But his ideas, his platform, merit every civic minded voter's consideration, wherever you live.

Is Sony about to ship new Vaio's with Skype installed? This link to Sonystyle in Japan (which is apparently a separate company) suggests Skype has completed a local marketing deal.

However, my contact in Japan Asao Ishizuka contacted both Sony and Sonystyle and it appears that all Sony's Japanese Autumn models (Except Type A - Global?)) will ship with Skype preloaded. That's a big deal for Skype. From Sony's perspective as they preload many applications an announcement may not be forthcoming. For Skype this would represent an important breakthrough. We will continue trying to run down the facts.

Now’s a little late to rethink how Telecoms could respond to the Katrina crisis. Still...

Imagine that your phone is under 20 feet of water. The number doesn’t work. You are displaced (refugee apparently is a bad term) and split from your family and other loved ones. Your neighbors of years went in a thousand different directions. You probably don’t have an email for them and lack a mobile number. There was a neighborhood watch, but the list of numbers is now underwater. Yet on the Internet the White Pages and Google remind one of phone numbers and old addresses. It's too bad they don't connect anymore.

The problem is:

• Not only is the neighborhood wrecked, one of the easiest ways to reconnect people, the telephone, is not available.
• How does the child connect with their mother? Before it is too late?
• How can someone act as a point person for someone’s old home line and inquiries? (e.g., call forward)
• How many have an IM system or softphone? Very few. Location, as we know, doesn't matter on the Internet.
• Many of those worst off don't even have a mobile.

Is it too much to ask Bell South to:

• Let displaced account holders log in and claim their accounts (phone numbers) via the Internet. What's happening at the Astrodome?
• Offer every subscriber in the devastated area a free soft phone with voice mail that replicates their old home number? Softphones that would do the job are available. If the numbers were transferable then Skype could probably scale a solution in just hours rather than weeks.
• Drop the fee until the home line is up and running again?
• Enable voice messages via e-mail if required.
• Enable call forwarding if appropriate.
• Provide copies of old phone bills? Help people reconnect with old friends, families, schools, employers, banks.

Or will they:

• Just keep the bills running
• Fail to use their imaginations.

We have the technology and even short term will power to change all this radically. There’s an opportunist's potential to see a VoIP solution and to introduce it. The sense of loss could be reduced and many people could be put more at ease with voice mail and call forwarding options. Let New Orleans residents use their hometown numbers everywhere.

I just got off of a call with Angelo (awake for 90 hours in Bahrain), Dina Mehta (from Mumbai and of Skype Journal), and Anna Lisa (Amsterdam) about setting up the KatrinaHelp Team's phone service. They are working with the Saturn ham radio operators to queue and relay calls for help from around Tulane. So they're setting up a local SkypeIn number and buying some SkypeOut time, about 20 euro for now. The volunteers, many of whom are alumni of Tsunami relief efforts, will follow the sun, handing off the account as they change shifts.

Two unresolved problems so far.

SMS. They need to receive and send SMS. Text will often get through to a mobile phone where voice calls fail. And these are life and death calls for help. The volume is low, fifty to a few hundred messages a day for the next few weeks. If you can help, Skype me (evanwolf) or Skype KatrinaHelp.

Payment. The other problem is that Skype still binds each account to just one payment option, typically a credit card. So the same person who pays for this account now is responsible for topping up the account for the life of the project. This could end up being a lot of money for one person. Right now we're assuming sponsors could reimburse our volunteer, but it would be better if others could buy SkypeOut minutes and transfer them to KatrinaHelp.

This is just one project. Grassroots. Independent. More to come.

UPDATE: See the KatrinaHelp home page if you want to join in.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jaanus Kaase, the official Share Skype blogger, for SkypeOut vouchers. Nice job, Jaanus. Blog on.

UPDATE: The volunteers:

• updated their Skype installs to the latest non-beta version,
• completed their purchase of SkypeIn and SkypeOut,
• set HotKeys so they can answer calls quickly,
• recorded voice mail messages,
• worked out that they couldn't have two people logged in with the same Skype name at the same time, and used SkypeOut to call the Tulane number. It worked!

The local phone system is swamped. Calls to the number sometimes produce "Due to the hurricane in the area you are calling, your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call again later." In the nicest voice. Callers will have to persist.

UPDATE: Jaanus Kaase: "We have eased the payment limits on KatrinaHelp account so you should have no issues making further payments."

UPDATE: Connectotel's Marcus Williamson is setting up a Skype-to-SMS bridge for KatrinaHelp.

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.

Houston Astrodome's refugee city will be online in the next few hours. There are several telephony needs to meet.

Needed Now:

1. Letting refugees call support services and family. This could be as simple as a bank of VoIP phone booths.
   
2. Letting refugees receive calls in the stadium. More complicated, but doable.
   

Longer term.

1. Pager or mobile phone service at the stadium. As services are committed, families found, you must be able to locate individuals among the thousands.
   
2. Following refugees as they are relocated from the stadium. People in diaspora move across area codes and need numbers that follow the person, not the place. No roaming charges, please.
   
3. Supporting volunteers and staff working in the disaster zones and in refugee service. You want to make them productive. And you want them to stay motivated; many will be away from home for long periods. Free connectivity, telephony, videophony, conferencing, etc.
   

Deeper needs.

1. Forwarding calls made to sector phone numbers. Redirect calls to washed out home phones to new mobile or voip accounts. This provides business and home continuity amid a diaspora that has torn about homes, workplaces, schools. Crucial for personal and regional economic recovery.
   

1.3 million people in New Orleans. Only 4 on the network. This is a screenshot from yesterday afternoon of a Skype search for users in New Orleans. A virtual metropolis unplugged as Hurricane Katrina darkens the real one. Sending chat messages out, all of the remaining few are offline.

News reports told of land lines shutting down as telephone buildings flooded. Then of cell phones working for hours as roof-top siting kept them relatively dry and running on backup power for a while. Then of both mobile phones and towers running out of power and going dark.

New Orleans will light up again. In the mean time, if you are involved in disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina, the hurricanekatrina tag may help others find you and either get or offer help. Write it into your Skype profile's About field.

Skype's network is fine despite the loss of users and supernodes in Katrina's wake. Is there anything else Skype Technologies should do to make Skypenet at least as resilient as the Internet?

See also:

• Disaster recovery links
• flickr photos

Congratulations to the Jyve team who submitted a personal presence server with browsing and call forwarding to win the Skype Developer Competition. Full kudos to them. All the details can be found on the Skype site here. I certainly enjoyed supporting them during testing and constantly asking for more. Well done guys! Some of the others won't come as any surprise to Skype Journal readers, you have already read about them on these pages. Certainly shows the inventiveness and in some cases playful nature of Skype Developers.

Some of the other entrants. The only one I'm yet to try is the Dial MP3.

• Jybe, a simple and easy to use tool for sharing office documents and enabling real time collaboration over the web with Skype contacts.
• Dial Mp3, which allows you to listen to any mp3 in your collection on your phone.
• Pamela Basic, a personal assistant for Skype that answers calls and chats for you in 32 languages when you are away.
• Gizmoz, which lets all Skype users communicate with animated, 3D talking headz. :
• YapperNut Answer Machine for Skype ("Amy"), which offers voicemail, delayed messaging and allows you to receive and send messages when away from the computer.
• Spontania Video4IM, a high-quality video solution

Commercial Mentions:

• KhaosLabs - Free ActiveS COM wrapper.
  
• Columbus CRM (Skype integration with CRM solution)


• ISkoot (free call forwarding)


• Audiomatic (voice activated macros including Skype commands)


• SalesForce CRM integration

xpnalex posted to a Skype forum:

I tried to call someone on Romania Mobile and Skype started to take my cents since it started ringing. The person did not respond to my call, but Skype still ate 0,24 Euro. It is not fair! What company are you running here?

Hmm, it works for me but I really haven't read the SkypeOut Terms of Service. Let's see...

IMPORTANT — PLEASE READ CAREFULLY

Yeah, right.

Entering into this agreement:

Use it, and you've agreed to all the fine print.

Electronic Signatures and agreement(s)

Umm, what's paper? Paper-less contract.

No Emergency Calls: by entering into this Agreement You acknowledge and agree that the SkypeOut service does not support or carry emergency calls.

When bleeding to death, use a "regular" phone, please.

Jurisdiction's Restrictions

If using Skype breaks the law, it's all your fault.

2.1 No warranties.

We're just human. Murphy rules. Outages? Not our fault.

2.2 Suspension and interruption.

We may break your service if we feel like it.

2.3 Change of technical features.

It's our product so we can change it.

2.4 No control.

(Hands over ears) WE CANNOT HEAR WHAT YOU'RE SAYING SO IF YOU SAY SOMETHING BAD IT'S NOT OUR FAULT. ALL ON YOU. LAH LA LA LA. MOO MOO MOO. WE CAN'T HEAR YOU.

2.5 No traditional telephone service.

Laws which apply to your phone company don't apply to us.

Article 3 — YOUR COOPERATION

3.1 Use of the VoIP service. You will use the VoIP service in accordance with these Terms of Service, the End User License Agreement and the relevant legislation.

wow. plain English.

3.2 Information.

Don't break Skypenet by hiding data it needs to work.

3.3 Suspension.

If you don't give us your data, we may kick you off the network.

3.4 No resell. You agree not to resell the VoIP service to any third party.

Oooh, this is news to me. Can I bundle the service, for free, with something else I'm selling?

3.5 Lawful purposes.

Be good. Don't mess with other's calls. Don't spam (or spit) unlawfully. Don't be a fraud.

3.6 Indemnification.

Whatever happens, It's Not Our Fault.

Article 4 — USER ID, PASSWORD AND ACCOUNT

4.1 User ID, Password and Account.

You get one. Anyone uses it to do something bad, it's All Your Fault. Even if you didn't know.

4.2 Notification and Indemnification.

Tell us when something bad happens using your account. Promptly. And... It's Not Our Fault.

4.3 Change of User ID and Password.

We can mess with your login to protect Skypenet.

Article 5 — ACCOUNT BALANCE

5.1 Credit balance.

Top up or no service. Give us your credit card number and we charge it right away. We don't have to take your card if we feel like it.

5.2 Activating Account.

Vouchers are worthless if you don't redeem them on our website.

Article 6 — REFUND POLICY

6.1

Ask Customer Service.

6.2

We'll give you your money back. Spent less than one euro? We'll throw in the change.

6.3

More than one euro? Pro rata for SkypeIn and Voicemail services. Full, if you ask in your first 30 days.

6.4

We'll pay you back the way you paid us. We'll close your account but not your Skype name, so you can open it again later.

6.5

Don't use SkypeOut for 180 days? The balance in your account is ours. Hey, we're not your savings account or the Cayman Islands.

6.6

Abuse our good nature and this contract is over, done, finito, end of story, full stop.

Article 7 — TARIFFS AND PAYMENT

7.1 Tariffs.

Tariffs are the prices we charge (stickier than a hippogriff). We set them, you pay them. Taxes too. We can change them and you'll know because we updated the tariff page on our website which you obviously check before every call. And we won't tell you what the taxes are, we'll just collect them.

7.2 Change of tariffs.

If you don't like a change in rates, leave. Write us and we'll give you back whatever money is left in your account. Otherwise, don't bother us about the rates.

7.3 Charged in error.

Did we charge you wrong? Contact customer service within 90 days or forget it.

7.4 Positive balance.

No money? No SkypeOut, SkypeIn, or Voice Mail.

Article 8 — PRIVACY, PERSONAL DATA AND TRAFFIC DATA

8.1 Privacy Policy.

Trust us. See the full privacy policy published elsewhere. We routinely give your data to local partners who helps us run Skypenet, but won't name those partners. And any governmental agency will get our help, including intercepting your calls.

Article 9 — INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

9.1 Ownership.

All your Skype belong to us. Skype is ours, not yours.

9.2 License.

You're just using Skype, don't get any ideas that it's yours.

Article 10 — LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

10.1 Limitation of Liability.

Not that it could ever happen, but if, and mind you we're saying if, something happened to be our fault, we're only a tiny bit exposed.

10.2 Direct damages.

We'll only pay for direct damages, like our service burning your building down, and not indirect damages, like being out of work or looking for a new home.

10.3 Maximum amount.

We won't pay you more than you paid us, and even then never more than 5000 euro.

10.4 No incidental consequential damages.

We're just your phone service, not your mother.

10.5 Specific Disclaimer of Liability for Emergency Services.

Well, we're not really your phone service. If you have a heart attack, try to use Skype to call for help, and die because we don't have emergency service, It's Not Our Fault. No Way. No How. Big Time. All On You.

10.5.1 Alternative Arrangements.

Really. All Your Responsibility.

10.5.2 No Compulsion to Offer Emergency Services.

We Don't Do That. Nope. Not Us. Go Elsewhere.

10.6 Willful intent or gross negligence.

If we hurt you on purpose or because we're just insanely incompetent, then you can try to sue us for more than 5000 euro.

Article 11 — FORCE MAJEURE

11.1 Force majeure.

It's not our fault if Skype doesn't work becuase of ...

an act of God, insurrection or civil disorder, war or military operations, national or local emergency, a serious and sustained power outage or severe Internet service disruption, flood, subsidence, or weather conditions o