Last night I met up with fellow bloggers who were attending the Blog Business Summit. I ended up talking to Ted Rheingold of Dogster fame; a thriving online community. Naturally, I asked Ted the "What's your Skype strategy?" question. So where else to start but Skype to Dogs... we are not alone even the Skype team fantasizes about this. Then we got serious and started talking Skype Video and collar cams on gyroscopes. We reviewed static camera postions and potential. What's the chance your dog's online, what are they sniffing etc.

Then we thought about the unintended consequences of SkypeDog. Here's a possible scenario. You are in the office and you are away from your desk. Your screensaver comes up. It dials SkypeDog (Rufus@home) and your screensaver now provides Doggy cam of Rufus as Skype and your PC at home automatically answers the request from the screensaver program. All other calls are forwarded to voice mail or handled as normal. Once we have one Skypedog cam up and running Dogster can even create a random dogster screensaver program that randomly dials dogs. Yet another way to meet new owners. A little like the Seti project.

Of course this could be for fish lovers, cat lovers etc. If you are scared of Skype Video then you can alway give the functionality to the dogs. Well it's safe to consider this with dogs. Still the dating game Skype screensaver or picture generator can't be far behind.

I think our doggiecam needs a little technical assistance. Can you help? Anyone programmed the SkypeDoggie yet?

The Lexin Swedish-English dictionary defines lagom as "enough, sufficient, adequate, just right."

Lagom is also widely translated as "in moderation," "in balance," "optimal," "reasonable," and "average." But whereas words like "sufficient" and "average" suggest some degree of abstinence, scarcity, or failure, lagom decidedly carries the connotation of perfection. The archetypical Swedish proverb "Lagom är bäst," literally "Lagom is best," is translated as "Enough is as good as a feast" in the Lexin dictionary.

"At one year old, Luka is a habitual Skype user. Here talking to aunt Laura in Finland." posted by Riikka and Jason Hertling.

Have you registered Skype names for your kids yet? For your fetus?

It's my birthday. Yea! In a stroke of indulgence I've been promoting my Birthday on Skype today. I've had so many cakes via chat, and wishes as a result. It's been wonderful. So here are the instructions for gaining a little self-serving notoriety on your birthday. Plus it opens an opportunity for others to connect with you that you may not have heard from in a while.

Simply open your profile and rename the "full name" field. I used "* Stuart's Birthday Aug. 5". Using the * or | puts your name to the top of the buddylist. Now you are visible and boldly asking for wishes and attention.

While I was begging I wondered how many others have had the same or a similar idea. So I searched Skype for "birthday" and I'm not alone. People do like to share. It could be a nice thing to recognize birthdays. I might even update my birthday details in my profile. As Skype has the details they could create a method for making birthdays more visible.

Then one of my buddies could probably create a birthday bot and set it up to wish birthdays with a special message or even a phone call. Then again some would call that phone spam.

Skype, hype and smiles...

From somewhere off the Internet or maybe from CNN...

After digging to a depth of 100 meters last year, Russian scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years, and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network one thousand years ago.

So, not to be outdone, in the weeks that followed, American scientists dug 200 meters and headlines in the US papers read: "US scientists have found traces of 2000 year old optical fibers, and have concluded that their ancestors already had advanced high-tech digital telephone 1000 years earlier than the Russians."

One week later, the Israeli newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 5000 meters, Israeli scientists have found absolutely nothing. They have concluded that 5000 years ago, their ancestors were already using wireless technology."

I'll bet Uri's ancestors were Skypers.

Can Gizmo beat this?

Boeing shows off their Connexion capability by putting Bloggers in the Stratosphere. I Skyped with Buzz this afternoon while he was flying over Washington state. Robert and Eric were up there too. Cost for PR one flight, few drinks by the sound of it and lots n lots of Wi-Fi.

Oh the connection. It was clear. Quality was better on Skype to Skype than SkypeOut to Vonage. More latency on the SkypeOut call. Skype to Skype was very good.

I'm still waiting to hear about the first "head in the clouds" conference call between five different in-flight planes.

For the dyslexic: Spyke.com, Earl's Computer Art Gallery. Colorful fractal dragons. Do you think the dragons will eat all of Skype's tld cybersquatters?

telephone burbles
scrambling to find the window
finally answered!

ringing through the net
freedom to connect at will
doomed to voicemail

Mumbai to Madrid
Antarctica to Shanghai
Skypenet shakes the world

Can you hear me now?
Let me adjust this setting
Can you hear me now?

Only text me first
Mom said don't talk to strangers
Earn my attention

distance is deader
free fast clear text vid voice ping
do you speak english?

fumbled wire headphones
tangled in usb cords
call evades my grasp

hey baby skype me
on our skypenet everyone
knows you are a dog

When will it roll over to

First off, let's look at writing. The American Management Association wants writing interns to write a book on making deals online. Has Skype helped you make a deal? If not, the you may want to swing by the World Association of Newspapers conference in Seoul. 29 May - 1 June. If blogging is journalism, what is skyping? The next day another conference, TrendTag (Trend Day) in Hamburg looks like a great time for quants and futurists. 2 June. For more events I find interesting, see my list on evdb.com, including The 8th Asia Pacific IP Telephony, Singapore, the Wireless Community Conference, Monterey, California, INBOX, San Jose, California (where I want to learn more about spam over IP telephony), and SUPERCOMM Chicago.

We all want more from Skype. A million Apple fiends are all goosepimply with excitement that Spymac is adding Skype, maybe to become SkypeMac? This popular Macintosh portal adds SkypeMe to its user profiles, forums, to push realtime conversation on news and user posts. I wonder what Skype video will do to portals and online communities? Or to libraries: 26 steps for effective web presence in libraries includes Skype.

Martin Geddes is craving a long list of Skype client features. He ain't alone. Jan's Tech Blog says Skype's SkypeOut Dialing Wizard helps you sort out international numbers before you spend those SkypeOut minutes. Build it into the next release, please.

I'm fascinated by Consumer Casting Conversations (fr) who are using Skypecasting for market research. via Franck Dumesnil. Reminds me of Sparkcasts' beercasting. Gregory Narain, are you listening?

Skype's shaking people up.
  Some band together: the Internet Telephony Services Providers’ Association is trying to make the world safe for Skype and Skypers and others of our ilk.
  Others resort to force, as Hello Estonia sees it: Next call for Net phoning : Regulation. The idea of using Skype for emergency calls is beyond belief, per Richard Cobbett. "What wonderful, idyllic, crime-free world does he see in the morning, where technology is reliable and the internet doesn’t die on a daily basis?" Read Richard's "He’s got a gnu!" for a serious chuckle. All the fear mongering could lead to an Online Dating Patriot Act sponsored by True.

If you take comfort in your toolkit, Make your own Skype phone. Not for the faint of screwdriver.

Skype isn't yet a railroad on today's Blogpoly.

Today is the 70th anniversary of the board game Monopoly; ZF has whipped up a clever board for BLOGOPOLY, a Monopoly based on blogging. It's pretty cute! Boing Boing

For a hoot on Saturday.. SkypeOwl set to finding weird and wonderful usernames. Just proves many many Skypers must have more than one! Btw do you have your company name and variations registered?

From the obscene to the unintelligible, Skype users across the world are showing their creativity (or mental imbalance) in their choice of Skype usernames. The Skype Owl, in association with Skype-headset-reviews.com, has nominated its Top Ten Stupid Skype Usernames and is inviting readers to submit their favourites for inclusion on the list, at www.skype-headset-reviews.com/usernames Top Ten stupid Skype usernames exposed by The Skype Owl

* 1: Baboonexecutioner3000 * 2: Smellybumhead * 3: Eggeggeggeggegg * 4: Thealcoholwithin * 5: Mysticalsock * 6: Spankmeimbritish * 7: Roboturkey * 8: Pricklady * 9: Motherofbeetle * 10: Squirreloncrack

What I like about Skype is it's got all ages excited and imaginative minds working on new ways of doing things. At the request of a commenter I'm sharing with you that a Skype Chat RSS reader is working, and a Skype GoogleBot similarly integrated to work in Skype Chat. Using the same methods the chat channel can also be used for blog writing and many other commands. My friend Rabbit didn't stop there. I'm just waiting now for the full SkypeBot launch.

Plus these bots can be customised just like many others. Many who read this blog may also be familiar with Joi Ito's #joiito IRC channel at irc.freenode.net. JoiBot can be entertaining. On other sites round the net there are many entertaining solutions.

!GoogleBot:

Update: We'll announce and point you to a trial client shortly.

Leave a comment and let us know what bots you would like to see!

Halley Suitt:

I have a new friend who has a good idea for a telephonic service -- it really should come standard on certain cell phones -- and would be worth the price. Special voice mail left on your phone by sexy blondes saying sexy things. I think it's genius. Now what would you pay?

And a Fortune 500 company is born...

Really, what fun stuff from the world of telephony would you like to see in Skypeland?