Share.Skype reports an update for the Skype Pocket PC. While this doesn't bring you the same level of features as Skype 2.0 for Windows, Skype improved reliablity (long list of bug fixes), performance (two versions, each optimized for different speed CPUs), compatibility, and functionality (voice mail). Download it, discuss it in the forums, check the change log for details. Caveat Beta and let us know what you think.

Brightcove will serve video from commercial producers. Facebridge will let users distribute their own videos. 2006 will be the year that Skype turns millions of Skypers into podcasters, vloggers, and videographers. Who at Skype is working on vid distribution alliances? The long tail of edge created content will dominate in time but there is still good money in Skype as a TV and movie player for the next few years.

Rich Tehrani has a timely riff on mashing up Service Oriented Architecture with VoIP. Bringing voice into enterprise app development.

Another Niklas-is-cool profile. Muesli for breakfast! Niklas is still hard at work with Skype: “My ambition is to make Skype into the world’s largest online communication company. That’s the driver. Financial gain is secondary.”

Google tests phone-enabling AdWords. Long-established technology, but never deployed at global scale. Dear eBay, Skype could design this in one day, prototype in three days, cut deals for the backend in one week, be serving US customers before Christmas. By eBay calling both parties, they (a) preserve caller/called anonymity, (b) match calls to the auction/sale, (c) improve the sale of lucrative but challenging product categories, and (d) charge sellers a small fee to more-than-cover costs. The faq.

cnskyper's Q-Face plug-in. Delightful creative art for your Skype profile.

Dan Gillmor in FT: Rise up against US oppressors. A defense of Internet application providers like Skype against SBC/AT&T and their congressional henchmen.

A Skype Equivalent Without "Big Brother"? (Slashdot). The meme continues to spread that an American Skype will be compromised worldwide by US police, military, and intelligence.

While Internet phone services are catching on rapidly, quality and reliability are still suspect (BusinessWeek). As prices fall, sound and consistency become competitive differentiators.

BT will offer free mobile phone service (TheBusinessOnline). BT’s new service will combine its existing Openzone wi-fi hotspots with a patchwork of new wi-max networks to compete with mobile operators and Skype.

Thanks to Rick Hultz and Jirong Zhou 周继荣 for the tips.

Guest blogger: Jan Geirnaert.

I wonder when I will be able to get it in South-East-Asia. Emerging markets, yet, but no place to get it here.

I want to buy a wifi-phone that supports other software too. I want it to have a phone number too. I want it to have preloaded credit too, and I need it to have a cd-rom in a pouch with all that software on it. Then also I want to be able to get drawn back to the store to top up my credit. Therefore the store will have to provide me with a phone with a built in account.

Why else would I go back ?

see also:

• Accton Teams with Skype to Make Internet Free Calling Even More Accessible - news release announcing Accton phones bundled with Skype
• Accton VM1188T 802.11b/g VoWifi Phone

Vitaly Repin of Ice Brains Software (Russia) has launched Bombino, a smart variation on a Skype call forwarding plug-in. With Bombino you connect your mobile to Skype and use it to call your buddies or even create conference calls. In some countries this strategy wil work well with a prepaid mobile account. Thus it has some similarities to what Jyve and iSkoot offer. However, Vitaly goes further in integrating it with SMS. He's creatively used the SMS Gateway from Connectotel. All you have to do is SMS Bombino to launch your call or conference. This will only works with GSM phones. Bombino is available for Windows and Linux. Bombino has a 10 day trial period. After that it is 10 Euros.

Further details are described in the Bombino Manual. Comands are simple and described there. Vitaly has also built in additional security measures so no one can hijack your Bombino. Who knows, this almost looks like a service opportunity.

Noticed in Tesco that the mobile phone rack has shrunk in half for the Xmas season, with digicams filling the space instead. Tesco, as one of the world’s most astute and profitable retailers, generally gets these things right. Which tells us that for all the hype, “convergence” isn’t automatically a given, and when it happens it can be slow. Also doesn’t bode well for mobile as as a hot Xmas item — can you spell “saturated”?

But what’s really interesting is this. There are no 3G phones. Zero. Tesco is unable to articulate a value story in 3G for the everyday UK mobile customer. There’s no benefit to 3G that the consumate marketers at Tesco are able to spin that justifies any premium price or shelf space!

Doesn’t the inability of Tesco to stock and market 3G call into question, just a teeny bit, the strategic nous of those leading the industry to the world of IMS (a.k.a “3G mk 2”)? Actually, it reminds me a bit of yesterday’s post. Note that the O2 tagline is “Internet at the touch of a button”, when it’s anything but! As is the telco way, they’re conflating a service (Web) with connectivity (Internet). If it really was Internet at the touch of a button (any why bother with the button?) we’d all have a superior voice and messaging experience on O2 devices courtesy of Skype, MSN, Yahoo et al. Now that would be something to crow about.

PS - Note to US readers. Tesco is broadly the equivalent of Target, although the focus is more on food in most stores, and the quality of the food is a bit higher than the often mediocre efforts in the US supermarket sector.

via Telepocalypse

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.