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Developers
Spontania has renamed Video4Skype to be Video4IM. The success of Spontania's introduction, which has exceeded 400K downloads, apparently didn't go unnoticed by Skype. I don't know what was involved or what went on behind the scenes. Don't know if there was a lot of talking or if the legal papers came out. I know the parties aren't commenting publicly at the moment.
That's unfortunate. I would have liked to tell a story that Skype approached these firms soon after they launched. They couldn't have been talking before and so it caught both teams by surprise.
There's a lesson in here for other developers and for Skype. It's a story that could affect more than one developer. There are many Skype software products emerging or available with Skype used in the name.
Their new API Guidlines make it a lot clearer. Still I know it has thrown some products that are nearing release for a loop. Skype needs to make this aspect of product developement easy to talk through for developers. For if they can't piggyback effectively on Skype, then what are they developing for?
Platforming is all the rage. Turn your product into a "platform" that others can build on or connect to. If you don't have a "developer program" you're just so... pre-millenium.
So why are Skype's investors and management driving a platforming strategy? What role can it play in Skype's overall strategy?
Not in any particular order:
- Great T-shirts.
- Resource Gravity. Partners can bring human and financial capital to expand your capabilities beyond your own resources. Skype may have more than 100 engineers, for example, but there's no reason that thousands of developers can't be part of an extended development family. There's an art to creating the gravity that attracts the right people at the right time.
- Market Expansion. Few companies meet all needs. Partners can reach and serve markets you cannot. Some are cultural, sociological or geographic. Others involve technological barriers.
- Sensor Network. Threats and opportunities are often found by your friends.
- Technology Brokering. You never know when a peripheral capability becomes core. So it's useful to have friends from whom you can license the technology. Or whom you can absorb. Innovation often occurs at the edge.
- Biodiversity and Risk Buffers. Partner networks let others take a wide variety of risks on behalf of the community. Some will be hurt or die from those risks. But the ecology learns and adapts.
You can read about strategic alliances, keiretsu, value networks, and other ways of partnering up. But Skype has at least three partnering initiatives:
- Independent developers.
- Telecom and mobile technology partners.
- Marketing and distribution partners.
They must succeed in each of these. In the next few days, we'll be looking at how well Skype is serving its independent developer community.
Ever press the dial pad numbers in Skype, but not have the tones work right? I wrote a tiny program that fixes it. Free. This is what it looks like:
You can download it here.
So the next time you call to order pizza, book movie tickets, or check your bank balance, I hope you'll use KhaosDial.
For more information or to leave some feedback, please see this post on the Skype forum.
Just attended Cory Doctorow's keynote address - Europe’s Coming Broadcast Flag and Christian Lindholm - What is mobile life really about – Towards the seamless interplay between Hardware, Applications and Services. Cory made an appeal :
"Don’t let Hollywood’s iron heel come down on your life, your technology, your privacy, your artists and your social institutions—fight back and win the Broadcast Flag fight in Europe, too!"
Good lesson for Asia too.
The Nokia presentation was disappointing - it was about what you can do with a Nokia phone today - cam phones and lifeblog - don't we all know that already? It did not touch upon bigger issues of how manufacturers of cell phones are gearing up for VOIP applications, what they are doing to embrace the open web. He spent a lot of time on the cam phone aspects but didn't talk us through how mobile technology is about communications or networking or better quality sound or video.
Malthe Sigurdsson is on now and talking about The Skype Brand - he is sharing the Skype philosophy of keeping it simple and opening up through the forums and developer community - it works! The room is crowded with people squatting on the floor - just shows the interest in Skype here. More on his talk here.
Questions:How do you make money and how do you decide how much money you make ? Answer - VC, building userbase - plenty of money to go around, paid-for services where potential for revenues, tie-ups with hardware manufacturers, etc
Rumour - Yahoo buying Skype ? - Answer - there's so much more for Skype to do than being bought over by someone.
Can we buy stock? Answer - yeah we have stickers here :):)
Payment issues - Answer - being worked on - perhaps develop hubs.
Stuart is on this this afternoon talking about What's your presence strategy?
Skype said it will be re-launching their Software Developer Program, SDP, this month. They have 2 days to go! Please hurry!
Since I was the first member of the SDP eight months ago I can say this is a much-needed upgrade. Skype continues to innovate. But the real long-term innovation engine will be driven by an ecosystem of global software and device developers. Small, like Khaoslabs in Toronto, Canada, with the two genius Kevin’s (Kevin 1 and Kevin 2) who we work with, and large, like Motorola.
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.
continue reading.....Skype Journal presents this guide to help developers learn Skype's Plug-in Architecture. 
(Download it.) This guide steps you through the concepts. Your DIY project: build your own Skype answering machine. Along the way, you'll:
- Build tomorow's communications platform
- Customize & personalize Skype
- Create powerful applications
- Understand and work with the Skype API
Thanks. This book is our first community project to help develop and support the Skype developer community. It brought together a great group of Skype developers and users committed to creating new communications solutions. Many are active in the Skype Forums.
A special thanks to the Skype team for making this book available from the Skype developers' web site.
continue reading.....
A new company Pamela-Systems announced today their entry into the increasingly crowded answer machines for Skype Market. (See also SAM and TeleCorder) We'll be doing a comparison shortly. If you try Pamela be sure to leave your comments. Pamela works on Window 2000 and XP. The Basic version is free and a Standard version priced at Euro 13.95 is promised for March.
Connectotel has launched an SMS to Skype beta service for GSM mobile phones. Say you have a buddy on Skype and you want them to call you on your mobile. Connectotel has the answer. Your Skype friend can now call you back from anywhere at SkypeOut rates. So if you want to receive SMS messages on Skype then add the Skype contact "smsgateway" to your contact list right now.
Instructions:
continue reading.....What's a Skype Presence Server? From Qzoxy It allows you to share your Skype Presence (at the moment online status) beyond your buddylist. While SkypeMe buttons have proliferated on many blogs they never provided crucial presence information. Here are sites where you can see Skype Presence being Shared. At the end I encourage PayPal to use the Skype API as a payment mechanism.
Active in a bulletin board? Want to activate your Skype signature. Here is how. It's still early stage and not that sophisticated yet. Still it shares the same amount of detail you get from a buddylist and that has a positive impact on communication.
Most ambitious to date. See Jyve: A joint-venture partner with Qzoxy who will be providing hosted solutions for web sites and BBs. If you think using the Skype API opportunities are limited you should just sign up to Jyve so you can get your password and registration details back... not via e-mail, rather directly in a Skype text message from Jyve. That's a pretty neat trick. It means in time... that call placed from a site like Jyve will be able to ring and provide a caller ID and context letter simultaneously. That will be a pretty neat trick and is yet again something that telephone companies can't provide. Subscriptions to different services will enable more effective call screening. Now there is another market for that.
Here is a short list where some users are participating by sharing presence.
Qzoxy Test Forum currently conducting load measurement tests.
Skype Forum
German Skype Community Forum
Skype Spanish Community Forum
Bill Campbell's website
http://70.24.83.35:270/qzoxy/contact.asp our Qzoxy Contact Us Page
What does this mean at the moment? Signatures on bulletin boards are having active Skype logo's added to them. So you can see my current Skype status below and it will update from time to time. My presence (this logo) is tied directly to the Qzoxy server. The next step will be more detailed calling cards; coming soon.
My Current Skype Online Status 
Click for Contact Options
I also imagine some of you asking me if broadcasting my Skype status bothers me. I'd have to answer that it doesn't. I don't block calls or text messages. They simply aren't a nuisance and I'm not a pretty girl to be hit on. So for the most part I get the calls I need and / or expect. Enabling my presence particularly in communities or environments where I would like to connect with others makes sense to me. What I may want in time is a "Presence Service" one that registers my presence or serves it differently to different groups at different times. It may also serve up access in the future. Example: I am available (subject to my presence management setting) to community X between 6 and 9 pm every night. This could be my daughters sports team. If I'm on the line it will know and may even instigate a call back and que system.
So rather than being confronted with am I listed in the white pages or not.... I can list my number and availability with services and communities that warrant my attention for which I will grant access. Then again... put a big enough PayPal check on the call and I'll probably answer. So how long before PayPal runs with Skype handles as an alternate to e-mails? Or is that SkypePay? Hmmm.
This is the first in a series of posts about Skype. This one owes a huge debt to Stuart.
Skype is a telephone system that, at the moment, runs through the Internet. You access Skype through your computer. What are the elements of user experience? First, let's start with six choices, six user behaviors.
- Start a call
- Answer the call
- Bring in another person
- Share something
- End a call
- Add a friend to your address book
Much of the product and business analysis will cluster around one or more of these moments. There must have been prior art on telephone consumer behavior, so research will follow.
Start a call
Includes:
- Recognizing the need to talk to someone
- Choose to talk now
- Looking up or remembering their phone number
- Going to the phone
- Calling
Answer the call
- Be alerted (ring ring)
- Choose to answer
- Go to the phone
- Answer
Bring in another person
- I'm on the phone and recognize the need to talk to another person without hanging up the existing call
- Choose whether to create a second call, bring the next person into the existing call, or to merge two ongoing calls
- Make a call or merge two calls
Share something
- "Oooh, you gotta (see / hear / play with / click on ) this!"
- Send it
End a call
- Recognize the need to end
- End it
Add a friend to your address book
- Think of it
- Add
- Organize
How are these behaviors different with Skype than POTS? than with mobile phone? What are the opportunities to redefine how you experience these moments? to create new value or cut time or effort?
Theme of the week.
Ah emerging words and phrases. I see 12349 Skype users online now and just took up TDavid on his Call Me invite. He's put into practice what John Robb said you could do yesterday. Now I understand just how simple this is to do!
I may just find the Skype logo and put it on my main blog page later. For now you can "Click n Call" Me on Skype
Several searches to this blog for Skype information, not to mention when I first looked at Skype this morning I saw 11,000+ users online which was the most I've seen online to date. And�as of the time I'm writing this there are 11,507...."
skypers (pronunciation: sky-purse) - people who call you the moment before you get out of your chair to do something else. A skype equivalent of eBay snipers. [TDavid]
We also exchanged info round post #456 from Russell Beattie's Notebook.
Someone needs to wire this up with my mobile phone. I mean *now* not some day in the future. Here's how I see it. First a native Symbian app on the phone accesses the Bluetooth connection to a PC and streams voice each way. At 1650 bytes/sec for GSM-encoded voice, Bluetooth has more than enough bandwidth to handle it. This would allow your Symbian device to act, believe it or not, as a phone. On the PC side, a Bluetooth server sits and acts as a gateway between the serial port and the P2P voice app.Now - I don't want the client to just be a dumb headset with a mike. I want to be able to start the app up, get access to my normal address book, choose someone I know has the same setup, and to attempt to make the call via BT. Now if the call doesn't go through, I want it to swap to a normal GSM connection and then dial that one.
David also runs a weekly live broadcast for his Scripting School. By next week Skype will have enhanced his service for his international followers. Also had it confirmed that you can't go in and hack the ring file. Customized ring tones will be a pro option!...
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