17 ways to celebrate the joy and diversity of the Internet with Skype:

1. Skype a friend.
2. Skype a stranger.
3. Turn on SkypeMe mode for the day.
4. Add your Outlook contacts to Skype and send OneWebDay greetings.
5. Install Skype on a friend's computer. Add yourself as a buddy.
6. Install Skype at a local charity.
7. Get that webcam you put off buying and vid a friend using Skype.
8. Skype for love.
9. Skype for sex.
10. Record an oral history and post it to your blog.
11. Skype an elected official.
12. Skype a happy song.
13. Skype an apology.
14. Skype your forgiveness.
15. Skype a stranger in a place where there's news, and ask for the real story from someone living it.
16. Update your Skype profile, and tell at least one true thing about yourself.
17. Make up your own thing. And share it.

Go to a OneWebDay event. Or host one. 

This week's banner image is a collage of photos of the first One Web Day planning event in San Francisco, this past spring. The image at full size and the set of photos from which I built it. 

L'Shana Tova, y'all.

tags: onewebday, holiday, holidays, events, web, internet, skype, skypejournal, ebay inc.,

Last winter, while visiting a friend in Silicon Valley, I had a demonstration of a comprehensive personal video management system that he had set up combining SlingBox, a TiVo PVR and his WiFi-networked home office personal computer configuration that included a 300GB storage drive . This is a person who is a hard core road warrior and wants to be able to access his video recordings from anywhere on the Internet; he had configured this system to achieve this goal. Via his SlingBox Player he could perform all the TiVo functionality, call up any recorded program or PC file, whether stored on the TiVo or his 300 GB hard drive from any broadband connection to the Internet in hotels, airports, etc. But it required some work on his part to pull this all together and to maintain the integrity of the system through software and firmware upgrades, etc. After his initial demonstration I enquired about pricing and then asked, "Is this not 90% of the functionality of a Windows Media Center system at 20% to 30% of the cost?" He replied in the affirmative.

MediaREADY Inc. (formerly known as Video Without Bounderies, Inc.) is a Florida-based provider of interactive, media-ready home entertainment devices that effectively combine the functionality of the TV and networked home PC's media management features into one dedicated Linux-based device. These devices, combined with the SlingBox, can provide the equivalent functionality of my friend's configuration at a much lower cost than a TiVo combined with a home-networked Windows PC and dedicated storage hard drive . Working with a MediaREADY dedicated function device, the user can focus on managing his/her TV viewing, recording and recall without the inherent problems of a Windows system, such as sharing the processor to handle other non-media-related programs or handling Windows security issues. From an home entertainment system point of view it is simply one more box in a home entertainment cabinet as opposed to requiring full PC hardware configuration including the monitor any other attachments and the associated footprint requirements. Not to mention placing a full PC in the family or other TV viewing room may not be appreciated aesthetically (or socially) by other members of the household.

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A few days ago Alec Saunders, Mark Evans, Jon Arnold and a blushing Andy Abramson all drew attention to a "ranking" of VoIP blogs put out by Garrett Smith of SmithOnVoip. Even Garrett himself admits his poll is somewhat arbitrary; he did outline his criteria and they have been repeated (and praised) in some of the linked posts. Skype Journal came out well at a number 6 ranking in Garrett's Top 10 list. Very encouraging and rewarding to find we are that far up.

Luca Filigheddu, an Italian blogger on VoIP topics, reviewed Garrett's poll and then determined his own ranking based on Technorati rankings. Whereas Garrett's "Smith Blog Rating System" rankings are "agreeably" subjective, Luca's Technorati rankings are based on linkage statistics. Luca's rankings switch Andy and Om for top spot but they always (deservedly) want bragging rights (!) and we always like to see a little competition at the top. Six of the Technorati Top 10 appear also in Smith's Top 10. Eight out of thirty in each poll only appear in the one poll. Interesting, but purely coincidental that Skype Journal is the only Top 10 to have consistency of ranking in each system at sixth place..

Bottom line for me is that I have added a few more VoIP blogs to my personal blog reader and get a wider diversity of news and opinion for linkage in Skype Journal posts. And thanks to all who give us link love at Skype Journal.

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About a month ago a visiting friend told us that she was traveling to Mexico City the following weekend for her son's wedding. Her son lives in Minneapolis where he is involved in sales and servicing of mining equipment with lots of travel to southeast Asia and Australia; the bride was studying medicine in Houston. His mother started explaining to us how this was a match facilitated by Skype. So I followed up with Eric earlier this week now that they have settled into a new home in Minneapolis.

Eric learned about Skype a year ago May from a customer in Malaysia and started using it to communicate with this customer. He soon realized that Skype could replace his need for any calling card and now uses Skype routinely both from his home office from hotels, airports and customer sites while traveling.  In fact, he often uses Skype video for his presentations to make them more contextual. Within his sales presentations he talks about how his employer uses Skype, often including its free video conferencing, as one resource for providing customer service to customers who are half way around the world from the head office.. On one trip while making a sales visit in Orange, NSW, Australia his hotel did not have Internet so he did some "war driving" to locate another hotel with a free Internet signal to make his Skype calls.

However, Eric's more interesting story is about how he started to use Skype to facilitate his relationship with Lore shortly after they met a year ago this summer:

Skype definitely helped us to revolutionize our long distance relationship. We would have dates on Skype where we would do things together. For example, we would go out and buy the exact same sushi dinner and eat it together. We both enjoyed the same kind of sushi at the same time, but in different places. I even organized a Skype date for the day that I went down to Houston to propose to Lore. That way I knew she would be home! If we had to worry about long distance charges we definitely would not have talked as much over the past year.

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You may have noticed the new banner. My photo is from Skype blogger in chief Jaanus Kase's side trip to Oakland, California, earlier this year. Jaanus and I had lunch at Everett & Jones near the water. I wasn't impressed by the barbeque that time but it was great to finally meet Jaanus and talk enterprise blogging, online community, and social software. In the photo, Jaanus is taking a picture of cargo railcars going to the Port of Oakland through the Jack London Square neighborhood. Oakland is a major cargo hub, the fourth busiest container port in the United States.

Railroad rights-of-way made it possible for the telegraph network to spread across North America in the 19th century (like Skype on top of the Internets). At some point Western Union lost its dependency on the railroads, entrenched its monopoly, and lobbied Washington to protect it (like the phone and cable companies which followed). Meanwhile, the railroads developed standards so cars from one railroad could run on all the tracks. They later worked with truck and sea shippers to standardize the cargo container (packets for atoms). Containers slashed shipping costs. Now globalization is the standard in a world economy. And a bottle of Stormhoek, South African blogging wine can be shipped to California for less than a euro.

The masthead change is part of a long list of small site improvements. One side effect: you can read SJ on many mobile phone browsers. 

Help me rotate the photo a few times every month. When you have a snapshot and a story, post it to flickr, tag it "skypejournal", and let me know via email or Skype.

Jaanus, the blog marketing face of Skype, has posted details of a contest to celebrate Skype's third birthday along with some brief historia about the launch of Skype on August 29, 2003 and their efforts to get the first 100 registered users..

If you want to celebrate our 3rd birthday with us, you don't have to send us expensive gifts or flowers. But you can send a birthday card. Please e-mail your birthday card to happybirthday@skype.net. It can be a picture, photo, video, just written wishes, anything really. If it's a picture or video, you can put it on Flickr, YouTube or any other of those Internet things and just send us the link. Please include your Skype Name.

Go join the celebration of bringing together over 100 million registered users. There are prizes offered; Skype Journal editors are not eligible even if we are not Skype employees.

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Hats off to the PBwiki team; we love and use your tools. Rematch coming soon. Can you name the Skype bowlers? Brush up on your 7-10 split if you're applying for a Bay Area Skype job. Perhaps the coolest thing about this is there are enough Skype employees in California to field a team. Vid by Ryan Is Hungry, via Bowling 2.0.

• Hostel stay comes with Skype.
• Free Comverse Klonie avatars for Skype. One more erased barrier to adoption. It's good that Skype continues to experiment with offers and prices in eCommerce.
• McAfee security products get Skype Certified. Co-marketing, revenue sharing, hoping McAfee's saftey brand notes wash off Skype's piracy brand notes.
• Live video special effects. ManyCam works with Skype, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo!
• Bob Crabtree reviews the D-Link Skype USB Phone Adapter DPH-50U. "Judging by our experiences, a more honest strategy for D-Link would be to pull the product completely off the UK market until it is able to introduce a version that works with modern DECT phones in something approaching a reliable fashion." Ouch.
• Windows Live Spaces launches with gadgets and social networking. Microsoft's blending of their blog and voice social spaces brings their slow and fast worlds closer together. Personal digital identity is the common thread, something shared by eBay/Skype, Yahoo!, Google, and AOL. They build strength by (a) having more places to use your own ID, (b) the convenience of managing contacts in one place, and (c) the large directories that improve your chances of finding someone the first time you look. Stand-alone VoIP networks are at a disadvantage, so I expect lots of M&A activity by this time next year.

Saturday night, 7-9pm, let's eat. Come to the Skype Blogger Dinner at the Tamba Lounge (between the MGM and the Aladdin). I'll be there, as will our own Jim Courtney, Stuart Henshall (just back from Delhi, so maybe he can tell us how the food compares), Skypeland's gourmand Andy Abramson, technology strategist Michael Slavitch, independent Skype developer Andrew Hansen, and Skype product manager Peter Kalmström. Room for 45, so sign up now. Hot food, spicy conversation! Meet the bloggers, introduce yourself, talk shop. Non-bloggers welcome.

Technorati Tags: vegas, lasvegas, skype, ebay, paypal, devcon, ebaydevcon, skypejournal, events, party, dinner, 89109, ebaylive

PGA.com's new Tournament Central dashboard provides a perfect example where an Internet-enabled PC can be a more effective way to watch a golf tournament than simply a television set:

The convergence comprises:

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by Skypeteer Hans Blaauw

[Ed. Hans responds to my Wishlist: Skype promotions for FIFA World Cup with this update to his free Skype plug-in.]

FIRST DOWNLOAD MOOD-O-MATIC

I had a good Mood so I produced a nice Moodie for my old Mood-O-Matic.

I know there are a lot of Worldcup fans so this Moodie will fill the Skype Mood with either your team news or tournament news.

The URL of the moodie is:

http://www.skypeteer.com/moodies/worldcup.asp?country=

If you don't fill in a country it will show tournament news.

To get a countrycode goto Yahoo Worldcup news and hover over the orange XML icon of your Team. Write down the team code (for my team this is NED) and append it to the above URL. So my URL looks like:

http://www.skypeteer.com/moodies/worldcup.asp?country=NED

In Mood-O-Matic select 'run a script', click 'configure' and paste your URL. Set an interval and Voila.

Technorati Tags: worldcup news, fifa world cup, tournament news, team news, news team, technorati, url, skype, voila, moodies, world cup tournament, asp, countrycode, http, goto yahoo, append, hover

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by Andrew Sheppard

I was recently asked when Skype 3.0 would be here. My initial reaction was to say: “I have no idea, and I doubt Skype does either!”. But now, having properly gazed into my crystal ball, I can definitively say that Skype 3.0 will be released on Friday 16th March 2007 ... ah yes, the mist of the crystal ball is clearing now, it's all becoming clear ... at 10:37am in the morning, Estonian time. There, you have it, and you can take that to the bank!

For those of you who doubt my prescience, I offer this analysis by way of explanation.

By pouring over the change logs for Skype for windows, I gathered these facts. First there was Skype release 0.9x (major revision 0), which went through 23 public versions, and the average number of days between releases was 15.0 days. Next was Skype release 1.x, which went through 25 public versions, and had an average of 18.4 days between releases. We're now at Skype release 2.0, which has so far gone through 7 public versions, with an average days between releases of 20.3 days. Clearly, Skype are slowing down!

(c) 2006 Andrew Sheppard, all right reserved.

Now, if we assume that the number of public releases between changes in the major revision number for Skype is more or less constant at 25, give or take, then Skype 2.0 has 18 more public releases to go before it magically morphs into Skype 3.0! At 20.3 days, on average, between releases, that's 365 days from the last release date of 16th March 2006. Putting the release date for Skype 3.0 at ... drum roll ... Friday 16th March 2007!

Incidentally, even though the analysis presented here is rather tongue-in-cheek, you can in fact glean a lot of interesting stuff from looking at Skype's change logs. Both serious and diverting facts can be found there. As an example of the latter, how many of you knew that there has only been one x.x.1.x release? That is, the third revision number has been used only once!

And for those of you who are mathematically inclined, Skype release numbers do not follow “Benford's Law”!

Andrew Sheppard is the author of “Skype Hacks”, published by O'Reilly Media Inc., ISBN 05-9610-1899.

Technorati Tags: skype, skype journal, skypejournal, benfordslaw, april fools, aprilfools, aprilfoolsday, april fool, voip, stats, statistics

"We're just taking things to the next level" said a Skype spokesperson. "Smell is vital to many industries. The Skype Fragrance API gives (SFAPI) developers the ability to securely pass odors over the Internet." eBay should smile as sales rise in categories like perfume, food, used clothing, and new cars. Portal partners, like LavaLove, are thrilled that pheremones can be used at dating sites. Gamers will be able to find enemies in the dark.

Advanced features include fragrance conferencing, fragrance groups, fragrance emoticons and fragrance moods.

Some IT managers are upset. "I can''t believe that unapproved smells will be travelling over my network" said one. Several companies are rushing to respond with Smell Killers, deodorant sticks, and air fans.

Technorati Tags: april fools, aprilfoolsday, skype technologies, skype, skypejournal, fragrance, ebay,

What have people typed in their Skype mood indicator lately? Ask Moodgeist:

Anchor Porter vs. Guiness 3 hours, 29 minutes ago
eBay research labs in San Jose 3 hours, 35 minutes ago
totally board 3 hours, 35 minutes ago
How can my speech be free is yours is so expensive? 3 hours, 35 minutes ago
Mehed, aitab tööst ! Hakkame laulma ! 3 hours, 35 minutes ago
Parik 3 hours, 35 minutes ago
WFH 17 hours, 36 minutes ago
- Tallinn 17 hours, 37 minutes ago
اسمك في هو...
17 hours, 37 minutes ago
spring is comming 17 hours, 37 minutes ago

[off topic: I will take up the stout vs. porter debate any time. -phil]

Popular keywords: London, Tallinn, your, home, Skype, back, vacation, March

Courtesy of Moodgeist, an after-hours hack by Jaanus Kase, Siim Teller (who has the most beautiful Estonian blog, by the way), and our own Kevin Delaney. If you download the moodgeist "pinger" client (still in a rough alpha stage), it asks your Skype software for your mood info, and shares it with the moodgeist server and the world. Early volunteers are Skype personnel (see all the Tallinn and London references). 

Even though nobody discusses Skype in the same breath as MySpace or LinkedIn, it really is a large and dynamic social network. I love that the guys are probing into its human nature.

Maybe it's time for Skype to adopt Google's R&D policy that mandates 10% of every developer's time (around four hours per week) be spent on personal projects. Innovation booster. The other good practice is to set up a laboratory site for hosting and featuring interesting projects that aren't ready for the everyday user. Nurture the team's adventurous spirit, and reap the benefits in-house.

The Moodgeist blog, the restful API and feeds.

Technorati Tags: moodgeist, zeitgeist, socialsoftware, mood, siimteller, jaanuskase, kevindelaney, beer, research, skype, skypejournal, voip, socialnets, socialnetworks, ping, pinger, privacy

I'm always interested in how profiles and data will converge and who they will benefit. Is this the darker side of eBay vendors enabled with Skype? Many of you may have seen it. If you haven't it is really very funny. Click to Play




So how close to the truth is it?

Q. What is a Skypepotomus?

The One Web Day dinner last night started something important for me.  Susan Crawford asked important questions. Why do I love the Internet? What has it done for me? What have I done for it? What can I do to leave it better than I found it?

I first used ARPAnet in 1979 to pass my project's logistics data to modelers at the Naval Postgraduate School. I was used to terminal based computing, even modem access to timesharing systems, but this was different. This was our computers talking to theirs, peers becoming a network, if only for a little while. It changed our work, slashed time from our project, gave us access to distant talent.

And it became the Internet.  

 

We're starting now, in cafes and schools and hospitals and offices, around the world. We're seeding activities "to create, maintain, advance, and promote a global day to celebrate online life: September 22, 2006." One Web Day, an international holiday. How will you mark One Web Day this year? Add your project idea to the wiki. 

Tags: events, onewebday, onewebday06, onewebday2006, skype