Skype press releases, and news items containing links to Skype personnel.

Skype moved marketing functions from countries back to London in a reorganization announced yesterday. About 40 of the 516 people working at Skype worldwide are affected, 26 of those shifting roles or locations and 14 who are leaving or who have yet to find another job at Skype or another eBay company.

Skype doubled its headcount this year, hiring 298 people since 1 January. Henry Gomez, Skype's global marketing officer, told Skype Journal the recentralization of marketing will improve message clarity, help Skype marketing move more quickly, and engage more marketing personnel in product decisions.

The 40 people affected by the reorganization were from across the company, touching all regions and departments. Skype's job site lists 17 vacancies: 8 in Tallinn, Estonia (coolest job ad word of the month: "anechoic"); 7 in London, 1 in the United States; and two elsewhere in Europe.

In separate moves, Saul Klein, former marketing executive, left Skype but continues to consult on eCommerce and advanced projects and can still be seen in the Skype London corridors. James Bilefield, former business development director and general manager for Europe, also left the company.

If you're using the 3.0 Beta for Win, get today's version 3.0.0.137. Lots of bugfixes, no new features. Still 19 MB. Changelog. Once you're running 3, join public chats about it in the Skype English Blog Chat and Skype Journal's Skype 3.0 discussion.

This is the third of three posts discussing Skype's PR management with the aim of improving the PR relationships associated with the launch of new Skype software and associated services. In the first post I outlined the problem; in the second post I proposed a proven solution; in this third post I want to review the recent Skype beta releases (3.0 for WIndows, 2.5 for Mac) and Skype's 3 Group partnering activity with respect to the proposed solution.

If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness? .... Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man, 1964

One primary objective of public relations is to leverage media reporters, including bloggers, to provide an outside perspective on the subject matter of press releases, product announcements and corporate presentations at, say, industry events and to propagate corporate awareness through corporate interviews.  In turn, media reporters want to feel both sufficiently informed and experienced to have the background for providing objective, accurate and complete coverage while making assessments of the impact of a story.

Personally I prefer to report based on exposure to a product, not just a press release. I have also found interviews with senior executives (usually the CEO, one of whose roles is to be the Chief Company Salesperson) an opportunity to flesh out details that can make a more viable and credible story. I have also had a couple of executives point out that I have brought to their attention issues that they subsequently realized should be addressed in their public announcement.

Over the past two weeks we have seen four major press releases involving Skype: Skype 3.0 for Windows Beta Launch, Skype for  Windows - Business version, Skype for Mac 2.5 beta launch and Skype's participation in 3Groups' new X-Series program. The result has left behind a very mixed image of what Skype is offering and the direction it is taking. The first post in this series exposes some of this confusion; the second post proposes a cost effective solution that can help narrow, or even avoid, the confusion..

continue reading.....

... in a game where, as in golf, the lowest number of strokes wins! Google announced a Click-to-Call feature for Google Maps yesterday. So I go to Google Maps, select Businesses, enter "restaurants" into the Type of Business box and "Mississauga {Home Postal Code}" into the "Where" box. And I get:

Click on B for Golden View Restaurants (where we obtain our annual New Year's Eve party food) and I get the pop-up below on the left. Click on Send to Phone and I get the pop-up asking for my phone number and my carrier -- except there are only U.S. carriers listed (and all Telco 1.0)! 3 clicks plus 10 characters (to enter your phone number). Except I live in Canada ....hmmm ....

Or, since I have installed the Skype 3.0 Beta with its Click-to-Call feature, I can simply pick up my UConnect-enabled Nortel phone, dial **, (or pick up a USB-connected VoIPvoice Cyberphone) and click on the Skypified link under the restaurant's listing on the left:. I then click OK on the "Start SkypeOut" confirmation window. Call initiated; no Telco 1.0 carrier designation required! (And note that Skype 3.0's Click-to-Call recognizes that it is a Canadian phone number.) One click to place the call; one to acknowledge that there could be a charge involved.

A simple example of what Martin is talking about in his Telco 2.0 "Death of the Phone Company" post.

Powered by Qumana

.. in the UK at least. Today, as one partner participating in the 3 X-Series service announcement by Hutchison Whampoa's 3 Group, Skype has announced its first truly mobile offering where Skype users can make "free" Skype-to-Skype calls on a mobile phone. Starting December 1, 3 Group will launch a new flat fee mobile broadband Internet service in the UK. In the press release related to this announcement Skype CEO Niklas Zennström said:

With 3, I am very proud to say that for the first time, our users can now try out making Skype calls on the move using a mobile phone. We always want to delight our users by letting them try out new ways of keeping in touch. This is a real milestone for Skype because now you can use Skype beyond the PC, no matter where you happen to be.

CIO Now has an excellent detailed description of the impact for Skype; the key points being:

• 3 Group will launch the new X-Series service December 1 in the U.K. and roll it out to the other countries in which 3 Group operates (including Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Israel, Australia and Hong Kong) in early 2007.
• While it will be a flat-fee mobile broadband Internet service, no pricing has yet been announced.

continue reading.....

This is the second of three posts discussing Skype's PR management with the aim of improving the PR relationships associated with the launch of new Skype software and associated services. In the first post I outlined the problem; in this second post I am proposing a proven solution; in the third post I want to review the Skype 3.0 beta release activity with respect to the proposed solution.

Drawing from my management experience over the past couple of decades involving business public relations activities, from both a marketing and investor communications perspective, I think Skype can enhance both its market awareness and usage leveraging the enthusiasm, interests and various perspectives bloggers have the power to introduce into the market.  I have had employers who tried to ignore the need for PR (and dealt with the fallout) and others who were viewed as overly aggressive in their PR activities. But the one constant, both prior to and following the Internet's evolution as a business communications medium is that PR is about building relationships -- not only with your customers and users but also with those who have the potential to propagate the message, whether through traditional media or web-based media, such as blogging.

First three general comments:

• In the pre-Internet days, for every major software product launch at one of my previous employers, we sent out a team of product managers, executives and PR personnel to conduct individual press interviews. This took significant resources out of the office for up to two weeks. And then we had the overhead of delivering and supporting pre-release software prior to the launch such that reporters could write up their impressions based on actual experience. With VoIP and Internet-based real time communications, software distribution and feedback tools all such costs and overhead effectively go away.

continue reading.....

Download 2.5.038. Lots of bug fixes, a few new features, and many usability improvements.

Just for those following along, Skype 2.5 Beta for Windows shipped in early May 2006, five and a half months ago. Hat tip to John Maas.

From the change log:

New features:

• SMS
• improved history list in main window
• ripple animation effects (Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) only)
• ringing device selection to audio preferences

Changes:

continue reading.....

This is the first of three posts discussing Skype's PR management with the aim of improving the PR relationships associated with the launch of new Skype software and associated services. In this post I want to outline the problem; in the second to propose a proven solution:in the third post I want to review the Skype 3.0 beta release activity with respect to the proposed solution. .

If you follow the VoIP blogosphere at all, you may notice that certain products and services, when introduced, get a lot of coverage such that readers can quickly assess if there could be followup interest.  SightSpeed and TalkPlus, whose beta program launches today, are two examples; this did not happen by accident. In both cases, while bloggers are open to make their own observations there is an underlying consistency of message as to what the service provides and what are the key features. SightSpeed focuses on high quality realtime and asynchronous video communications while TalkPlus focuses on delivering a means to manage your phone number infrastructure in a manner that protects individual privacy while providing helpful business and social networking tools.

On the other hand I have done a review of various blogger posts on the Skype 3.0 Beta launch; here is the original press release and a sampling of the initial "first impressions" posts (Ed: with my bolds):

Gizomodo:

The big new feature is browser extensions for IE and Firefox that let you embed SkypeOut links into web pages. ... The re-designed toolbar, contacts and call tabs look much easier to use. And Skype also added moderated public chat features, which makes me all wistful for IRC.

Skype Numerology

Nov. 9: Skype 3.0 beta released. And indeed, the differences between the previous version 2.6.0.105 and the 3.0.0.106 are (from my point of view) quite small, see the change log.

Nov. 11: Mea Culpa: My mistake (see my post below), Skype 3.0 has indeed quite some new features, as explained on the Skype website and in Skype Journal.

Tech Crunch UK

continue reading.....

Yesterday Skype released its initial Skype for Windows 3.0 beta with several new features. However, the press release does not really show the entire picture and, in fact, two of the four features mentioned were available in the previous 2.6 beta - namely, Click-to-Call and Skypecasts Live. Click-to-Call is simply an embedding of the previously available Skype for Web Toolbars supported by the Phone Number Recognition COM-component. It is a very handy feature that I have been using for some time.

But the other two -- Public Chats and a User Interface refresh -- bring some significant changes:

Public Chats -- my first activity was to walk through the Public Chat setup wizard. But I quickly realized it should be called the Skype Watercooler. The algorithm allows you to control who will participate; you can invite via emails, chat session or via a web page. You can control if a participant is active (able to contribute to the discussion) or passive (can only read the discussion). Lots of flexibility here. Whereas Skypecasts are publicly exposed such that anyone can join, the level of participation here is determined by the level of exposure you provide for your invitation.

But most interesting is to get the experience that comes from the persistence of a public chat. Yesterday I joined the Skype 3.0 Public Chat started by Phil; this morning when I came to my PC I could quickly review all the conversation that had occurred overnight (hey, those Europeans start their day early). Skype's Public Chat will become an interesting tool within the social networking landscape but Skype Marketing needs to look at a more definitive, attention grabbing name for the service. Let me say it again: Skype Watercooler.

User Interface: Lots to talk about here but I will just highlight some features:

continue reading.....

by Hudson Barton

Skype's concurrent users online just hit 8 million. We can therefore expect to see breathless reports about the number of days it took to get another million and how long it is going to take to get another. But these are not useful measurements of Skype's success. Skype doesn't give us much information, but there are better ways of interpreting the data we have than looking at the peak of the graph.

Skype usage at the peak time (around 16 GMT) is a combination mainly of European users and users in the eastern half of America. These are two of Skype's largest populations and they are online concurrently. Measuring at this peak has become the standard measurement of Skype growth, but it is not very useful. I prefer to measure at other times.

Skype usage in Europe (and Africa) is best reflected with data sampled at 11-12 GMT, before America's work day starts. American (North and South) usage is seen most accurately at 19-20 GMT. Asian (and Pacific) data should be sampled at 2-3 GMT. At each of these three points in time, the influence of one continent is maximized while the influence of the other two continents is minimized. Of course, Skype usage on the three continents is not perfectly segregated by this method (because some users stay online for extended periods), but it is segregated enough to use for comparison purposes.

This method of measurement permits one to analyze Skype growth in ways that are not possible when one looks only at the peak number. One can see for example a difference in growth rates between the continents. Or by comparing the rates of growth on specific weekdays and weekend days one can discern whether growth on each continent is being driven by business usage or non-business usage.

I have been measuring Skype usage in this way for about a month (my historical data is supplied by Jean Mercier, "The Skype Numerologist."). In a few more months of detailed daily measurement, we will be able to conclude much more than we can presently.

Continent	Growth Since May 23, 2005	Users Online as of November 7, 2006
The Americas	86%	7.86 million
Europe/Africa	82%	6.94 million
Asia/Pacific	91%	5.14 million

So what can we conclude from the data so far? On this day of surpassing the meaningless waypoint of 8 million concurrent users online, let's just say this: Historically, Skype usage in Europe has slightly underpaced that of America and Asia. In more recent months, this trend has continued and perhaps accelerated.

Note: Two factors are at play in the data; the actual number of active users and the user's average time online. It is difficult to distinguish which factor is driving "concurrent users online".

Yesterday came out of stealth mode the TalkPlus project that has been over two years in development; underlining this project's viability was a coincident announcement of a $5.5 million financing by Menlo Ventures. Om broke the story early yesterday morning; Ken Camp, Stowe Boyd, Voxilla and Alec Saunders, amongst others, have posted their initial impressions. I spent an hour yesterday afternoon discussing TalkPlus with Jeff Black, Founder and CEO. Jack provided some of the operational details that were not covered in the press release. First an overview from the press release:

TalkPlus today announced plans to revolutionize the way people use mobile phones by offering new and innovative Voice 2.0 calling services that work with existing mobile phones globally. Under development for more than two years, TalkPlus' patent-pending technology will provide customers a wide array of new and advanced calling services previously unavailable from mobile phone carriers.

First Offering: A Second Number That Works on Your Mobile Phone

With an additional phone number from TalkPlus, mobile users can now take advantage of having two numbers on their mobile phone. This additional mobile number is fully functional and unique; it works just like a mobile number issued by a carrier. By having a separate number to both place and receive calls on the same phone, subscribers get greater convenience and flexibility, as well as the benefit of an additional layer of privacy. With a second number, TalkPlus subscribers will be able to easily manage personal and work lives, while carrying only one mobile phone.

Subscribers will also benefit from an online management center, where they can easily control the TalkPlus Number's advanced call screening, voicemail, and contact management features.

Incorporated into the "Second Number" feature set will be an independent voice mailbox, a rules based engine for call management, bidirectional calling (in and out) such that a user can, say, separate her personal and business life, while using one phone handset with one carrier account. If you want to apply these management features to your original (well publicized) mobile number, you can port that number to the TalkPlus service and have a new (probably unpublicized) number applied to your basic carrier service.

But the calling support services go beyond capturing voice mail. Here are a couple of  examples:

continue reading.....

Initiated when Andy invited me to participate in the Nokia blogger program back in June, I have now had the opportunity to work with several mobile platforms and, over time, made several attempts to work with programs that access Skype from the mobile phone. I've also been following the Skype perspective on mobile here, here and here where expectations are set for processor power (minimum 400 MHz on Skype for Mobile), wireless access requirements (WiFi and/or 3G) and other operational limitations on a mobile platform.

As a guideline for user simplicity, I look for an experience where I can (i) easily "ping" a contact and enter text for a chat session and (ii) simply access a (Skype) Contact or dial a number to make a voice call - an experience that has a minimal installation and learning curve for the user public; an experience that will readily gain broad market acceptance. For the record the platforms I have worked with include:

Device	IM Client	OS/Keyboard	Wireless
Dell Axim X50v	Skype for Mobile	WinMobile/ MS PocketPC Stylus	WiFi
Nokia N70*	Quick IM, SoonR, EQO	Symbian S60/T9	GPRS, 3G
Nokia N91*	EQO	Symbian S60/T9	GPRS, 3G, WiFi
Blackberry 8700*	WebMessenger	Java/ Blkbry QWERTY	GPRS/EDGE
SMC Skype WiFi	None	Linux/ T9? (no DTMF)	WiFi
Sony Mylo	Skype for Sony Mylo	Linux/ Mylo QWERTY	WiFi

* also accepts SMS messages

At the moment the best platform on which to experience Skype on a mobile device is the Sony Mylo with its embedded Skype client. It has both the standard Skype IM and Voice functionality (as well as supporting file transfer). It does not require any special setup other than to use the embedded Opera browser to log onto fee-based WiFi Hotspot services. Of course its other limitation is the availability of WiFi connectivity although Jon Arnold is already proclaiming 2007 as the Year of WiFi. The Mylo does present the most authentic and most complete Skype user experience. Skype-to-Skype calls are straight forward. Calling any PSTN number worldwide, provided you have SkypeOut access to the dialed number, is a simple matter of going to the Skype Dial menu, entering the PSTN number (with +Country Code) and clicking. Finally, as noted by both myself and others, the Mylo has superior voice quality due to its embedded VeriCall voice engine. One minor shortcoming is the lack of Outlook Contact synchronization; but this is not necessary given the overall intended Mylo experience as a personal communicator and not primarily a wireless phone.

continue reading.....

Today Skype released Skype for Pocket PC 2.1, a release whose accompanying documentation reflects the reality of the limited resources of handheld mobile devices. A full list of new features is available here; however, key items include:

• A new multi-chat interface which supports chats with several participants.
• Skype Launcher, a small 'launcher" application that checks available memory and verifies that Skype is installed correctly. (Hopefully this will avoid the situation I previously encountered where sometimes I had to reboot a Windows Mobile device before Skype for Pocket PC would start if other programs, such as SliingBox Mobile, were running.)
• Built-in call management that detects incoming mobile calls (via your normal mobile service) during a Skype call and offers the user the choice to hang up or ignore the call. You can switch to Skype calls when in a mobile call.
• Detailed contact search including specification of country, city and language as options.

However, buried in the details are the following that reflect a more realistic approach to Mobile Skype:

continue reading.....

Last May Skype announced their first "free" SkypeOut promotion -namely all SkypeOut calls within North America would be free until Dec. 31, 2006. In early September Skype announced a similar program covering France. Basically, if you were not already a Skype user, you simply sign up for Skype, and all your SkypeOut calls within the designated territory are free; however, you pay normal SkypeOut rates for calls outside the designated region. And the promotions expire in just over two months, Dec. 31.

Last week Skype UK announced Talk for Britain, a new promotion that probably gives a hint of what will happen to these earlier promotions after December 31. Talk for Britain involves :

• Purchase £10 of Skype credit using PayPal or a UK-issued credit card
• Wait for up to 72 hours to confirm eligibility
• Free SkypeOut calling within UK for the subsequent six months.
• Program expires Dec. 31 for acquiring the six months free SkypeOut credit. (If you buy Dec. 31, you have free calling to June 30, 2007)
• Call Forwarded calls are not included in the promotion.

Over the past few weeks I have had several queries as the what will happen to these promotions after Dec. 31. Does Talk for Britain start to provide some clues?

continue reading.....

Naked Conversations co-author (with Robert Scoble) Shel Israel and American-converted-to-Canadian VC and blogger Rick Segal (and our former Microsoft evangelist when I was at Quarterdeck) are currently traveling through Europe. With an objective of learning about Europeans who have been bitten by the technology development bug, as well as about the integration of technology into European societies,. Shel is planning to write another book, Global Neighborhoods, while Rick may be seeking out new ventures that would complement current ones funded by  J.L.Albright Venture Partners.

Yesterday they met with Sten Tamkivi, Skype's 28-year-old COO learning about Skype's strategy, vision and operations.

The core of that strategy, according to Sten, is Skype 's intention to increasingly derive revenue from non-telephony services such as text, SMS and video.

"Very few VOIP services do not compare themselves to Skype." That means they are positioned to follow not lead. "Skype is more focused on staying ahead by focusing on its own opportunities," he told us..

continue reading.....

This morning Skype announced the gold release of Skype for Mac 2.0; finally a released Skype for the Mac with video support. Just in time to take advantage of all those iSight cameras built into more recent models such as MacBook Pro and MacBook. And, of course, one can now hold two party cross-platform video calls between Mac and Windows versions of Skype.

We would appreciate receiving your feedback via comments on your experiences using this much requested and long awaited version. I am working with one test case to check out this statement:

We've improved the video quality and made changes so that video calling can now work on older systems allowing more of our Mac community can use it.

The next challenge for Skype is to develop video conference calling similar to that already available with SightSpeed.

We look forward to hearing your feedback. It gives us an incentive to get the handling of Skype Journal's Comments fixed asap.

Update re Test Case: My acquaintance had attempted to use the beta Skype for Mac with his G4 800 MHz Mac - now the minimum requirement for Skype for Mac 2.0. He had reported problems with the beta version; however, on downloading the released version, we were able to establish a cross-platform Windows-to-Mac video session this afternoon with no problems - backing up Skype's statement quoted above. The biggest issue was that his three year old Mac's video camera does not provide the sharpest quality but it certainly delivered an acceptable quality for a video conversation. [As an aside, this G4 800MHz Mac does not meet minimum specs for use of SightSpeed on the Mac. On the other hand, SightSpeed's ability to do a three party conference with his two daughters in two different cities has become one inducement to upgrade to a new Mac soon.]

Powered by Qumana