A California friend kvelled over snapshots of her new grandniece in New Jersey. She’d spent a good chunk of her time traveling there for the birth. And she’s still connected thanks to the immediacy of Skype and a stream of photos MMS’d to her iPhone. Airlines see Skype and other meetingware as a substitute for travel. Why fly when you can spin up Skype and a speakerphone?
My counter-argument is that these social media are creating stronger connections. So people are more likely to want more intimate face-to-face, body-to-body, same-time-same-place experiences. The gap between our imagined and our physical intimacy is reduced by higher fidelity (wide-band audio and HQ video) and lower latency (1 minute old baby photos by phone instead of four-week-old by post). We can almost taste being there.
We are in that heightened state of almost-being-there more of the year with our strong ties. Airlines used to run commercials showing people talking on the phone then getting on a plane to see family. I think we’ll see those stories again, this time with digitally-mediated communication precipitating the trip. When virtual isn’t enough, we’ll travel to get that heightened intimacy. Maybe we can close the sale. Or play basketball.
Or kiss the baby.
photo credit: Who dressed YOU? cc-by Juhan Sonin
Electronista writes up a new approach to Fast Fourier Transforms from MIT. It could improve signal processing ten-fold. The paper: “Nearly Optimal Sparse Fourier Transform.” When NOSFT finds its way into codecs, Skype users might find Skype working on devices with less computing power.
BI reports Cisco’s telepresence unit is ending Umi, a webcam and set-top box for living room video calls. No patience for consumers to learn about it, no chance to iterate and find what works. Why is Cisco giving up on consumer products when the consumerization of corporate IT is at an all time high?
Your product may have it made but people are fickle. Earning their love is the daily work. See you at Facebook’s Amazing Press Conference. art: XKCD.
Host trivia games in Skype text chats with Renat’s Skype Trivia Bot, a Windows plug-in adapted from the classic IRC bot. Thousands of questions in English and по России.
 2,049,762,468 last I looked. Skype reports desktop clients downloaded from Skype.com. Doesn’t include mobile apps or Skype software downloaded from partners like TOM-Online in China. This is like hamburgers served: it doesn’t represent the number of accounts, active Skype users or their level of activity. Just a really big number. FYI, a Skype download is worth $4.25.
Melanie Salvatierra posts a remembrance of Skype’s sponsorship of The Oprah Winfrey Show, airing its last episode today. Frankly, Skype might never have reached popular awareness in the United States without Oprah’s support. Will Oprah’s new cable channel producers use Skype without being paid? Even when using Skype gives Skype final cut per section 5.5 of its Broadcast Terms of Service?
 While Dell sold mobiles, netTALK DUO is their first entry into landline VoIP. The lagging edge of innovation does well with high volume, low cost, easy to understand cash cows.
I rarely write about the flight from PSTN to VoIP but you wouldn’t know it from three of my April posts: NetTALK positions against MagicJack and Skype. FCC: MagicJack subsidy is over. Local numbers, foreign calls: Voxbone helps UK’s O2 compete against Skype To Go.
News release below the fold.
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Andy Abramson blogged the subsidies made by the YMAX phone company to MagicJack, allowing free/cheap calls, violated FCC rules. Will MJ raise rates, cut services or quit?
The rumor mill: We should expect voice control technologies in iOS 5. More generally, should I be able to control Skype through speech? “Skype, call Rango.” “Skype, answer the call.” “Skype, call Paul at noon.” “Skype, text to George Let’s talk this afternoon.” “Skype, who is near me?” Hands-free is not just safe for driving and easy on the carpal tunnel; talking to machines is becoming a more common user interface.
More ISPs now charge fortunes for blowing your bandwidth cap. Netflix.ca now lets you choose a lower quality video stream for one-third the bandwidth consumption. While Skype automatically adjusts your quality to fit available CPU, bandwidth, and connectivity, would it make sense to offer a bandwidth-conserving user preference for lower resolution video?
Jim Courtney describes the subtle window dressing in the latest version of Skype for Windows. One “Call” button with a pull-down menu for alternate phone numbers will boost your chances of paying for a Skype service.
31 March is the deadline for RIM to give realtime surveillance of Blackberry users to Indian intelligence and law enforcement officials. Nokia started testing its compliance. Will Skype build a back door for India’s cops, spies, and soldiers?
Skype is offering a lovely product. So it might be rude to block ads it sells to global brands.
I’m not so sure. After all, it is my desktop computer. Mine. And my attention. Easily scattered. I routinely block ads in my other browsers. And I always thought ads in competing consumer products were distracting, tacky, time wasting, and intrusive.
 So, is it feasible? Skype hasn’t opened up its client browser to third-parties, so solutions may be not be obvious.
Is it moral? After all, this is Skype’s software and, while they make money just because I am on the network (see Metcalfe’s Law), I’m only renting the software, not owning it. Yet, is there some inherent right to use other people’s software and networks as I see fit, so long as it doesn’t harm the network or others?
And is it legal? Would I be breaking any laws or contracts by running a Skype ad-block program? Would I be suborning an intellectual property crime by offering a $200 bounty for someone to build an app that would let me block Skype on my desktop?
Or Skype could just offer a privacy preference to turn off the ads.
Much less bother.
And so polite.
Congrats to the Google Voice team for the new feature. Points out the power of a gazillion page views by a bazillion users if you want to drive traffic, produce useful data. Next step: YouTube video conferencing.
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7 years and 12 days since Skype Journal launched as a stand-alone blog.
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