Of greatest interest if you are in Finland or Israel or if you call Finland or Israel. This means those calls are covered by Skype's flat rate country (€2.95–3.95/month), Europe (€3.95/month), and World (€6.95–8.95/month) plans. VAT not included.
Luca Filigheddu blogs Eric Eldon's VentureBeat story that confirms BT, the British telecom giant, is in talks to buy Ribbit, 
one of the best talk 2.0 services on Earth. Ribbit spokespeople can't confirm or deny. 
Parsing...
Ribbit gives programmers free tools to build their own Skypes. Behind the user interface toolkit is a communications platform. Ribbit handles all the messy plumbing of connecting people to each other over many different types of networks, including Skype and PSTN, for a small fee. You can build a flash IM/voice/video client in a few hours (or less) using existing widgets.
Ribbit is the best platform available to talk-enable the web. There are thousands of user interfaces needed, and only a web services software platform lets designers and programmers tailor talk tools to their contexts.
For example, their Salesforce application enables mobile calls and voice memos within Salesforce web applications. Without anyone having to join a network, download a 20MB software client, or configure anything. Contrast that with Skype for Salesforce which, while better integrated into Salesforce's CTI framework, requires callers to use Skype, and call center operators to have SkypeOut accounts.
Google bought similar plumbing, if not a platform, when it picked up GrandCentral this time last year.
BT is getting a Silicon Valley presence; a large, growing, excited developer program; and a bizdev engine that can drive Internet alliances.
Skype could have entered this space (and Skype Journal begged for this). Between legacy software architecture and Meg Whitman's golden handcuffs, Skype's execs never brought a web service infrastructure to market. Is it too late for Skype to bid for the company? $55 million seems to be the market price.
Here's video of Ribbit's Crick Waters speaking earlier this year at the Emerging Communications Conference. And his slides:
The American Pavilion at the annual Cannes Film Festival provides a communications and hospitality center for the thousands of Americans in Cannes participating in the Festival. For the duration of the festival, the American Pavilion provides both a supportive business environment and an opportunity to mingle in comfortable surroundings. While in the past Pavilion visitors could use the pavilion's Internet facilities to make Skype calls, this year Skype has become an official sponsor, responsible for not only providing the voice communications services but also support for using Skype's High Quality Video to allow Americans who cannot travel to Cannes to participate in panel sessions hosted by the Pavilion.
I had the opportunity to speak with Julie Sisk, Founder and Director of the American Pavilion on a rather busy day setting up just before the Festival's opening yesterday (May 14). She talked about how Skype will allow participation in panel discussions by directors, such as Titanic's James Cameron, whose production schedule precludes making the time commitment required to be physically in Cannes as well as writers and journalists whose budgets preclude making the trip. Of course it presents new logistics challenges, given the 9-hour time difference between Cannes and Los Angeles, but schedules for their "In Conversation" and "Industry in Focus" series have been altered to accommodate. Skype is ensuring the relevant phones, webcams and other hardware is available at both ends of the link. I also asked about how they ensured sufficient bandwidth at the Pavilion for all this communications activity, especially with the adoption of video; apparently Intel is responsible for providing the WiFi and associated connectivity infrastructure. Julie stated that the Pavilion is reputed to have, amongst journalists and photographers, one of the best Internet connections at the Festival.
From the press release:
Continue reading "Skype @ Cannes: Remote Panel Participation via High Quality Video" »
Rebecca before 33 days on the road for Skype
Skype Nomad's a nice mix of reality programming, travel porn, product field test, and marketing stunt. Rebecca Campbell, 26, is in motion for 33 days, going around the world Eastward from London. She's blogging her journey and posting updates flickr (you gotta see her photos), facebook, twitter (via Nokia N95), Dopplr and MySpace.
Skype had a smaller role in last summer's Blue Planet Run, a multi-country athletic event.
Titles worse than Skype Nomad: "Trolling for Outlets", "Bandwidth Tourism", "Around the World 47 Days Faster Than Phileas Fogg", "Eat, Pray, Skype", "Realtime Travel Voyeurism", "Exercises in Sleep Deprivation".
This is a simple, direct, promotion. It brings Skype into the real world, away from desks and offices.
So far Rebecca's been to Singapore, Beijing, Yi Chang, Chongqing. (Did you know China has more Skype users than any other country?) Coming up:
More points in Australia. Then California and Alaska. England, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Sweden, ending in Estonia.
I've been resisting this because, after all, it's a corporate publicity gimmick. And I'm no sucker, right?
Right. But this must be what they mean by PR 2.0.
It was very low key. Nobody pitched me. Nomad Ground Control built Skype Nomad's social media persona across multiple networks. Buzz reaches me naturally, through people I know, in contexts I trust.
Because it engages with the real world, the outcomes are unpredictable, so there's suspense, and news. It builds to a climax at the end: will she be able to finish? On time?
The stream of updates lets people identify with Rebecca and meet other fans. This 800-hour-long event also builds up critical mass, as word of mouth spreads.
I've been sucked in to the experience. Ducking security at an airport. Taking a boat up the Yangtze River. Food Porn. People watching. Trouble squatting on a train. It's fun, tiring, gritty, with a host who's ready for the challenge.
See also:
Jan Geirnaert on Rebecca's confused Skypephone presence.
Jim Courtney on Connecting and Enabling the Global Nomad.
tags: roundtheworld, skype, nokia, skype nomad, travel, pr2.0, pr, promotion, marketing, speedracer, china
The German appeals court almost ruled against Skype today in Skype vs. GPL before Skype withdrew the appeal of its July 2007 conviction. Skype was convicted of not following the software license that comes with Linux. Skype used Linux in PC-free Wi-Fi phones.
No news release from Skype on this. No word from Skype on what they, their suppliers, and their distributors will do to comply with the GPL, or when.
Fun thing to do in Munich Thursday morning: 
watch Skype argue in court against Harald Welte that the GPL open source software license doesn't apply to the Linux operating system embedded in Skype's SMC WSKP 100 Wi-Fi 
phone. Welte writes "Skype is arguing against the validity of the GPL as a whole, asserting that it is violating anti-trust regulation and similarly strange claims."
Yesterday's announcement of new international calling plans available from Skype probably set a record for generating press traffic about Skype. Certainly my "Skype" keyword feed in FeedDemon has been gone off the end. Most of the reports were simply rehashes of the original two press releases (Global and North America). But some bloggers' observations are worth mentioning.
Pat Phelan at Cubic Telecomm (MaxRoam) thinks these plans will seriously impact the phone card market:
This a serious blow to the phone card market and with the multicountry plans to launch prepaid Skype cards now starting to ramp up this could spell the end. ....
These packages are certainly going to make me re-examine my Skype usage, couple this with the excellent quality I have been getting on my 3Skypephone lately and its time for a package change on my Vodafone corporate account
Mark Evans thinks the sexier story is Skype's growth:
There’s lots of excitement today about Skype unveiling a new plan offering unlimited long-distance calls to 34 countries but the far more interesting story - at least from this corner’s perspective - is Skype’s strong growth, which has been chronically unreported.
Andy Abramson, at VoIP Watch gives his take:
Continue reading "Skype's New Calling Plans -- The Coverage" »
With sessions from 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. there's a lot to be covered out of this event; yet, with very limited WiFi access, it's not feasible to do any blogging during the event. Andy Abramson has managed to provide a summary of the first day's coverage in both mainstream media and onllne weblogs.
Jonathan Christensen's leadoff keynote Wednesday was able to set the stage describing (from the perspective of a then Microsoft employee) of how Internet infrastructure evolved that allowed Skype to arrive on the scene in the summer of 2003 and become the main discussion point at Fall VON 2003 largely because its development had ignored SIP and deployed its own protocol to realize the original SIP vision of multi-modal communications. Bottom line was that having an easily installed VoIP client allowing calls at no cost had brought in over 500,000 downloads during Skype's first two months of availability. And the SIP promoters had been left out of the picture creating lots of controversy. A more detailed report on Jonathan's presentation, which included a discussion of Skype's rich Mobile Internet Communications going forward. In the meantime check out The Register's report on a dialog between Jonathan and David Isenberg re eBay's involvement with Skype.
Several presentations, including those from Ribbit, Voxeo, Voxbone and IfByPhone have included, within their conceptual service architecture, Skype as a peer level component to SIP for ensuring truly globally accessible voice enhanced services.
danah boyd (lower case is correct) is an ethnographer of teenage onlife. Robert Scoble interviewed danah at Davos this week about her Ph.D. dissertation. This thirteen minute video is rich in observations and analysis on how and why youth are socialized in the United States.
Skype depends on people bringing their real social network into Skype's. Skype's large but linear growth suggests the impulse to share geometrically (one of me to many of my friends) is running into limits.
Natural barriers interfere with word of mouth propagation and the widening use of a tool. Social networks run into limits on
Another of these barriers may be "age segregation." danah describes this as young people limiting their relationships to people within one or two years' of their age. Sort of a very granular generation gap that isolates strata, and that limits memetic propagation within physical and online communities.
Skype is so secure, police need to actually invade your computer to eavesdrop.
The German police shopped for tools to listen in on Skype calls. Tapping PCs directly is their only option, since they cannot intercept and decrypt Skype calls over the Internet, at least not in real time, per the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (Bundeskriminalamts or BKA). Once these low level monitoring tools are on your PC, they can see what any program does, not just Skype. If they can eavesdrop on your PC they can see all your keystrokes, listen to all your music and speech, watch all your video, play your games.
This latest news comes from a leaked memo from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice (BMJ). You can read a transcript of the memo. heise online reports this tool as a "Trojan horse" but the original letter does not say how the software gets on a PC.
A rough translation from the DigiTask proposal to the BMJ (pdf):
Encryption of communication via Skype poses a problem for surveillance of telecommunications. All traffic generated by Skype can be captured when surveilling a Dial-in- or DSL-link, but it cannot be decrypted. The encryption of Skype works via AES with a 256-Bit key. The symmetric AES keys are negotiated via RSA keys (1536 to 2048 Bit). The public keys of the users are confirmed by the Skype-Login-Server when logging in. To surveil Skype-communication it thus becomes necessary to realize other approaches than standard telecommunications surveillance.
The concept of DigiTask intends to install a so called Skype-Capture-Unit on the PC of the surveilled person. This Capture-Unit allows recording of the Skype communication, such as Voice and Chat, as well as diverting the data to an anonymous Recording-Proxy. The Recording-Proxy (not part of this offer) forwards the data to the final Recording-Server. The data can then be accessed via mobile Evaluation Stations.
The mobile Evaluation Units can, making use of a streaming-capable multimedia player, playback the recorded Skype communication, such as Voice and Chat, also live. To minimize bandwidth usage special CODECs for strong compressions are used. The transmission of data to the recording unit is encrypted using the AES algorithm.
As of 4 September 2007, DigiTask didn't capture video calls.
Fun facts: 
DigiTask GmbH charges EUR 3.500 monthly for each installation of a Skype Capture Unit. Three month minimum.
There's a one-time installation and de-installation fee of EUR 2.500. (VAT not included)
DigiTask gets paid first: Payment is due in 30 days (2 percent discount if you pay in 14 days). Delivery may take four to six weeks.
Security is not a new line of business for DigiTask. They offer a line of IP-based surveillance cameras, and "monitors" for SMS traffic.
There's a "Don't blame us when this comes back to bite you" clause.
"The usage of the Skype Capture Unit and SSL-decoding is in full responsibility of your department. DigiTask will cannot be held responsible for usage of the software or any damages caused by it."
DigiTask can read SSL encrypted communications between your browser and a secure web site, like Skype.com. The better to see your Skype and PayPal accounts.
Bottom lines:
Law enforcement is in the market for tools to do for VoIP what they've done for landlines and mobile phones: call logs, call recordings, and listening in live to people talking.
Lobby for warrants to invade your PC to be just as much a free speech issue as listening to your phone.
If legitimate government public servants can buy these tools, there must also be a dark market. You can easily imagine private security, private intelligence, criminals, and militaries - none of which depend on warrants - to use tools to eavesdrop on PCs.
Invest in the toolmakers. Make laws about privacy apply to PC/IP communications.
I asked Ivan Veretelnyk about his site, PrimeSkype.com.
SJ> What is PrimeSkype.com?
PrimeSkype.com has been started as unofficial "directory of Skype prime services" to connect service sellers and buyers.
With time I have extended it with new features and now it is a community website for people who use Skype software.
SJ> Why did you start it?
To join the Skype community in one place.
Skype is an excellent communication tool, and if you:
Seek new friends or business partners – post your profile and other people can find you
Want to chat – join exiting chats or create a public chat and publish it in directory
Look for services or offer one – there is a consulting marketplace where service buyers can find a consultant or post consulting job listings; consultants can advertise services in the directory or apply for jobs.
There are tools for private messages, groups and forums which in conjunction with Skype software is a really good way for communication.
SJ> Who should use PrimeSkype.com?
Any Skype user can use it, but mostly people who are:
Buying or selling consulting services
Seeking for new connections (or reconnect with friends), friends, partners.
Searching for chats in particular categories of interests.
SJ> How much does it cost?
Membership is completely free and I don’t plan any paid services for members.
In case of “Skype prime” paid calls, the website just provides directory service and I don’t see something to pay for.
SJ> Do you think Skype's SkypeFind directory competes with you?
No, I don’t think so. PrimeSkype.com is not willing to compete with any “Skype, Limited” services. PrimeSkype.com is willing to extend (supplement, enlarge) Skype features, but never to compete.
People can use both SkypeFind and PrimeSkype.com to get results they need.
SJ> What three things can service providers do now to better market and promote their Skype services?
First of all they need to offer essential (needed, important) services. If nobody needs it, provider will not be hired.
A provider should polish web profile, post background and qualifications to show that he/she is really proficient in their particular area to offer.
If someone will post a profile with only one line like “I can teach you to build a website” and another will post a profile including links to certifications (Brainbench, ExpertRating) will show what he/she did before and have good recommendations – I will choose the second provider.
I see that many people are too lazy to post a photo/userpic which is the first thing to separate themselves from others and get attention.
SJ> What should buyers look for to be safe online when buying live services?
I think main part is payments options. But with “Skype Prime” it is really safe. All payments work though Skype and PayPal – they are both having huge authority to trust.
As for my web site, only one thing which becomes public is a member’s Skype name for contact. All other things, like address, birthday etc., are optional if user doesn’t want to share.
UK's regulatory agency may finally force Skype into providing 911 services at which point providing Canadian SkypeIn may become trivial.
A major issue for Canadian Skypers is the unavailability of Canadian SkypeIn numbers. We Canadians can have US SkypeIn numbers and UK (or several Eurocountry) SkypeIn numbers but not Canadian SkypeIn numbers. I recently confirmed with a CRTC spokesperson that, in addition to the need for Skype to obtain a business agreement with a Canadian CLEC (Rogers, Bell, Telus, etc.) to provide SkypeIn numbers, they also need to provide e911 services to be in compliance with CRTC regulations. And this would involve contracting with a Canadian 911 service provider as does DID provider Unlimitel. But that is not the entire story; Skype would also have to provide callerID service to be in compliance with e911.
Well, it seems the holiday in the UK is about to come to an end. Andy Abramson at VoIP Watch brings our attention to a new requirement for UK operators of VoIP services to provide access to the '999' emergency services number. Seems like, in spite of all the disclaimers by VoIP service providers, 78% of households believe the could call 999 from their VoIP service. Another case of customers simply wanting a service to be transparent to the underlying communications technology:
Ofcom's decision to require access to emergency services has been made because of the confusion that consumers face with the ever merging of phone and Internet services. It will be more and more difficult to discern whether a telephone call is routed over VoIP or the traditional PSTN network, especially for someone who doesn't understand the technology or isn't aware of the specific setup at a location.
Effectively it appears that Ofcom will force Skype to put together the legal and technical infrastructure for providing emergency services for SkypeIn numbers. So, while Canada became totally independent of the UK politically in 1931 and repatriated its constitution in 1982, it may take a UK regulatory authority to force Skype's hand on providing SkypeIn number compliant with CRTC e911 emergency services requirements. Rule Britannia and all that! Or, is this a case of the (British) Empire strikes back?
Tags: Skype, SkypeIn, SkypeIn Canada, Ofcom, CRTC, Unlimitel, Rogers, Bell Canada, Telus, Allstream, Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch
Worried about eavesdropping? Worry less with Skype.
Reuters' reports Jörg Ziercke, president of Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany (Bundeskriminalamts or BKA) said:
German police are unable to decipher the encryption used in the Internet telephone software Skype to monitor calls by suspected criminals and terrorists
Ziercke spoke at this week's Fall Session 2007 of "Internet crime scene-a global challenge to the internal security."
Quotes from the Reuters story:
"The encryption with Skype telephone software ... creates grave difficulties for us,"
"We can't decipher it. That's why we're talking about source telecommunication surveillance -- that is, getting to the source before encryption or after it's been decrypted."
"There are no discussions with Skype. I don't think that would help," he said, adding that he did not want to harm the competitiveness of any company. "I don't think that any provider would go for that."
From a related Reuters story, terrorists use social media to educate, motivate, and collaborate.
I've long Skyped with people who assume their email and phone calls are surveilled by their government, employer, industrial competitors or criminals. So they appreciate Skype-level privacy, courtesy of end-to-end strong encryption.
In counterpoint, Skype's 3 Skypephone + iSkoot strategy, where the iSkoot half of a conversation is not encrypted, erodes public trust in Skype's confidentiality and security.
Guest post by Simon Perry of Digital-Lifestyles.
Skype has just written to owners of 0207 SkypeIn numbers to tell them that their number will have to change by 20th December 2007 - a mere month away. 0207 is the dialling prefix for Central London.
Although worded in a very friendly way, this bombshell email will not be welcomed by those who rely on SkypeIn to bring calls in to their business.
Digital-Lifestyles is an example of this. We made the decision to entrust our phone number - the telephone gateway to our business - to Skype - We’re living the Digital-Lifestyles dream, right? At no time did we ever imagine that we’d have to change our number - ever.
That’s not how phone numbers work. You’re given a number, and that remains your number until you decide to give it up. It doesn’t give you up.
It’s clear that Skype has either fallen out with their current telecoms provider, or have found a better deal elsewhere. Making their customers pay for this, is not the way to do business.
0208 is not 0207
As if the need to change numbers wasn’t bad enough, Skype casually drops late in the email that the number that you need to change to might not be a Central London number, but the far less desirable Outer London 0208 dialling prefix, or even the near-unused 0203.
Skype is offering 12 months free use of the SkypeIn number in return for the ‘inconvenience’.
Bizarre
What is strange about this, is that Skype is very actively trying to encourage the use of Skype in business, building in features into the software to encourage this.
Quite how they think they can encourage people to become dependant on their SkypeIn service and they pull a prank like this is beyond us.
Loss of Trust
Skype has seriously shot itself in the foot with this. Those who have to change their number against their will, will never trust Skype again.
Skype sign the email off “The (really, really sorry) people at Skype.” No matter what it costs Skype to make sure this doesn’t happen, they must meet it or they’ll end up being far more sorry than they could imagine when people abandon their service.
UPDATE: Skype responds...
Editor: Skype procurement didn't contract for automatic renewal at set rates up-front, assuming renegotiations would be kind. per this blog post by Skype spokesman Villu Arak.
also:
Previous posts have discussed OnState's Call Center for Skype and its ability to manage customer enquiries by voice and/or chat. A conversation is launched via a website with three options (Skype, Callback and Chat) or via a SkypeIn number (where available). This week OnState added to their portfolio of communications options with the availability of toll-free services for Skype which can be integrated into the OnState CallCenter solution.
What this means is that an OnState-enabled business simply obtains a toll-free number in the U.S. or Canada and the customer enquiries can be directed to any Skype-enabled agent worldwide. Ideal for, say, the European business that wants to take enquiries from the U.S. and/or Canada using agents based in Europe or for Canadian businesses who cannot get SkypeIn numbers. From the press release:
"Skype changed the communications industry with its software and global calling rates,” noted [OnState CEO Pat] Kelly, “Now, OnState continues to challenge the call center market by providing integrated toll-free service at an industry-redefining price. All a customer needs to do is fire-up an OnState toll-free number in the US or Canada and that number can go anywhere Skype can go – this is revolutionary for traditional call centers.”
The service will soon be expanded to include European toll-free numbers.
Bottom line is that businesses can invoke OnState's CallCenter service and take advantage of Skype's low operating costs regardless of whether the customer comes via a website or is attracted by a print or broadcast media advertisement or press item. Adding toll-free numbers simply tells the customer "we care about your interest" in a product or service.
While returning to the home office from my workout yesterday morning, before I started driving, I pulled out my Blackberry 8820, selected the iSkoot icon to open iSkoot (which auto logs into Skype), selected a Skype contact in the U.K., clicked on Call, heard a message asking me to "please wait while the call is completed" and within seconds I was talking to my contact in the U.K.
We talked for 15 minutes (over my nXZen Bluetooth headset for obvious safety reasons). A simple, straight forward, familiar user experience -- total cost was a 15 minute charge against my Rogers wireless monthly subscription for a local call (from iSkoot's Toronto POP to my phone). Even the callback operation itself was transparent to the user. In fact, it meets my "Truphone test" for user experience: Look up a contact in a device address book, select which phone number, press the Call button and the call is connected with no further user action.
If this sounds similar to the 3 Skypephone experience, it is; iSkoot provided the Skype access client in the Skypephone. In my case the Skypephone's Skype button is replaced by the iSkoot icon on the Blackberry. Bottom line is that whether via 3 Skypephone or my Blackberry over Rogers a connection is readily made and there are minimal, if any, charges. And it is a very familiar user experience, comparable to making wireless calls via the service provider's native (GSM) voice network. (Photo above: Blackberry 8820 running iSkoot and Skypephone together at Fall VON session on Goin' Mobile with Skype.)
Since the introduction of the 3 Skypephone two weeks ago I have seen many commentaries attempting to find issues with the offering. Very simply stated the 3 Skypephone offers:
Continue reading "3 Skypephone: It's All About the User Experience!" »
Regulation in Europe
EC proposals for VoIP emergency dialing. 
The EC will require Skype to connect 999 calls. Analysys' James Allens comments "Under the new proposal, if a user can call telephone numbers at all, calls to the emergency services must be possible. This will mean that VoIP services such as Vonage and SkypeOut will need to support such calls, and this will no longer be optional."
is Apple's iPhone exporting the idea of a locked mobile from the US to the UK?
The New Video
UK's Bebo opens up to video entertainment distributors. 
No charge. Public protocols. Sharable content on personal pages. via The Hollywood Reporter.
Yahoo! Messenger is doing the same thing, with in-chat video.
Windows is no more! Skype for Linux with video was the last thing foobar needed to remove Microsoft Windows from his dual-boot laptop.
Education
Estonia university teaches via Skype. For those Finns who want to avoid the ferry to Tallina Ülikool. Or for English speakers learning Estonian. via cafebabel.
This is part of a larger trend, Tom Regan reports in CSM. For the United States:
Skype Ecosystem
IPEVO publishes Mac software for its USB Skype phones. Get Mac drivers and apps for the IPEVO Free.1, Free.2, XING, and TRIO.
Skype using On2 Technologies' latest video codecs, now for Skype for Windows 3.6's advanced video calls. On2's TrueMotion VP7 enables an 8-fold increase in video data rate over previous calls.
Fun fact: About 25 percent of all Skype-to-Skype calls involve at least one video participant.
Competition
AOL and Google now peer for Instant Messaging. via Google Operating System.
TUAW reports Microsoft will upgrade Messenger for the Mac to 7.0, part of Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac.
Yahoo! Korea and LG Telecom bring web services to mobiles. Mobile versions of Flickr, News, Mail and Messenger. It's the Messenger that should catch Skype's attention. That and the overall convergence of communication tools. LG is also offering a Cyworld phone.
Trends
The 3 Skypephone seems to be selling out in some UK stores. More inventory to come for this weekend.
Dean Bubley predicts 250 million users of VoIP over 3G by 2012. More data over wireless means more opportunities for Skype and the operators' own versions of Skype.
Skype fuels Star Trek: The Continuing Missio
n, original radio dramas telling the new adventures of the USS Montana, ten years before Star Trek: The Next Generation starts. The first episode, Ghost Ship, will be released on Christmas Day, 25 December 2007, a year before the next Star Trek movie. The producers plan a full season of episodes, five more are written already.
Sebastian Prooth and Andrew Tyrer are producing the series.
When Andy approached Sebastian with the idea for a new Star Trek audio production, Prooth, a longtime Star Trek fan, says it was pretty much impossible to say no. Prooth, known in the Star Trek fan universe for his interviews with Star Trek production personnel on his blog, Seb’s Raw Takes, is also a published author and media producer.
This is a great example of a small team using Skype for project planning, communication, coordination, staffing, and operations.
This must be a labor of love because:
Star Trek® and all related trademarks are property of CBS/Paramount. Star Trek®, Star Trek: The Next Generation®, and all associated marks and characters are registered trademarks of CBS/Paramount. All rights reserved.
To keep in the clear, the show will be free to download. The producers are counting on stunning storytelling and professional production values to get them in Paramount's door.
How did Skype become TCM's dilithium crystal?
Writing. Sebastian Prooth 
and Andy Tyrer wrote the first episode, Ghost Ship, collaborating with each other via Skype chat and voice. Rapid iteration let Prooth adapt each episode to the strengths of cast members while staying true to the Star Trek canon and the story.
Casting. Tyrer and Prooth cast the series using email and Skype, especially for on-air (on-mic?) talent. Volunteers responded to the casting call from all around the world. The final cast are mostly professional actors and radio performers, with a few amateurs and alumni from the Star Trek television shows.
Direction. Prooth directed Ghost Ship's talent by wire. No travel budget? Each actor worked from their computer or personal recording studio. Skype let Prooth talk with the cast in high fidelity, for long sessions, across thousands of miles. They prepped by exploring story lines, character development, and ensemble relationships. For each scene, they rehearsed and guided each actor through their performances. 
Most voices were recorded locally and sent to TCM headquarters by email or Skype file transfer.
Editing. Sound editing is also collaborative. Andy Tyrer used Skype to share scene drafts, discuss cuts and scene designs with the team, and move large files. Tyrer puts the lines, effects and music for the show together. He uses Adobe Premiere, Sound Forge, Sony Vegas and other audio applications.
Spreading the Word. Andy and Sebastian hit the online talk show circuit. They've been interviewed for podcasts recorded on Skype (Deep Space 2, Treks in Sci Fi) and by bloggers using Skype. Prooth is responsible for marketing the show
The Collaboration. Tyrer lives in London and Prooth is an American in Yorkshire, about 200 miles and a 3.5 hour drive apart. Skype keeps them talking. Their free Skype calls can run for hours in as they work on their own parts of the project.
These folks are breaking new ground.
The last really big sci-fi event on radio was NPR's retelling of Star Wars episodes IV, V, and VI. Lots of added scenes, all your favorite sounds and music from the movies. The whole thing was about 14 hours long (29 episodes, each about 27 minutes long).
TCM is something else. It's not an adaptation (although that might be interesting too). TCM tells new stories, with new characters, in times and places not covered by previous tv or cinema.
Originality raises the difficulty level. Listeners can't recall visuals to paint scenes or draw characters. It also means the cultural context of the story, all the genre elements, are blank pages to start. So TCM's cast and crew must evoke the audience's imagination and bring them into the story.
See also:
tags: skype skypejournal star trek startrek tcm st:tcm the continuing mission thecontinuingmission continuingmission continuing mission radio internet drama serial series show entertainment hollywood yorkshire london uk theater editing marketing production projects project management pm writing script scripts ghost ship ghostship collaboration coordination communications casting recruiting staffing
I like the idea of the 3 Skypephone, mostly.
Some things were compromised to make it work:
But I can live with the compromises.
Because the point is to test things.
3 is testing if innovative calling and chatting experiences keep customers loyal. Is the buddy list and presence and threaded chat the new lock-in? Can all this soft, mushy, social balderdash pay off?
Skype is testing its ability to partner with carriers. Can Skype use its comparatively fresh Skype brand without using any Skype software at all? The phone is running iSkoot and Qualcomm software/firmware. Skype's roll is all in marketing the phone and selling SkypePro service plans.
Skype is testing its own virality on mobiles. Can Skype make the Skypephone's customers so happy they drag all their friends into the Skype network, restarting Skype's customer growth?
iSkoot is testing scale. What happens when millions use iSkoot as their primary mobile interface instead of as optional, infrequently used software? What will break? What new features will people demand?
Finally the Skype vs. Apple test: Are Skype's free/social power sufficient to defend 3's markets from iPhone mania? iPhone is rolling in the UK with O2 November 9, a week after the Skypephone.
You can buy the 3 Skypephone on Friday from the Skype online store. Or read about it now on its Skype product page.
Last week, I included Mobivox as one route to call your Skype contacts from any of the 3.5 billion conventional phones out there, whether landline or mobile (including the iPhone and Blackberries). I had the opportunity to get an update on Mobivox and its user demographics in a discussion with Mobivox CEO Stephane Marceau.
Their big news last week was the announcement of an $11 million financing round involving not only their original investors but adding in new Asian investors. The interest of Asian investors was aroused when Mobivox was able to point out that they were finding significant Mobivox usage by Asians. In fact, their top six countries for usage are: U.S., U.K., China, India, Canada, Germany and Israel. Funds are to be used for both marketing and development of new features and services.
Another interesting statistic arising out of their user base demographics is that over 20% of their users are over 55. Seems like Mobivox is being used to close family connections where the senior generation can easily make calls via Mobivox from any familiar telephone device, whether at home or traveling. Often they find a younger generation registering their parents.
Recently they also added the capability to launch calls via either SMS or a web interface -- especially useful for making calls from countries not included in their base of 40 countries with access points.
Goals for the next year include simplifying the user experience and more advanced features that leverage speech as a user interface. (Recall that Mobivox works by dialing an access number and then speaking a "registered" contact name to the VoxGirl who then makes the connection; speech recognition is one of their core technologies.)
Just to recall, beyond any carrier charges to reach an access point, calls between Mobivox subscribers or from a Mobivox user to a Skype user are free; while calls to conventional phones have rates dependent on the termination country, starting at 1.9 cents/minute to Canada, U.S., China and many European countries' landlines. And they offer a first time free 10 minutes to encourage user trial.
Note: Mobivox CEO Stephane Marceau will be amongst the panelists at a session, Going Mobile with Skype - Beep, Beep, at VON Boston in ten days.
Saunderslog: Mobivox and Truphone: What kind of mobile user are you?
Interesting post here from Andy Abramson at VoIP Watch who is currently visiting the U.K. and France and finding improved call quality for his Skype calls: Are Skype Calls Getting Better? Is Gizmo Getting Worst? (Typos corrected, etc.)
According to some friends in the business Skype has made massive changes to their codecs since hiring some folks and weaning away GIPS with more of a home brew approach. Over the past week my experience with Skype here in France and in London was far better than what I was used to seeing. As a matter of fact the quality has reached the level that {previously} made me more fond of GizmoProject, which lately seems to be having issues that it has also had before.
....
Skype is working around those issues and continues to have the best NAT traversal technology around and that's keeping my calling back to the USA costs way, way down.
This is the sort of improvement that only comes with experience and a lot of trial and error. The Skype efforts at improving call quality are starting to be noticed by one of their most critical users.
Update: Alec Saunders also says Skype Calls ARE Getting Better. As for Skype plug-ins, Firefox is my primary browser and the Skype plug-in works perfectly; I have all but given up on IE7 due to several issues when bringing up websites. Use the Firefox extensions IETab and IEView for those sites that require Internet Explorer. One of the tests for some of the Skype Extras is to check that, where a browser is involved, they work with both IE and Firefox
Tags: Skype, Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch, Skype Call Quality
Disparity between broadband haves and have-nots limit and focus Skype's market opportunity.
Frank Bures' Wired magazine story looks at Internet Telecommunications Union data to compare raw prices of 100 Kbps broadband access by country. In some parts of the world, broadband costs two months' of a family's income.
Bures lays most blame on governments for high rates; artificial scarcity, censorship, and economic discrimination through tariffs only the richest afford put money and power in government pockets.
CORRECTION: Mr. Bures doesn't lay blame. I do; that's my interpretation. My apologies, Frank.
Lots of activity out there involving the use of Skype and the VoIP market space.
Can using Skype via a rogue WiFi connection lead you into a life of crime? Where does the law draw the line? George Ou reports:
A man in London was arrested for using an open Wi-Fi network from someone’s unsecured broadband link from a nearby house. Similar arrests have happened in the US and this makes me wonder: Can owning a Wi-Fi Skype phone land you in jail?
Of course the best advice, from an access point owner's viewpoint, is to ensure you have changed those insecure default settings on your WiFi access point hardware. But the law in this instance does need to catch up with the times.
Need cash? While overseas? Maureen Martin, needing a rent deposit for her lease in Copenhagen, has A Fantastic Technology Day. Can Skype become a factor in Western Union's decline? (A more obvious candidate would be PayPal.)
50+ Mashables for Skype. Social networking news site Mashable.com puts out a Skype Toolbox listing over 50 enhancements involving Skype. Only one week left to enter the Skype Mashup competition.
An Inc 500 award in the VoIP market space: Fellow blogger Garrett Smith sent me an email yesterday mentioning that VoIP Supply has been named to Inc. Magazine's 26th annual Inc 500 list of fastest growing companies. Greg Galitzine at Business VoIP on TMCnet has put up this interview with VoIP Supply's CEO Ben Sayers. Indicative of the growth experienced:
Continue reading "Skype and VoIP Tidbits - A Friday review" »
One aspect of the telephony domain that has been absent from the Skype ecosystem has been the ability to fax documents via Skype. Fundamentally, sending a fax is an asynchronous one-way activity that has "ridden" the phone network to transmit a document to a device that is able to decode the fax signal back into a readable paper document.. Skype itself has traditionally allowed document exchange via the file transfer feature; however, it does not address the issue of sending a document to a destination without Skype access or sending "executed" documents in legal transactions. Even for those who have a fax machine in their home office, sending a fax while traveling can be a challenging (and usually somewhat expensive) experience.
PamConsult, publishers of the pioneering Skype Extra, Pamela, this week launched a beta version of their forthcoming fax utility, PamFax which will be available as a Skype Extra. PamFax makes faxing a document from any broadband-connected PC a relatively straight forward experience:
The fax is then sent, followed by receipt of the selected notifications in, say, a Skype Chat window, an email message and/or an SMS message.
During the process:
Truphone is one VoIP service I have always admired and it's not just because they supply inexpensive, yet high quality voice calls. Their developers have also taken a serious look at the device integration to ensure that the user experience in making an "Internet" call is as similar as feasible to making a standard voice call. It is integrated into the native Nokia Contact directory; installation and provisioning of an account is quite straight forward. (In fact, as they told me would happen when at ceBit back in March, the recent release of Truphone 3 has made this user experience even more seamless.)
However, as discussed in an earlier post, Truphone has had an issue with respect to being able to communicate with T-Mobile customers in the U.K. For whatever reasons, Truphone's reasonable efforts at resolving this issue did not come to a timely resolution; as a result late last week Truphone applied to the Royal Courts of Justice for injunctive relief. Today they won that injunction request with the result that Truphone numbers must be interconnected with T-Mobile by next Monday, July 23.
Truphone CEO James Tagg released the following statement:
- "The injunction is good news not only for Truphone but for every company trying to develop internet-era services and for every consumer wanting freedom of choice and lower prices. We are determined to bring better-value mobile calls, text messages and other innovative services to mobile phone users, and it's right that we should not be prevented from doing so."
- "To be granted interim relief means we successfully demonstrated that we have an arguable case to make at a full trial."
- "We didn't want to go to court but we had no choice: T-Mobile was effectively preventing the launch of the Truphone service so we had to take urgent action."
While only applying in law to the U.K., let's hope it helps to establish precedent as VoIP services around the world come into the market. The bottom line message is that consumers need open access and consumers should make the choice for their telecom and other communications services.
In the case of my fellow Canadian Skypers, we would appreciate if the CRTC would open up competition by allowing SkypeIn services without the need for 911 services. Skype has demonstrated in other countries that they can provide adequate warnings to users to the effect that they have no intention of being a replacement phone service with 911 access.
Update: Andy points out that some countries simply want to deny VoIP exists and are serious about it.
Tags: Truphone, T-Moible, Royal Courts of Justice
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In a press release issued yesterday, an agreement between Skype and Bigmouthmedia was announced whereby Bigmouthmedia's services will be used to facilitate Skype promotion through search engine marketing activities.
Bigmouthmedia will work with Skype to manage its comprehensive organic search offering across the major search engines, initially within 8 geographic locations worldwide including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Japan. The appointment comes at an exciting time for both companies with each expanding quickly worldwide.
Garrett Smith posted has some observations on this announcement in a section titled "How Can You Not Pay Attention to Search Engine Marketing"
Sure they have other concerns, but from my point of view (as an online marketer) what their site lacks is online marketing 101. For instance, something as simple as each product in their online “shop” having a unique title, has seemed to escape them, even though I told them how and why they need to do this … about 10 months ago … multiple times. I bet Skype has lost hundreds of thousands in sales over the past few years due to poor site structure and on page optimization.
I know a lot of people are critical, suspicious, and dismissive of search engine marketing, but i think that is foolish. It is like any other industry; it has its snake oil salesmen, but a solid, reputable search engine marketing agency, can do wonders for your business. If you are doing business online and have yet to reach out to an expert in the field, I implore you to do so. The results could take you from just another player, to the lead player in your industry.
Will this effort help to reinforce Skype's non-US market activities where Skype continues to find 85% of their user base?
Tags: SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Skype, Bigmouthmedia, Garrett Smith
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Meet Joost van der Vleuten, a senior policy advisor at the Netherlands' Ministry of Economic Affairs.
No relation to the company or the singer, but Joost's mailbox was full with congratulations from friends when "his" startup launched. His mother is so proud!
The recognition that the right to offer a telephony service is a public trust is underlined by the existence of government agencies worldwide (such as FCC, OFCOM and CRTC) granting businesses the right to offer phone services. Included is a responsibility to provide access to any telephone number regardless of the underlying technology for that "last mile access". In turn, this means there is an inherent assumption that we can call any phone number from any service.
Truphone is a service that relies on WiFi connectivity for that last mile to WiFi-enabled handsets; each subscriber also obtains a phone number for what effectively amounts to a SkypeIn-type of service. For instance, the Nokia N95 and N80 provide wireless access via both the GSM and WiFi protocols. When I can get a WiFi connection, I have found Truphone to provide a high quality, easy-to-use service. At ceBit 2007 I was told to expect a new, more user-friendly version of Truphone by the summer; sounds like it is going into beta now.
There have been recent reports where Orange and Vodafone in the U.K. were crippling the WiFi feature prior to selling these handsets but they still would allow their customers to call a Truphone number from the underlying GSM wireless service even if the Truphone client could not work for outbound calls. According to reports late last week, T-Mobile in the UK has gone one step further and blocked all calls to Truphone numbers (07978 8xxxxx) in the UK. (North American users of Truphone end up with a number in the 360 Area Code.) This has generated a wealth of posts:
Continue reading "Who's In Charge Here? Carrier Battles for Revenue Sustenance" »
Today one of my contacts at a Skype Partner forwarded to me this email that he had received (and I have converted to a jpeg image):
The combination of a country-specific sender email address, bad grammar (account informations!, few additional information, etc.) along with the link actually going to an address starting with 
should be sufficient warning to not only be quite wary of, but also safely ignore, such a message. (To see the actual link in a phishing message in Outlook, simply run your cursor over the hyperlinked text and a box as shown here will appear; this is always a very final confirmation that an email is a phishing email.)
Skype would never send out such a request (as neither would a bank); all account activity is carried out by logging into your account via the Skype website. Any related PayPal activity also requires a PayPal login and password with one highly constrained exception (PayPal preapproved).
Which products can I buy using preapproved?
You can PayPal preapproved to buy Skype Credit, Skype Voicemail and SkypeIn numbers.
Preapproved can not be used for Personalize Skype, Skype Groups and purchases from accessories store.
Be wary of this and any similar phishing messages; usually I get them from non-Canadian banks where I obviously would not have accounts but it seems someone thinks there is a path to PayPal via Skype -- rest assured there is not. In doing a follow up tomorrow to Dan York's post last Friday I will be providing more details about the security surrounding your Skype account and associated financial security.
A copy of this email has been forwarded to Skype management to pass along to eBay's very experienced security operations that trace phishers and have them taken down.
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one point four beta
forwarding, smileys, bugs fixed
the great cucumber
Skype Version 1.4.0.74 for Linux, June 14, 2007
now with animated emoticons
telco lobbyists
abhor "subsidy treatment"
for anyone else
MoveOn and others support Skype while the telecommunications industry lines up against Skype's Wireless Carterfone petition and Frontline Wireless's 700MHz wireless commons petition, being considered by the US Federal Communications Commission.
no social lock-in
plus enterprise misfitness
ken camp unloads skype
Ken Camp, VoIP blogger and security expert says Skype is no longer relevant for him and strips Skype from his computers.
capture the phone box
defend your territory
call and play Boxr
At Yahoo! Hack Day London, Mike Jewell and friends whipped up Boxr, "a bit like Domination, but with phone boxes." Seize the phone booth by calling a SkypeIn number and giving your code. Get a point for each minute it's yours, until someone else claims it.
in poverty: now
in middle class: the future
in wealth: history
Susan Mernit summarizes lessons about diverse class attitudes and perceptions.
skype the disrupter
prompts telco evolution
consumer driven
Niklas Zennström, Skype co-founder and CEO, opines for BBC Online.
Indian telcos
ask government to tame VoIP
xenophobia?
Internet Service Providers' Association of India seeks Chinese-style regulation of Google, Skype, Yahoo, Vonage, MSN; an end to "indulgence".
Gartner staff use Skype
despite IT banning it
IT's adapting
"I went to a seminar about [consumerization of IT] a few weeks back. The Gartner guy was complaining that their IT department didn't let them use Skype at work"
- on a ZGeek bulletin board.
mclaughlin and friends
public policy wonkage
blogging for googlers
Google's Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs unveils his team's blog.
tags: skype skypejournal lobbying sociallockin lock-in socialcapital class society sociology values attitudes perceptions greatcucumber subsidy savetheinternet moveon linux adoption defection india kencamp emoticons google gartner consumerization consumerisation xenophobia voip yahoo hackday vonage msn indulgence niklas Niklas Zennström niklaszennström zeitgeistennström susanmernit
Thursday, 31 May, is 
Google Developer Day. Lots of events streamed online. A great way to learn about their web APIs, mashups, client APIs, AJAX, XML, commerce and all the other shiny buzzwords. No voice, IM, or email sessions.
Ten countries, one very long day, thousands of developers, free to programmers. The California event is too big for Google's Mountain View campus, so they moved it to the enormous San Jose convention center.
Developer relations writ large.
If I can crash the event I'll bring back some details, but track the GDD07 tag on Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket and see related posts on Google Blog Search and Technorati.
Same time, next door at the San Jose Marriott, is the Inbox conference. Several sessions on unifying IM, email and voice messaging. Case Study: Designing an Email System as a Back-end for Voicemail. The Power of Presence. Enterprise 2.0 and the 'Resocialization of IT'.
This month's coverage of Skype's own developer program:
So you're a Skype-crazy consultant in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden or the UK. You want to sell Skype to customers. But how?
First, join The Skype Reseller Program. Free to apply, apparently, and one short form.
Then buy the Small Business Pack (shipping early June) at a discounted rate, starting at 20% off the €99 recommended retail price.
In the box:
Sell your packs.
Then buy €99 Skype voucher packs at 5% off and sell them.
Discounts improve with volume.
Things we don't know:
Skype's acceptance criteria for reseller applicants.
What keeps a small or medium sized business from enrolling in the programme to secure discounts for themselves.
When the programme and products will spread to the other markets.
Whether resellers based outside the 12 core countries (e.g. Spain) may sell into those countries.
Whether these markups are deep enough for resellers to be effective.
How long until reseller support delivers:
Skype's policies on reseller inventory management and returns.
Whether the reseller product roadmap includes Skype Certified or Skype Compatible hardware and software.
This is a great next step for Skype's ecosystem.
Thanks to Dan York for tipping me to Scott Davidson's announcement.
Skype news release below the fold.
Continue reading "Europe's Skype Small Business Pack for Resellers" »
Combine seven ideas...
That said, see this investigation, Paedophiles use Skype ‘loophole’ to woo children, by Daniel Foggo, Claire Newell and Martin Foley of UK's The Sunday Times dated 6 May 2007. They primed a honey trap with Skype user profiles targeting pedophiles seeking sub-14-year-old girls in locales convenient to their investigation. Sure enough, creeps fell for the bait.
Skype isn't a bulletin board where moderators can watch for bad behavior. It's a private, encrypted, person-to-person phone system. So Skype's ability to intervene before something bad happens, or even to detect that something bad has already happened, are very limited. As Kurt Sauer, Skype’s chief security officer, told the Times: “This raises some very practical issues. However, we have not found a way to address each of the issues.”
The very efficiency of Skype's directory is what enabled the bad actors to locate their targets. Millions of people use that efficient white pages to find and talk with each other daily, allowing Skype Journal and other reporters (like the ones at the Times) to investigate stories all over the world. You don't want to cripple an entire network as a response. What can you do? What are your options?
There are matters of call content. What do you do when the age of consent in one jurisdiction is 18 years' old and is 14 in another? When the definitions of predatory behavior, fraud, or snooping are different? When a call can be described as patriotic whistleblowing, industrial espionage, or treason, depending on your point of view, in the same country?
The problems aren't simple. The solutions aren't obvious. Kurt's going to earn his pay architecting policies that work.
Technorati tags: skype, skypejournal, life, security, crime, pedophilia, paedophila, honeytrap, uk, europe, nexus, policy, law
Three events in the next 45 Days in Munich, Santa Clara and Boston.
Munich, Germany. 2-3 May 2007
Entwicklerkonferenz
2007 in München will feature two speakers about Skype on Day 2.
Lester Madden will be there from Skype London.
Santa Clara, California. 14-17 May 2007
Paul Amery, Skype's top developer relations evangelist, will keynote at TMC's Communications Developer 
Conference in Silicon Valley on Wednesday, 16 May. The "Voice Service Mashups" session, in the Service Oriented Architecture track (my favorite) will feature Skype. The CDC is probably the biggest gathering of VoIP programmers anywhere in the world and a great opportunity to recruit hands-on geeks.
I'll be there too. We should have a Skype Journal dinner. Call me for an invitation.
Boston, Massachusetts. 11-13 June 2007
eBay Developers Conference. Skype's info isn't on the event site yet, but last year they had about a dozen Skype engineers leading workshops and talking with eBay/PayPal community. It's only 45 days away - look for hotel space now.
I'm Begging all event organizers: AUDIO AND VIDEO TAPE ALL THE SESSIONS, EVEN THE BREAKOUT SESSIONS, AND POST THEM ON YOUR DEVZONE. Thousands of programmers cannot be there. Sharing multiplies your event's reach for the whole next year. It is cheap if you want it to be: €4000 gets you three consumer grade cameras, three tripods to put them on, memory sticks, and three mp3 recorders. Ask for a volunteer in each breakout session to work the camera and have a staffer upload the videos to Google Video or wherever you like. THIS IS DOCUMENTATION, NOT MARKETING. SHARE THE DOCUMENTATION. Thank you.
Technorati tags: skype, skypejournal, events, training, evangelist, evangelists, evangelism, technology, voip, devcon, Entwicklerkonferenz, konferenz
RAND Europe's report: Security Challenges to the Use and Deployment of Disruptive Technologies. Most of the chapter explains VoIP basics and follows a case study of an enterprise VoIP deployment at HSBC.
Chapter 2 (page 20 in the pdf file) lists risks from the PSTN-to-VoIP transition. They cite technical risks per VOIPSA:
Their strategic concern was telecom industry disruption. They worry for the titans of telephony losing revenue and market share to VoIP disrupters like Skype. Until a transition to an all VoIP industry is complete, there is a risk of telco company failures and infrastructure abandonment.
RAND interviewed Skype's Melanie Libraro for their report.
My take: The biggest telcos are more likely to co-opt and squelch disruptive technologies than be threatened by them. For example, mobile telephony threatened local carriers; now local carriers like AT&T own mobile carriers. Why wouldn't they serve their customers if VoIP is what they want? So look to worldwide bigtels driving consumer VoIP regulation, retaliatory pricing, litigation, and M&A in 2008. I can almost smell the blood in the water.
Technorati tags: skype, voip, disruption, disrupters, threats, risks, risk, threat, voipsa, eavesdropping, interception, dos, intrusion, telecom, rand, randeurope, skypejournal
For a company that is not top of mind in product announcements these days, Microsoft is certainly getting a lot of attention from the blogosphere. So the questions become: where is Microsoft going on the offensive? and who are their competitors?
Where is Microsoft going on the offensive?
Launch of Windows Vista: we saw lots promotion at both CES and CeBit, yet Vista has yet to get anyone to define its killer feature(s). Having just received an evaluation copy I will be reporting on its implementation while upgrading a three year old PC (which has had its hardware upgraded to be Vista compatible). To add more to my perspective: both one of my sons and my daughter have purchased MacBooks over the past year; I no longer have to help them keep their PC's up to date due to viruses, worms, other security threats and long term congestive registry failure.
Launch of Office 2007: apparently they did a "soft" launch last week. You can take an online test drive here. Outlook 2003's substantial improvements was a prime driver for Office 2003 upgrades but what is the feature driver for Office 2007 uptake?
Real time communications: As discussed in more detail in a post last Thursday, Alec Saunders summarizes Microsoft's entry into the real time communications space as a gradual but consistent build up of components that will become key to a world where intelligence is at the endpoints while the network becomes simply a delivery pipe.
Back Office: Can Microsoft maintain its dominance in the enterprise market with all its server products? Will an Internet-based Web 2.0 world cut into this market? Or is its current enterprise installed base the Trojan horse for building up its real time communications play?
SkypeOut credits burning a whole in your purse? You can now Skype UK premium numbers starting with 09. Peter Parkes announced it on Skype's UK blog. How do the 09 rate, tax, and cost structures compare to Skype Prime? Hat tip to VoIP News.
Update: PC Advisor's Rosemary Haworth has the best walk through on this: Skype offers cut-price phone sex. "The savings weren’t exactly breathtaking. And in at least one case, calling the number via Skype actually cost more."
Technorati tags: skype, skypeout, uk, 09, hiddenchemistry, rates, plans, prices, pstn, icstis
As indicated in previous posts (here and here) I recently completed a ten day European trip to Hanover, Germany for CeBit and returned via London where I visited the Skype offices. But Skype was not the only communications play I explored and employed during this trip. There are other players out there having their own successes. Besides using Skype for many calls back home and to others amongst my contacts, I also had the opportunity to try out other technologies and services using my Blackberry 8700, my Nokia N80i, my SlingBox Pro, a rental car GPS system and high speed European trains.
First the most underpromoted feature of the Blackberry has to be Blackberry Messenger. This is basically an Instant Messaging service that operates, not via the standard GSM data channel and Internet, but rather via a direct (PIN to PIN) messaging channel that instantaneously transmits messages to other Blackberry Messenger contacts. As a result there is no latency between sending and receiving a message. It allowed me to keep in tight contact with the person who accompanied me on this trip but had a different agenda of meetings at CeBit. It also allowed me to keep in instantaneous contact with a key contact back in Canada re some business issues. It has become a most valuable tool for text chat with those I work most closely with, letting them know of say, delays as we link up for a meeting or just getting simple answers to short but important questions. I have written more about the power of combining Blackberry Messenger and iotum's Talk Now in my Getting Presence Right post last week. (For communicating with my German hosts who had Sony Ericsson phones I found myself using SMS messaging more than I would in North America but there are charges associated with SMS messages.)
One evening after the show one member of our group had to make a call back to her family in Canada. She had attempted to make a call via one of our host's wireless GSM phones but the battery died after a few minutes. Since I had packed up my laptop for the day, I checked on my Nokia N80i and found there was an open WiFi connection available. I ran the Truphone wizard, entered her home phone number into the N80i Contacts directory and called via Truphone. She had an excellent quality, uninterrupted call with her family that lasted well over 20 minutes -- much better quality than she had been experiencing with a wireless phone. And, at this point in time, at no cost.
Clear consumer labeling by June 2007. That's the latest directive to UK VoIP providers from the Office of Communications. The announcement and the directive. High points:
- whether or not the service includes access to emergency services;
- the extent to which the service depends on the user's home power supply;
- whether directory assistance, directory listings, access to the operator or the itemisation of calls are available; and
- whether consumers will be able to keep their telephone number if they choose to switch providers at a later date.
Seems like a great idea. Not clear whether Skype softphones or Skype-embedded phones will be subject to such a requirement.
Next, Ofcom is considering, at the request of "a number of stakeholders," whether to require emergency services. I wonder how they' are influenced by their own Communications - The Next Decade book.
Full text of the announcement below...
I have had the fortunate opportunity to stop over in London on my return from CeBit 2007 and spend a few days meeting various Skype personnel especially in the Skype Development Program group. Paul Amery, Director (center) and Lester Madden (left), responsible for Partner and Developer Relations, have been great hosts, helping to arrange various meetings and providing me with an Internet connection (where the local hotel wanted £15 per 24 hours for high speed Internet).
On my arrival Wednesday I was provided with an opportunity to make a lunch hour presentation on "An External View of the Skype World" to about 50 or 60 staff members in the Chill-Out Lounge; lots of interest, good questions and, based on feedback, I definitely hit some hot spots. I will follow up with more detailed reports on some of the follow up meetings in separate posts.
I also had the good fortune to be here when Skype Developer Program Partner Jeremy Hague of Netralia was visiting; he made a presentation to Skype staff Thursday on Skylook 2.0 -- an Outlook extension that has become one of the Skype Extras Gallery success stories.
But the most interesting story about visiting Skype London is the people I have had the opportunity to meet. First it is truly an international company; within one department of about 20 employees, eleven countries are represented, from as far away as Australia. Yet they have figured out a way to all work together, overcoming any potential cultural and language barriers, to build what is truly becoming the international "Uber-Telecom" company. The enthusiasm, positive attitude and high energy level they bring is a key to Skype's success. I thank them all for making my visit not only a success but thoroughly enjoyable.
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Over the past few days I have encountered some interesting technology while visiting CeBit 2007 in Hanover Germany and it's not all VoIP related.
ATM's: I just went through the smoothest ATM experience ever. Asked only the basic questions and then spewed out my bills in different denominations. For instance, €100 would come as 2 x €5, 2 x €10, 1x €20 and 1 x €50. Very practical instead of one or two high value bills. Someone thought about the basic user requirement here.
GPS Navigation: My host's GPS navigation system has taken us over the past two evenings to two excellent restaurants near the Hanover Messe site. These are slightly "off the beaten track" places with local fare and gemutlichkeit that we would never have experienced in a pre-GPS navigation world. But the data base needs updating as the Indonesian restaurant we thought we were going to actually turned out to be a Greek restaurant after a recent ownership change; however, but both the food and hospitality were quite memorable.
Talk about going full circle: we are sitting here in Germany watching Deutsche Welle Television originating in Germany -- but picked up via my home Rogers cable service back near Toronto, Canada and coming back to Germany via my SlingBox Pro at home. But again, as the user I get to select my choice of channel, whether Deutsche Welle, CBC Newsword, CNN or NHL Centre Ice from a service I am already paying for.
Downtown Parking: Around Hanover Zentrum, especially as you enter the downtown area, are electronic signs that not only direct you towards municipal parking buildings but also tell you how many spots are currently open in each. Once you enter a building you are directed to the various levels based on current occupancy. This is a great idea for the "Green" movement as it must save on fuel required to look around for vacant parking spots.
Over the past couple of days I have had the chance to tour the Communications Halls at CeBit (that's 2 out of 24) and found several displays involving Skype hardware. Of note
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Two announcements this week tell of changes to Skype's retail distribution strategy as they bring on new, but experienced, channel partners to assist with getting Skype hardware moving through more traditional retail channels.
First, here at CeBit 2007 in Hannover, Skype hardware vendor In Store Solutions announced a partnership with distributor Think Extra of Milan, Italy with representation in all major European countries. This partnership will bring Skype products to over 700 retailers in 26 European countries. From the press release:
“Our retail channels are selling vast amounts of Skype Certified products, but there is a clear need to further developing the channel,” said Riccardo Bologna, General Manager, TX - Think Xtra. “This joint initiative enables retailers to implement a rich portfolio of Skype Certified products quickly, and Skype‘s brand recognition will certainly attract shoppers. It’s exactly what our customers are looking for.”
Think Xtra and In Store Solutions are exhibiting a complete range of Skype branded products here at CeBit 2007 with significant amount of traffic and interest. The key to their offering is a range of starter kits which provide the Skype beginner with all the hardware required to get started with Skype, including ear buds with microphone and a basic 640 x 480 webcam for €29.99. Three keys to getting started such that new Skypers are recruited through a store display:
Ike Roelfsema, a volunteer Skype forum moderator, recapped consumer problems with SkypePro: people are unclear which SkypeOut calls are free and which cost money. If a Brit with a SkypePro account calls from France to Germany, does he pay? From France to France? From England to France?
The correct answer: in-country calls are free (except for Skype's connection fee) as long as you are in one of the SkypePro-supported countries.
SkypePro should mirror unlimited, flat-rate landline service in its simplicity. It's not quite there yet.
Do you think there's a market for a SkypeProPlus? Free SkypeOut within a region?
Technorati tags: skypepro, europe, skypejournal, skype, pricing
A public letter from Bulent Yildirim, CEO of KonuSh. KonuSh is a long time Skype developer and the first to operate a Skype business directory, KonuSh.net.
Dear Skype:
The day the first Skype Beta was launched (August 2003), we believed that Skype would be the killer application in the telecommunications world. And we shared this idea with our colleagues. At the beginning even if Skype management was only focused on the consumer market, we believed that most of the people will use Skype for business purposes so that we have to establish a Skype Business Directory. This was our starting point, and we shared the idea with the Skype Team, and we got very good feedback that time.
During that period, we gave more support to the Skype Team to understand the Turkish Market, and we translated Skype web pages to Turkish (we were the first who translated the Skype web pages into Turkish). When we launched our Skype Business Directory Services portal, KonuSh, in 2004, Skype gave us permission to use their logo on our web site because they really liked our concept (creation of the first and only Business Directory for Skype business users).
Three years after our launch of KonuSh, as you already noticed, Skype saw the potential and focused to the Business Market. They saw that the main revenue stream could be generated from the business market.
Since 2004 we couldn't grow fast because we could not invest for marketing, and it stayed just an amatorial project. Also, we could not get support from Skype team to promote KonuSh even if the business market started to use Skype heavily and use their Skype names on their business cards, etc.
Finally in 2006, we decided to set up a private company, KonuSh, with a vision of: to be the biggest and most valuable business directory services provider of Skype and to promote Skype usage among businesses. Then we prepared our business plan and started to have meetings with investors in order to provide value added Business Directory Services to Skype business users. We started to write KonuSh J2ME client for handsets, renew the KonuSh portal with a target of 1 million subscribers in 3 years.
Believing in Skype's preference to support and promote its partners for extras and value added services, at 12.12.2006 we sent an email to Skype management mentioning the latest developments about KonuSh and asking them to support KonuSh in order to achieve our goals; to add Konush's link to the Skype client, and to give extra Skype minutes to the new subscribers. But unfortunately we never received any reply.
Two months later, they announced SkypeFind which explains why they have not replied to our request.
We want to ask to Skype's top management: "Do you plan and start to compete with your committed partners?"
Since 2004, we spent time, effort and money in order to promote Skype usage for the business market; but we are in such a state that we have to close KonuSh or compete with Skype.
Creativity and vision are very important and valuable concepts which we assumed Skype understand and support this. Since the beginning, we believe in the Skype concept and we will continue to support Skype. But we also believe that Skype has to think once more about its partner strategy and relations.
Bulent Yildirim
Skype : bulent.yildirim
SkypeIn: +1(202) 580-8446
Mobile : +905322319784
E-mail : bulent.yildirim@konush.net
05.26.2004 : Beginning of Skype relationship. To promote Skype usage in Turkey we initiated a Skype community for Turkish Skype users and then the Skype Business Directory for Turkish SMEs with the vision of creating a fully focused Global Skype Business Directory.
Konush.net featured in a 2004 PCWorld.com.tr article.
06.07.2004 : We share our idea with Skype top management via e-mail.
09.24.2004 : We got feedback from Skype top management. What Niklas said to KonuSh:
"Thanks for the mail. That sounds like a great idea. I have copied Mark Asseily, Business Development Director, on this mail. Mark will contact you.
Best regards,
Niklas"
During this period, we translated Skype web pages into Turkish and supplied as much feedback as possible about the Skype client.
November 2005 : "Skype directories like Konush.net vs. Skype's profile cloud," Skype Journal
November 2006 : KonuSh project became a private company named KonuSh, and Registered Trade Mark in US and TR. We found an investor.
13.12.2006 : We contacted with Skype team in order to have a KonuSh Plug-in in the Skype Client.
02.21.2007 : Skype announced SkypeFind!
I interviewed Sten Tamkivi last Thursday morning, Tallinn time, the day after the Skype for Windows 3.1 beta launch. Sten is Skype's Estonia general manager and now heads up the eCommerce team that created SkypeFind. SkypeFind is a user populated business directory. Sten is also a serial entrepreneur, spokesperson for Skype, and a blogger. This is a rough, lightly-edited transcript.
SJ. What does eCommerce have to do with SkypeFind?
Sten Tamkivi: eCommerce is a unit inside Skype that deals with this kind of purchase, like SkypeFind, that has activities outside of the telecom-like services space. SkypeFind is one of the first big launches for us. It is a business listings system that enables users to share the businesses they call and what they think about those businesses. If you search for a haircut in London and don't find what you need, you can use SkypeFind also to ask from your contact if they have any good suggestions.
SJ. It looks like "asking your friends" means putting a note into your mood presence.
That's right.
SJ. Why do you think people want a SkypeFind kind of a feature?
We see it as a very natural building block on top of Skype as a communication app. If you use Skype for calling, especially SkypeOut for calling, you have to store your phone numbers somewhere. Why not share that with the rest of the contact list? Why not share it with the 171 million registered Skype users? We see it very much like a missing piece in the whole picture.
Because we are doing it very tightly inside the Skype client, that adds to the usability and the likelihood that people will input.
There is a very interesting social aspect we added to this. For example, if you are searching for a sushi place in Tallinn, and you have me on your contact list, then places I've suggested or rated well bubble up in the search results. So in the search results you get listings that are suggested or rated well by the people in your contact list that you already trust. So this is something that differentiates us as well.
SJ. So there is actual value in having friends that contribute to the network.
I talked with Stefan Öberg yesterday about today's Skype Pro launch. The call reminded me that, despite the 500 million downloads that brought Skype to where it is today, downloading is weird. Using a phone, something with buttons you hold to your ear and mouth, is our mainstream human behavior. It's not enough to succeed at getting people to download Skype.
The sweet spot Skype occupies is being nibbled at from three sides.
First are those who are building live communication into the web. No client to download, just flash, a browser, a headset and a webcam.
Second are those who are turning VoIM (voice over instant messaging) into a feature of other software. VoIM is being built into virtual worlds, customer service systems, Internet television networks, and eBay seller tools.
Third are the gadgets. Mobile phones, hybrid phones, desk stations, cuddly toys. Generations are conditioned by thousands of calls to hold something to the sides of their faces for telephony. Gear that's directly attached to the Internet without a PC lets people get some of the benefit of VoIM without bothering to change their behavior.
Skype Pro will help Skype with the gadget crowd. The pricing plan is much closer to the all-you-can-eat plans associated with landlines. So Skype Pro and a phone with embedded Skype will be easier to buy, to set up, try, and adopt.
Key points of today's announcements:
I find it ironic that Luxembourg, Skype's country of incorporation, isn't on the list.
source: Skype news release
Stefan says Skype's stats show most SkypeOut calls run 20 to 30 minutes, so the connection fee shouldn't affect most users.
While the return on voice mail might justify the service, all the exclusions means Skypers must still know what kind of line they are calling.
With so many people using mobiles as their primary numbers, I'm not sure this will save you much on SkypeOut service.
See also:
Full release below:
Continue reading "Skype Pro bundle goes live; early-bird €5 credit with purchase" »
I love wicked publicists! 
Here's small-guy VoipBuster making fun of big corporate Skype just hours after Skype's announcement on its home page and in a news release sent through the same channels Skype uses.
Skype increases all prices!
(Full text of a statement. Contact details follow below.)
Cologne (ANTARA News/PRNewswire-AsiaNet) - They kept millions of users waiting for more than a month, but today Skype (eBay) finally announced their new "pricing strategy"....
VoipBuster could not believe it: instead of lowering their prices they decided to put a new charge of 3,9 eurocents on all calls!! For almost all Skype users this means a price increase of over 50%!
Time to switch, because VoipBuster, the biggest rival of Skype, announced today more new countries can be called for FREE. Making the price difference even bigger!
VoipBuster a service of Betamax GmbH & Co.
KG Postfach 19 04 25
50501 Koln
press@voipbuster.com
Technorati tags: skypeout, skype, voipbuster, voip, minutestealer, skypepro, voim
Are you a mobile phone software developer? I've been going to MobileMonday events for a long time, mostly in the Bay Area, always great demos, active vendor participation, tasty schmooze. Stuart John, Skype's mobile product manager, is hosting the London MoMo 11 December at Skype's offices. 2 Stephen Street, W1T 1AN (map). The theme this month is mobile community, specifically mobile social networks. Should be hot, especially with the announcement of YouTube for mobile.
.. 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:
Skype's CEO is speaking at Europe's largest blogger conference, 11-12 December. I'm sure he'll demo Skype 3.0's one blogging feature. It's nice, but neither jaw dropping or disruptive, especially given this crowd's sophistication.
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 :
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 "Talk for Britain - Is this the Direction for Free SkypeOut Promotions?" »
Messagr launched yesterday to help you find other people to talk to. Messagr is a new presence-based search engine. Register yourself, describe topics that interest you, and give your Skype name. When you want to discuss rugby with someone right now, messagr shows people both interested in those topics and available to talk.
Messagr gets that value is rapidly shifting from the metered call to everything surrounding the call. In this case, bringing callers together. Unlike Jyve's focus on expert answers and consulting services, messagr aspires to all topics for everyone, a general hub for social, business, academic, and other conversation.
I like the collective interest tag cloud, updated as members change their Skype presence. Reminds me of the moodgeist experiment that aggregates Skype moodie messages. There are other sites where you tag yourself for more specific purposes. Like Ziki, where you tag yourself to manage your professional network, jobster to find work, or Consumating to "find people who don't suck." Skype Ltd. tags job postings too.
Joel Selvadurai built messagr, now in beta, with java and jsp and the SkypeWeb presence service. A recent computer science grad from Durham University in Newcastle, Joel and his laptop can be found in the cafe of the British Library many days.
tags: skype, startup, london, uk, messagr, searchengine, search, ebay inc., skypejournal
Skype was - in the past - proud of its viral growth. But business is business, and they try to attract people by gifts and promotions, hoping to generate more revenue through SkypeOut, SkypeIn and Skype certified products. The last two promotions in September were:
For the time being this has been unsuccessful IMHO! See the graph below:
Even if MuppetMaster pretends downloads isn't a measure of the growth of Skype (and I partially agree with this), the number of downloads should have shown some acceleration if these Skype Marketing campaigns mentioned above had been successful. Indeed, a bunch of new users downloading Skype should show a change in pattern in the download curve, as it was some months ago when they launched the free SkypeOut in Canada and the USA. It doesn't: almost straight line growth since several months.
September Giveaway was targeting mainly students, and this (probably) proves again that the Skype Users are mainly adult professional users.
Skype Users seem to be also quite often small businesses. But French small business mainly have their customers in France (France is a big country), and phone calls inside France are not free but quite cheap. Belgian small business (as an example), because of the tiny size of the country, do more business abroad (in France for instance), therefore they are more interested in reducing their phone call bills.
So? Why trying to force Viral Growth? Let it grow the usual way, by improving mainly quality, reliability and services.
One of my new "Skype Customers" told me: Skype to Skype has a fantastic quality, but SkypeOut isn't that good, but it is much cheaper indeed! She phones to her family in Algeria, and lives in Belgium! Improving quality will attract more Small Businesses!
Google UK ads were discovered with little green phones. I walk you through the experience (it works). This is a grand way to get your feet wet in the click-to-call business. You'll learn things. Like what happens to an advertiser when the phone rings off the hook ("all operators are busy"). Customer privacy concerns. Keeping it simple.
Offering Skype and GoogleTalk options should cut down operations costs, compared to ringback services; you don't pay for two long distance calls.
Click-to-call's live interaction may be one of the biggest business challenges for advertisers. The skills for running a call center are very different from mastering a shopping site. And converting customers in a conversation is different than pulling through your site's shopping cart.
For example, there's often a gap between customer and advertiser time zones and hours of operation. Scheduling a call back should improve response rates, not to mention avoid waking small business people at 2am. Letting callers choose "Please call me around 9am tomorrow" is another. Click-to-voicemail during off hours or when overloaded is another. SalesBuilder's Call Me Now is a great example of the state of the market.
Other coverage:
The walkthrough...
1. Go to Google.co.uk
2. Search for jet2
You might see search results like this. See the ads on the right?
3. Click on the ad with the phone.
Peter Burch skyped me from Paris to ask why France is the first country in Europe to get a promotion like the USA's and Canada's. Unlimited SkypeOut to French landlines until 31 December 2006.
Sadly, France is its own zone, so no calling between France and North America. Also, Monaco not included. And doesn't include SkypeOut due to Skype forwarding or to mobiles.
Is four months long enough for a promotion like this to build buzz? To teach French Skypers le joy of SkypeOut?
DEMO China. Sep 06 - Sep 08, Tianjin.
Star Trek 40th Anniversary Celebration & Conference. 
Sep 08 - Sep 10, Seattle, Washington at The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. But you can celebrate anywhere. Remember, Gene Rodenberry's folks were showing wearable combadges, machine translation, and flip-top phones on television in the 1960s, setting expectations we rose to fill. "Skype Trek" anyone?
VON - Fall 2006. Sep 11- 14, Boston, Massachussetts. This is old-school VoIP's big get together, where everyone's selling to carriers and the huge enterprise. They've had a year since eBay shocked them by paying billions for Skype. Now everyone's had a year to react. How smart are the responses?
Several companies will launch Skype-related products at VON.
Skype Journal's Jim Courtney, Kevin Delaney, and Martin Geddes will be there; Kevin and Martin speaking.
Digital ID World 2006: Managing The Decentralization of Identity. Sep 11 - Sep 13, Santa Clara, California. Managing user directories, architecting name spaces, authentication, authorization, identity banking, identity brokering, ID lifecycles, namespace harmonization. Managing digital identity is just one thing that Skype helps user do but that others do better.
Stuart Henshall and I will be there.
MobileHCI 06 - Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services. Sep 12 - 15. Espoo, Finland. Designing Skype for PCs is only vaguely like designing for devices that fit in the hand, with poor resolution, spotty connectivity, positional awareness, and that travel in your bag or pocket. We'll know Skype for mobiles are maturing as (a) their user experiences distill Skype's essence while (b) diverging from Skype for the Desktop's design assumptions and conventions.
The Future of Web Apps Summit. 
Sep 13 - Sep 14, San Francisco. A killer cast of Web 2.0 luminaries (aka the people you see at all of these events.) AJAX and web services redux, maybe a few new ideas.
Social Network Tools and their Business Application: Blogs, Podcasting, Instant Messaging, RSS and Wikis. Sep 20 - 21, London. Classes. Reminds me of the Social Tools in the Enterprise Symposium I spoke at two summers' ago. Euan, buy Stowe a glass of red for me.
OneWebDay: A time to celebrate the Internet. 
Sep 22, all over the world. "One web, One world, One day." What will you do to share your appreciation of the net? I'm still working on my project.
LoveParade SF. Sep 23 - Sep 24, San Francisco.
Internet Research 7.0: Internet Convergences. Sep 27 - 30. Brisbane, Australia. Scientists from around the world sharing their findings. Huge conference, 200+ sessions. Brilliant hallway. Would love to see Pamela Koch's presentation: Beauty is in the Eye of the QQ User: Perceptions and Press about Instant Messaging in China. A shout out to fellow metablogger Alex Halavais.
Know an event we should cover? Leave a comment here or a tip.
Users of Skype in German and English VoIP forums have been complaining about the automatic withdrawal of their Skype credit after inactivity in their account. Now a German court rules: Prepaid account withdrawal based on inactivity must stop! Up till now Skype tells users to call your Mum at least every 179 days or you will lose your SkypeOut credit balance! Spending two cents twice a year can be important.
Those who occasionally use O2 to get airtime in Germany may breathe easier in the future! Germany's fourth largest mobile company gets the red card from the High Regional Court of Munich. Several prepaid clauses are declared invalid.
Hopefully this new court ruling will be a wake up call to Skype about this inappropriate business practice of closing out the account balance after 180 days.
I guess when the fourth person contacts you for your reaction to the week's network neutrality voting in the US, it's time to say something about it.
For newcomers, my reasoning why Network Neutrality is a last resort at fighting duopoly rent seeking can be found here. I won't repeat it.
Let me re-iterate something I said back in 2004:
Over time, the architecture of the telecom system will resemble the political system around it.
The AT&T (as opposed to at&t) years reflected the military-industrial era. A "commanding height" of the Cold War was the flow of information, and just like the interstate highways. AT&T was as much a creature of the government as rational free-market economics. The break-up of AT&T as well as the 1996 act both chose to cleave the industry across the connectivity grain rather than with it. The current situation was 30 years in the making. As I rather undiplomatically stated, it's a uniquely American mess that can only be solved by a uniquely American solution.
But it's really much deeper than that. From my shallow knowledge of American history, and short exposure to American culure, I've come to the following (probably widely unwelcome and possibly wildy wrong) conclusions. Network Neutrality is just a digital-era manifestation of much longer-running sores within the American political system and psyche.
I can't but help enjoy the irony of the often statist/corporatist/collectivist European Union being a paragon of devolved government, competing regulatory regimes and voluntary cross-border cooperation compared to the centrally planned US communications economy.
If the FCC were tossed onto the scrap heap, and those powers returned to the states, my American friends would find that the Network Neutrality issue would rapidly cease to have any political significance. By making the prizes of Federal Telecom Lotto so big, the temptation to fiddle with the rules of the game has become overwhelming.
Anyone fancy some salty tea?
PS - Next overtly political Telepocalypse post: March 2009. I promise to keep my libertarian ways quiet until then. (Note that does mean I don't fit into US Dem/Rep political stereotypes.)
PPS - I'll probably offend lots of people, but the short version is "Nice country, great people, shame about the government." (For the UK, it's "Nice people, great country, shame about the government", and Italy is "Great people, great country, what government?" Only kidding! Calm down!)
PPPS - Comments are open ;) Set status to "published" and be damned...
UPDATE: Something many readers won't be aware of is the different ways the US and EU constitutions work. As I understand it, the commerce clause of the US constitution means that if it relates to interstate commerce (and practically everything in a networked globalised economy does), then it "goes federal" by default. In Europe, it's different. The subsidiarity principle means everything should (in theory) be done at the lowest possible level of government. Just because something has an international dimension, it doesn't mean that the EU gets full power over it. And even where the EU legislates, it merely sets out the general requirements and objectives, and each nation translates that into local law. Again, scope is retained for competing implementations and jurisdictions. I'm no fan of the eurocracy, but it's illuminating nonetheless to see the practical consequences of different constitutional frameworks.
UPDATE: That means the EU constitution is "edge-based", and the US one doesn't scale. Oops. Hey, just skip a generation and move straight to anarchism: peer-to-peer contracts, and a state whose only function is to enforce them.
More ooops at Telepocalypse.With the turbulent migration to VoIP occurring in 2006, it will be interesting to track usage and subscriber data to support the impact of VoIP and Voice 2.0 business models. A couple of items that appeared this week:
Skype vs Vonage in the UK: Heather Hopkins of Hitwise, an online Internet usage monitoring service, has reported on Skype, Bebo and Vonage -- Why Skype Visits are Through the Roof. Her chart that results from tracking visits to websites for each demonstrates how UK visits to Skype have climbed from ~1% of UK site visits in early February to 6.9% mid-May while Vonage has stagnated in the 0.8% range. And this happened in a market with no free SkypeOut! Score one for market penetration by a Voice 2.0 business model.
Earlier this week I reported on the $15 million funding of Bebo, a social network with 24 million members predominantly in the European market and Andrew Hansen's observation as to how Skype support was probably a factor in their financing success. Heather goes on in her post to report on how Bebo is responsible for over 50% of the upstream sources for visits to Skype. And this number has increased with a Bebo-Skype partnership tied into the launch of Skypecasts. A Voice 2.0 application driving adoption and market penetration in the social networking space.
Continue reading "Data in Support of the Voice 2.0 Manifesto" »
Continental Research reports 1.8 million UK Internet users used VoIP in the last twelve months, and that number should double in the next twelve. 48% of those surveyed used Skype, and 56% of VoIP users expect to increase their usage.
This consumer survey would not reveal enterprise use of VoIP, largely transparent to workers.
By Torben Nyhuus, Aalborg, Denmark
The contest to acquire market shares on the growing VoIP market is at full pace. The market is;
VoIP calls:
Skype is reaching out to new customer segments. With Jubii and Skype in new cooperation!
(Jubii was the first and is the most successful web portal in Denmark, visited by 2.5 mill users monthly. DK has 5 million inhabitants.)
The Danish internet portal Jubii has commenced a cooperation with the world's most popular provider of IP-telephony, Skype. The new cooperation is a cobranding strategy, which shall broaden the knowledge of Skype in Denmark, and in return be a new source of income to Jubii.
The idea is to get Skype out to Ms. and Mr. Smith, using Jubii to reach them and fight the somewhat nerdish stamp on Skype. Skype can now be downloaded from on Jubii and Skype is expecting a Danish success making telephony free. In return for this exposure Jubii gets a part of the SkypeOut revenue generated.
Continue reading "Is the internet media war getting warmer?" »
by Lee Dryburgh.
I took some pictures of the Skype marketing team in action near Torrington Place, London. 
One of their flyers reads "Death to the don't-make -me-open-it phone bill", "...you can say goodbye to phone bills that would scare a small island nation".
Another piece of marketing literature they were handing out included
marketing for the 6000 UK WiFi hotspots from The Cloud. This was interesting for me because it was what I would term co-branded.
For those interested, a photo of the offer is 
here.
I can not help but wonder if Skype somehow plan to tackle Google in the access market by partnering up with ever more WiFi providers. Such a competition between two huge providers of free telephony combined with WiFi access could make very interesting play.
Here are their future dates (two days in each location) that the Skype marketing team will be visiting:
Continue reading "Skype Marketing on the Street (First-Time Ever?)" »
Guest post by Lee Dryburgh, University College London.
A couple of
weeks ago I slumped into my office chair with fairly depressed thoughts
in relation to telecoms. I had been startled as a kid by wide area
communications, in particular telephony. 
With a cheap handset I could
transcend space seemingly to anywhere on Earth by dialling a digit
string. It was with no surprise that upon university graduation
(computer science) I began working in telecoms (writing SS7/C7 protocol
decodes). Since then I have been fairly well remunerated by every major
telecoms vendor (with the exception of Ericsson) and by a string of
operators, both cellular and fixed line around the world for my
technical services. Not only has the income been good but I have had
the opportunity to work at the cutting edge of technology for the best
part of my work life. It was with this in mind that I sat depressed
with the thoughts of telephony becoming a freebie application
like email; 
the resulting drop in operators and their respective
vendors, the subsequent drop in demand for people like me and the
lustre drop surrounding telephony. I had only just began to wonder if
there was some hope in terms of maintaining a good financial lifestyle
in telecoms and whether something would keep up the lustre when my Skype client began to ring.
I answered and it was an eight year old kid I did not know. He talked at me about Skype, Teamspeak, chipping Sony PS2s, P2P sharing for obtaining games and so on. I waited for social graces such as informing me who he was and why he was calling me as I was not even in Skype-Me mode. This did not come. So I asked if his father maybe wanted me and he seemed confused at my question. He got further confused by my questioning to obtain his motive for calling me. I eventually got his message though – he was calling because he can and this is now normal.
Deal done. Retail VOIP in the offing? Views later.
eBay has agreed to acquire Luxembourg-based Skype Technologies SA, the global Internet communications company, for approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration.
Skype generated approximately $7 million in revenues in 2004, and the company anticipates that it will generate an estimated $60 million in revenues in 2005 and more than $200 million in 2006. For Q4-05, eBay expects the acquisition to be dilutive to pro forma and GAAP earnings per share by $0.01 and $0.04 respectively. For the full year 2006, eBay expects the transaction to be dilutive to pro forma and GAAP earnings per share by $0.04 and $0.12 respectively, with breakeven on a pro forma basis expected in the fourth quarter of 2006. On a long-term basis, eBay expects Skype operating margins could be in the range of 20% to 25%.
The acquisition is subject to various closing conditions and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2005.
eBay will host an investor conference call to discuss the announcement at 5 am Pacific Time today. A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed through the eBay's Investor Relations website at http://investor.eBay.com. An archive of the webcast will be accessible through the same link.
Full text of news release...
By Karim Pedersen, ComON. Translated for Skype Journal by Torben Nyhuus, Aalborg, Denmark.
The Padborg (a Danish border town to Germany) company Dangaard Telecom has made a partnership agreement with Skype. The agreement means that Dangaard Telecom may distribute Skype related products like headsets and wireless phones in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).Dangaard Telecom is Europe's largest distributor of mobile/cellular phones and the agreement opens the possibillity that Skype’s software can be integrated into smart phones.
Furthermore Dangaard Telecom and Skype will start a push/campaign to sell the ip-telephony products on the net.
Dangaard Telecom employs 1400 people in 16 countries. $1.5 B US in revenues. Dangaard Telecom focuses on distribution and Logistics.
For Skype this means more marketing clout in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. For Skype users, better access to peripherals and support. Also watch for Dangaard to intoduce mobility products.
Skype is on the move, building relationships with portals around the globe and now with distributors.
Lagom is also widely translated as "in moderation," "in balance," "optimal," "reasonable," and "average." But whereas words like "sufficient" and "average" suggest some degree of abstinence, scarcity, or failure, lagom decidedly carries the connotation of perfection. The archetypical Swedish proverb "Lagom är bäst," literally "Lagom is best," is translated as "Enough is as good as a feast" in the Lexin dictionary.
Skype Employees: 155
Vodaphone Employees: 60,000
Scaring Vodaphone Germany into filing an anti-Skype tarriff: Priceless.
Update: only 155 people at Skype right now (instead of the 300 I first reported), so they are Twice As Disruptive Per Employee!
Two new announcements from Skype Portal Partners (Onet - Poland and TOMSkype in China) appear to confirm my thoughts about Skype becoming a Global Media Network player as apposed to a being a Global Telecom as Skype touts on their home page.
Onet Poland
Breaking news from Gdańsk, Poland with Skype Journal’s contact Tomasz Tybulewicz reports via the Polish media site WirtualneMedia that Skype has partnered with Onet Poland’s biggest web portal. Skype will deliver a special Skype version which is Onet-branded. The first version is 1.3.11.48 and may be downloaded here.
Streaming video of Stuart Henshall's talk before the London Ecademy (Windows Media Player) about presence, networks, and more. via cherryleaf's blog.
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 :
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?
Their statement: Restrictions on running Skype P2P software at CERN. Because Skype clients help each other find others on the net (acting as supernodes), basically behaving too much like KaZaA. via physics professor Jacques Distler's thoughtful blog post.
The stated reason seems a little shaky to me. Aside from the unsavoury nature of its cousins, the P2P filesharing programs, I don’t see why skype supernodes would pose an undue burden on the CERN network. It seems to be more of an “It’s the principle of the thing!” issue, than an actual concern about bandwidth or network performance.Does your IT organization have a Skype policy? What makes an informed, useful, and effective policy? What concerns should it address?
Blogged by Jordon Kalilich, 15, in Deerfield Beach, Florida, USA.
The other day I got a call on Skype from what sounded like a group of Hungarian students. At first, when the Skype Answering Machine (SAM) took over the call, I heard them speaking in Hungarian. I took control of the call and asked if they spoke English, and to my surprise, I heard a "Yes." They sounded like they were in their teens; there were at least two girls and a guy. They went on to ask me some questions about myself, and after each reply, there was some Hungarian jabbering as if they were trying to translate what I had said and figure out how to reply.
continued...
Simon Perry of Digital Lifestyles reports from Von Europe where he interviewed Niklas yesterday who announced the formal launch of the Skype Affiliate Program.
There will also be "super affiliates" that will have their own Skype account manager - a first for them. The first two announced are Luna Storm in Sweden and SuperEva in Italy. Luna Storm is a online phenomenon in Sweden, having over 2m members, which in a country of 9m in total is pretty impressive. Skype Affiliate Programme Becomes Official - Digital-Lifestyles.info
Mixed messages? Two clips from the same day from Skype's website. Are recent E911 rulings scaring Skype? I find real mixed messages here for consumers too. As a Skyper, Skype has replaced the telephone for me. So it is a "replacement." Yet it isn't apparently a "replacement" service.
If VoIP providers want to win / and work with users to get the "right" regulation in play then better language is required. Users don't care about quibbles. Portray it as a "nomadic service", define it as a "socialnet", or augmented communications. It is both very much more and very much less. It is certainly different. Users know this.
What feedback is Skype getting from country regulators? How are the current experiments in the US, UK, Denmark, Poland, Finland, Sweden, France, and Hong Kong going? (Note Norway is no longer available.)How many numbers have now been issued?
While I'm happy with the service having spent another 55 Euro today on Skype for an English number and more minutes others may want to read the terms and conditions There are not a lot of guarantees there. We understand the emergency dialing, and then most phone companies would refuse to guarantee your number too.
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