Three: One Billion Skype Minutes Served

Skype's Linda Summers told Monday's Mobile Monday London audience that Hutchison's 3 mobile network served one billion Skype minutes on its 3 Skypephones and other Skype-enabled phones in the UK, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Australia and Hong Kong. Those Skype calls run through Skype's Skype Lite servers, a potential Skype as a Web Service Platform.

Update: Minister for Digital Britain the Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP rings up the "billionth minute."

Thanks to James Body for the tip, to Paul Downey for the notes.

tags: skype, statistics, stats, trends, audioboo, gips, hdvoice, omtp

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Some Skype connection fees up from 3.9 to 7.9 cents per call

Skype-to-Skype calls are free. Skype sometimes charges you a small connection fee for Skype-to-PSTN calls in addition to your per-minute rate. The rates to non-"Global Rate" markets go up four cents per call on Sunday, 6 September 2009 to US$0.079 (about 8 cents).

CORRECTION: "With a calling plan there is never a connection fee, regardless of where you call".

Do you have one of Skype's calling plans? Calls are free of connection fees.

Without a calling plan you'll continue to pay 3.9 cents for each call to mobiles or landlines in Skype's Global Rate markets (listed below). Now, without a plan, your connection fee is 7.9 cents per call outside those markets.

The Global Rate destinations: Argentina - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Cordoba,  Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Denmark - Shared Cost, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong, Hong Kong - Mobile, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Hungary, Korea, Republic of Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico - Mexico City, Mexico - Monterrey, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Norway - Shared Cost, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia - Moscow, Russia - St.Petersburg, Singapore, Singapore - Mobile, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, USA.

Why did Skype raise the rates?

Does this new pricing simplify buying and calling choices? Does it make Skypers switch from pay-as-you-go to a subscription? Does it help prevent predatory calling or unwanted telemarketing? I think not. Most people will not notice the four cent increase. Are termination costs really higher outside of Skype's Global Rates markets? Possibly. This might offset those costs.

How much more revenue will this price increase bring?

Skype doesn't report the number of calls made or call volume by country. So let's guess [See the Google Docs spreadsheet and play with the the numbers yourself]. Skype reported 3 billion minutes of SkypeIn/SkypeOut calling. Let's say ten percent are to non-Global Rate markets (I suspect it's a larger share). And that Skype calls average 10 minutes (much longer than the average PSTN call, a little shorter than free Skype-to-Skype calls). 3x(10^9) minutes * 10% of all calls / 10 minutes per call. So, 30 million calls per quarter. At 4 cents more per call, that puts new income around $5 million each year. Or more. What's your guess?

tags: skype, prices, rates, connectionfee, tariff, analysis, strategy

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Skype store sells third-party software

Four companies now sell their software in the US and UK Skype stores. All are Skype Certified and three have been Skype partners for years. Skype operates stores for many markets. 13 Skype "Extras" are available in all thirty of Skype's English language stores (Australia, Belarus, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Oman, Philippines,  Qatar, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, UAE, United Kingdom, United States).

Many of these stores aren't localized beyond currency and payment, operating in English instead of Eesti, Chinese, and the other languages people use. For now, UK and US customers are shopping in Euros instead of Pounds or dollars. US customers also pay UK value added taxes.

This is a bare bones start, but an important one. Skype is preparing to build a platform for programmers. An "app store" helps partners make money from their investment in your platform.

The "extras" department isn't seeing much traffic yet according to publishers. When it does, this distribution channel could encourage hundreds of existing developers to invest in Skype certification.

The first products in the store:

Company	Product	Description	Price
Cucku	Cucku Backup	Free remote backup to friends, family or a second PC.	Freeware
Scendix Software	Pamela Call Recorder	Pamela Call Recorder, play cool sounds and auto Chat Reply.	€17.79 incl. VAT
Scendix Software	Pamela for Skype - Business Edition	Includes easy integration with MS Outlook as well as call recording and other great features.	€29.95 plus VAT
Scendix Software	Pamela for Skype - Professional Edition	Pamela Professional allows you to record Skype calls of any duration as well other great features.	€19.95 plus VAT
Scendix Software	Pamela for Skype - Standard Edition	Pamela allows you to record Skype calls.	€12.95 plus VAT
Scendix Software	Pamela mcePhone for Skype	mcePhone for Skype allows you to seamlessly integrate Skype and Pamela in Windows Media Center 2005 and Vista.	€17.79 incl. VAT
Scendix Software	Pamela Rich Mood Editor	Create cool HTML formatted Skype Mood Messages	Freeware
Scendix Software	PamFax for Skype (Mac)	Send faxes to any fax number in the world.	FREE (pay per page)
PrettyMay Team	PrettyMay Call Center for Skype - Standard version	Skype PBX Phone System for Small Business.	$200 incl. VAT
PrettyMay Team	PrettyMay Call Recorder for Skype - Basic version	Record Skype calls FREE within 15 minutes.	Freeware
PrettyMay Team	PrettyMay Call Recorder for Skype - Business version	Record Skype Calls, Store voicemails, auto answering.	$29.95 incl. VAT
PrettyMay Team	PrettyMay Call Recorder for Skype - Pro version	Record Skype Calls, Store voicemails, auto answering.	$24.95 incl. VAT
Netralia Pty Ltd	Skylook - make more of MS Outlook with Skype	Recording contacts office outlook calling.	€99.95 incl. VAT

CORRECTION: The Pamela and PamFax software products are from Scendix Software, not PamConsult, their professional service firm.

tags: skype, devrels, store, pamconsult, pamela, pamfax, prettymay, netralia, skylook, cucku

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

PamFax updates, adds FaxIn, distances from Skype

PamFax is keeping fax alive with its 2.0 update and release for Windows and Macintosh desktops. Big changes:

• Two-way functionality: FaxIn numbers in 27 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and USA.
• More platforms: Mac version!
• Skype independence: You don't need to be a Skype user, have a Skype account, or use Skype credits any more.
• Click-to-Fax: Extensions for facebook and Salesforce.com. 

Makes me wish I knew someone who used a fax.

PamFax 2.0 product announcement

View more presentations from evanwolf.

tags: skype, pamfax, mac, windows

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
Visit our Skype Journal private roundtable, one of the longest running public Skype chats.

Skyecandy: The Whole World Can Speed Date For Free

OK, this looks fun. A team from NSW opened their beta to Skyecandy, a speed dating site that uses Skype video. "The more you share, the better you pair."

I really like the "Skyecandy" name but hope they have a decent IP attorney.

tags: skype, voip, dating, speeddating, skyecandy, au, australia

Call me at +1-510-455-4384, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff. Ask for an invitation to the Skype Journal private roundtable.

Friday reading

me

I'm in the New York Times coverage of Google Voice. Quoted correctly (yay!) but before my own column on the subject came out (d'oh!). Google has some truly delightful advantages in the race to become the world's largest communications company. 

under

Australia's Telestra keeps Nokia N85 inside the walled garden, keeps Skype out. A year without growth leaves them cautious, even when Skype offers to pay.

New Zealand's Yellow partners with Skype. Search through the Skype Directory and call most nz companies for free until June 10. 

the future

Foresight Institute gets a new president. Skype me (evanwolf) if you want to come to Dr. Hall's Sunday reception in Palo Alto. We'll all be talking molecular manufacturing, nanotechnology and the singularity.

Nokia shares its vision. Smartphones rising. Death of patience. Rewarding engagement. Personal expression. New learning economy. Clickable world. Personal relevance. A good summary of forces driving the interplay between mobile technology, industry dynamics, and human behavior.

the present

One in four drop landlines in some states according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study. Turning to mobiles, an act of belt-tightening. Q. Of those who switch to mobile, how many have unlimited flat-rate data plans, favorable to Skype?

CRM Over Voice: Using Voice in New Ways for Service Providers to Retain Subscribers and Strengthen Brand. White paper by analyst Jon Arnold for Mobivox. The cool stuff starts on page 4. Speech recognition + VoIP + SaaS = Contextual CRM, creating touch points that add value to the customer journey. Jon explains why it's good and how to build it, using Mobivox as an example.

VoSKY sells Skype trunking to Majorcan hotel chain. Attach a box to your PBX and your staff doesn't even know they are calling through the Skype network at lower rates. 

Larry Dignan shows why mobile developers migrate from Symbian to RIM and Mac OS X. Growth and share favor the Bold. And iPhone.

the past

Transcript of Skype's Jonathan Christensen's talk about speech quality at the Emerging Communications Conference last week. History as prelude to something new?

gig

Benjamin Leviton seeks VoIP help: "I have a Brekeke SIP proxy server. I am looking for someone to remote on to my desktop, log into its interface and config my carriers with the proxy server. Also check the interface of Polycom phone and make sure it is working properly with the SIP proxy server." Contact:  +1-917-273-5808, ben@capitalfinanceusa.com, yahoo IM gcc644@yahoo.com, or skype:levtop.

tags: google, googlevoice, australia, telestra, nokia, N85, New Zealand, nz, yellow, skype, directory, search, foresight, smartphones, landlines, cdc, mobile, crm, mobivox, vosky, majorca, spain, pbx, symbian, rim, apple, blackberry, iphone, jonathanchristensen, ecomm, brekeke, sip, polycom

follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff. Ask for an invitation to the Skype Journal private roundtable.

Skype offers SMS voicemail notifications: good idea, poor execution

Basic voicemail is so 1980s. Now SpinVox transcribes voice messages and alerts you, for a fee, when you get Skype voice mail. Set up your Skype voice mail alerts here. This is a great idea. I love anything that improves voice messaging freshness, accuracy, speed, comprehension, searchability, and context.

Sadly, this Skype implementation fails to deliver the minimum quality, reliability and affordability to be a useful market test. Eight problems:

First, Skype's SMS alerts will cut off transcripts.

SpinVox is famous for its voicemail transcription. Yet this offering is limited to no more than three SMS alerts. That's too little for half of voice mail messages.

SpinVox says “the average voice mail deposit is 18 to 22 seconds.” Let's say people speak 150 words per minute. That's about 50 words in 20 seconds, 250 characters at 5 characters per word.

Three alerting SMS messages at 140 characters is 420. Let's reserve 25 per message for identifiers (something like "SpinVox Skype Alert 1 of 3"). That leaves 345 for the payload.

Let's say it might take 100 characters for the intro voice mail metadata: sender Skype name or caller ID, receiver Skype name, length of message, date/time sent. That leaves 245 characters for the transcript.

So with 250 characters available and 245 needed, that should be enough, right?

It's not enough. Averages blend higher and lower numbers. If normally distributed, maybe a third to half of your messages will be severely cut off as users speak longer than the mean.

Failure to give me the whole message one third of the time, combined with transcription error rates, creates an unreliable experience.

Second, email alerts don't include transcripts.

Huh? Really? This would be immensely useful!

Third, I'm forced to choose between email and SMS alerts. I don't know in advance which will be the best way to reach me. Why force me to choose? And why can't I have multiple email addresses for alerts? Or alert other Skype users?

Fourth, no Skype chat notification.

Huh? Really? Vipadia can set up a Skype chat bridge for you.

Fifth, it costs too much: $1.50 per voice message.

I'm assuming nearly all voice mails will take three texts. Including SpinVox translation (about $0.20), sending Skype-to-SMS ($0.13 USA-to-USA), and receiving SMS ($0.20), most voicemail alerts will cost me $1.50.

For active Skypers, those who use SkypeIn and get voice mails every day, this adds up.

Sixth, no full transcripts of voicemails.

You have SpinVox! Use them! Send me full transcripts of voicemail by email, by browser, or in chat. Searchable, downloadable, persistent archives make voicemail useful and actionable.

Seventh, no videomail support.

Does Skype offer videomail? Not now. When Skype does, SpinVox should transcribe videomail too.

Eighth, no live call transcription.

Voicemail alerting and transcriptions treat a pain point. There's opportunity in transcribing conference calls the millions using Skype for collaboration, coordination, meetings, recruiting. As transcription costs fall, they are becoming standard meetingware.

I'm glad Skype and SpinVox are working together, finally. This initiative gets so many small things wrong; I can't imagine it meeting any commercial success as it's scoped now. So iterate quickly, please. Find a sweet spot and a vision.

Technorati tags: skype, spinvox, transcription, alert, alerts, alerting, sms, texting, voicemail, videomail, transcribe, messaging

News release follows:

SpinVox powers first Skype voicemail to text

LONDON and LUXEMBOURG, Mar. 03, 2009 - SpinVox, the global leader in voice to content messaging and Skype, announces the availability of voicemail to text conversion for all Skype voicemail users today. SpinVox conveniently converts voice messages to text in English, Spanish, French and German. The messages are then sent by Skype as an SMS text directly to a designated mobile phone for users to read.

Skype users can now benefit from instant ‘visible voicemail’, and never miss those important calls from friends or colleagues when they are away from Skype. Recipients of converted voicemail messages can listen to the full voice message by either signing into Skype or by calling their Skype To Go number*. As well as being able to receive voicemail as text via SpinVox, Skype users may choose instead to receive voicemail notification via SMS or for free by email.

“Skype is the first internet communications software provider to deploy SpinVox, further reinforcing our position as the only provider of voice to text messaging services which are used daily by millions of people on five continents,” says SpinVox co-founder and CEO, Christina Domecq. “Our user base has grown over twenty-fold in the last 12 months and bringing Skype’s voicemail subscribers on board will accelerate this trend.”

“Using SpinVox gives our users added flexibility and convenience over their Skype voicemails, said Mike Bartlett, director of product strategy at Skype. “As people continue to spend more time on the move and on their mobile devices, people want to take their Skype conversations with them. SpinVox is a great option for our users to save time on checking their Skype voicemail and receive messages immediately sent to their mobile phone.”

It’s easy for Skype users to set up voicemail to text from their account page, by simply registering a mobile phone number. Each voicemail to text conversion will cost €0.20/£0.17/$0.25 plus the cost of sending an SMS at standard low Skype rates. Additional SMS charges – a maximum of 3 - may apply depending on the length of the voicemail message.

All payments are made fuss-free through Skype Credit. Users have a choice to set a limit on the number of voicemail conversions received per day and to receive messages from people only in their contact list to help them manage their Skype credit. An email notification will be sent if that limit is exceeded. For more information please visit http://www.skype.com/go/voicemail-to-text.

About Skype

Founded in 2003, Skype is revolutionizing the way people communicate around the world.  Skype has more than 405 million registered users globally who use Skype software to communicate for free through voice and video calls as well as instant messages.  Skype generates revenue through its premium offerings, such as calls made to and from landlines and mobiles, voicemail, call forwarding, and SMS.  Skype is used in almost every country on Earth, and people have made more than 100 billion minutes worth of free Skype-to-Skype calls.  Conversations over Skype can take place on computers, mobile devices and Skype Certified™ hardware. Skype certifies and sells hundreds of hardware products from more than 50 partners, and works with hundreds of third-party developers who have created plug-ins to extend Skype’s functionality.

Skype is an eBay company (NASDAQ: EBAY). Learn more and download Skype at www.skype.com.

Access to a broadband Internet connection is required. Skype is not a replacement for your traditional telephone service and cannot be used for emergency calling.

Skype, associated trade marks and logos and the “S” symbol are trade marks of Skype Limited.

About SpinVox

SpinVox® is the world's largest privately-held speech technology company, providing the only voice to text messaging services which are used daily by millions of people and whose user base has grown over twenty-fold in the last 12 months.

Through significant innovations in voice and network technologies which are protected by over 60 patents worldwide, SpinVox has converged the two most natural forms of communication - voice and text - to create the fastest-growing form of messaging: Voice-to-Content™.

SpinVox services are available directly on www.spinvox.com and through leading carriers and through new media, Unified Communications and other service providers globally.

Implemented as a carrier-class hosted network feature, SpinVox is proven to able to easily create value from everyday user behaviour using voice and deliver rapid and easy implementation of low input, sustained high reward services.

At the heart of SpinVox is its ground-breaking Voice Message Conversion System™ (VMCS), which works by combining state-of-the-art speech technologies with a live-learning language process.  Developed by the Cambridge, UK- based SpinVox Advanced Speech Group; VMCS now serves users across five continents in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Italian.

SpinVox is now live with Alltel, Cincinnati Bell, Sasktel, Rogers Wireless, Telus, Telstra, Vodacom South Africa, Vodafone Spain, Movistar Chile, Skype and Livejournal.

###

*Skype To Go is currently available in Australia, Chile, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, UK, and the U.S. For more information about Skype To Go visit www.skype.com/go/skypetogo

Freedom Wins Down Under

The Australian Communications Ministry's censorship scheme died in the senate today. Good on ya, Senator Nick Xenophon. Only you know if it was an open mind or reading the polls, but you stood up for civil liberties and the freedom to communicate against the Right Evil Stephen "Cleanfeed" Conroy.

Set Up and Make CalliFlower Conference Calls from Your iPhone

Over the past eighteen months iotum's CalliFlower has evolved into a complete audio conference call service. While they still offer a basic free service, in January they launched a premium service that provides document sharing, local calling numbers in North America, Europe and Australia as well as a feature that allows administrators to set up, but not necessarily participate in, a conference call. The most important feature is "no per minute charges"; you get "unlimited calling with an unlimited number of participants".

Last week, over at Web Worker Daily, I wrote a post "Search Transforms CalliFlower Sessions from Events to Social Media Elements" where CalliFlower had announced that they had made all public CalliFlower sessions searchable such that they become part of an ongoing social networking conversation. My conclusion:

If you are into social networking by engaging your customers through blogs, Twitter and/or Facebook, check out CalliFlower as one additional element for carrying on your ongoing public customer conversations.

Yesterday the CalliFlower team woke up to learn that their CalliFlower for iPhone had been added to the Apple App Store overnight. (Yes, apparently "it just happens"; Apple uploads new or upgraded applications with no notice.) The iPhone application provides access to all of CalliFlower's features with the exception of document sharing (which requires Adobe Flash - an issue for all smartphones). Set up a call, see your upcoming calls, see who's on the call, participate in the chat wall and, of course, call in from your iPhone - they're all there providing a unique mobile smartphone conference call experience. iotum CEO Alec Saunders provides more details in his post "CalliFlower on iPhone releases" where he states:

And Calliflower on iPhone – well, let me just say that you’re going to love it. We’ve remained faithful to the Calliflower experience on the web, while taking full advantage of the iPhone experience giving you the hands down BEST mobile conferencing experience ever. Here’s a few examples of what I mean.

Check out my Web Worker Daily post and Alec's full description of CalliFlower for iPhone. Also note that CATA makes Calliflower available to 28,500 members. If you have not signed up for the service, give it a try.

Full disclosure: the author is a user of the service for a non-blogging related project with great success. I call in to CalliFlower calls via SkypeOut.

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21 November 1938 – Testing Telephone Meter

On this day, seventy years' ago...

We build on those who came before. 

Photo courtesy of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

tags: skype, history, au, australia, nsw, telephony, telecom, telephone, meter, test, testing, Postage Reduction League, Scottish House, Bridge Street, photo, statelibraryofnsw

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iSkoot Scores a New $19MM Financing Round

This evening iSkoot, the service that provides Skype access from smartphones, announced they had received a new $19 million venture financing round to build out and bring to market a new suite of mobile communications services. Recently iSkoot acquired Social IM, who is in the beta stage of producing a desktop Instant Messaging client linking real time communications and notifications to social networks. No further details have been released but obviously both their existing financing partners and one new partner feel there is a significant potential.

Update: VentureBeat reports that the financing relates to a forthcoming AT&T service offering "an array of Web services to users of its low-end phones — the majority of its phones, which don’t have the iPhone’s powerful features. The services will include things like social networking, email, RSS feeds and eventually services like Twitter."

In addition to their smartphone service, iSkoot also provides the firmware behind the Skypephone, available through the Hutcheson Whampoa 3 carrier in the U.K., six other European countries, Hong Kong and Australia. According to Tech Crunch over 300,000 Skypephones are now in service. However, their recently launched iSkoot for Android appears to have encountered a rougher road; Andy speculates they may have launched prematurely to meet the G-1 launch date. I'm sure we'll see upgrades to address the outstanding issues.

Personally I have iSkoot running on my BlackBerry Bold, largely to keep current on my Skype chat sessions when away from my office, and have experienced it on the 8820 as well as a Nokia N95. Look forward to learning more about the services whose launch is being supported by this new funding round in today's somewhat rough economy. At least there's still support for innovation in the real time conversation space.

• iSkoot Presentation at eComm 2008
• iSkoot Gets Third Party Recognition
• iSkoot Extends Partnership with Skype

Tags: iSkoot, Skypephone, BlackBerry Bold, Android

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November 2008 Events

I'm attending bold events.
Tips @ SkypeJournal.com with suggestions, photos, reportage. Spend your travel dollars while you have them.

2 November. Dreamforce 2008. Salesforce automation becomes an application platform for live talk. Moscone Center, San Francisco.

3. ARGS: Cross-Platform Entertainment 2.0. People in alternative reality games have strong reasons to talk live in groups. NESTA, London.

3. Defrag. Some of the hardest questions are tackled at this thought leadership event. Among others, Daniela Barbosa of DataPortability.org is speaking. Colorado Convention Center.

3. The Business of APIs - The Web's Industrial Revolution. Platforming as a strategy and survival trait. Brought to you by The Mashery. City Club of San Francisco.

3. Mobile 2.0. Grand Hyatt San Francisco.

3. Widget Summit. Putting some of your verbs into someone else's places. Hotel Nikko San Francisco.

3. ad:tech New York. The people who pay for lots of free. New York Hilton.

3. Future of Web Design. Roseland Ballroom, NYC.

3. VRM Hub London Conference 2008: Unlocking the see-saw. Vendor Relationship Management, putting people back in control of their identities and their relationships with companies. Sun Microsystems London.

4. US Election Day. If your election lasts for more than four hours, call your doctor.

4. Think Global, Drink Local: Think London/Sterling Communications Election Night Party. San Francisco.

4. Mobile Tech For Social Change. A barcamp. San Francisco.

5. Digital Garage New Context Conference. Joi Ito's clan convenes. Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.

5. Web 2.0 Summit. Still hankering for a press pass. Palace Hotel San Francisco.

5. WinHEC 2008. Windows hardware engineering. Los Angeles Convention Center.

5. Design Futures: Deconstructing Networks - Jonah Brucker-Cohen, of Trinity College Dublin, experiments in how we design and think about the social effect places and alert networks. U.C. Berkeley, California. 

6. Edge of the Web 2008. Perth has a growing Web 2.0+ community. Crawley, Western Australia. 

6. Tweets and Dreenks: November Social Drinkup. Mars Bar, San Francisco.

6. Mobile Forum Meeting: Opportunities in Broadband Wireless. San Jose, California.

6. Community Manager Meetup. San Francisco.

7. Unofficial iPhone TechTalk after-drinks. The Apple event at University of Middlesex is full. London.

8. Silicon Valley Code Camp. Hands-on with peer coaching. Los Altos Hills, California.

8. Freebase Hack Day. Build something with massive quantities of creative commons'd data. San Francisco.

10. Mobile Monday London.

10. Internet Identity Workshop. iiw2008b is a must-go event. This is where the digital ID architecture of the next 10 years is conceived, debated, and bought into. Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA.

10. VoiceCon. Enterprise and unified communications. San Francisco.

11. e-Democracy '08. The first post-US election event to explore politics, public participation and digital technology. RIBA, Central London.

11. US Veteran's Day, Canada and UK Remembrance Day. National holiday.

12. Emerging Communications Dinner. Thought leaders who can't wait for eComm2009 March 03-05 will talk over supper. Ping me if you want an invite. (tips at skypejournal.com) San Francisco Airport Marriott.

12. Under the Radar: Mobility. 32 mobile startups less than one year old. Microsoft, Mountain View, California.

12. The Second London Futures Symposium. London.

13. NewTeeVee Live – Television Reinvented. Mission Bay Conference Center.

13. OpenSocial's 1st Birthday Celebration. Day long workshops. And cake. MySpace Offices, San Francisco.

13. IceWeb08. Kathy Sierra keynoting. Reykjavik. 

15. Convergence 08. Focus on long-term technologies, especially Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno. Co-sponsored by Foresight.org. Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California.

15. >play – Berkeley Digital Media. This year's theme is Disruption: Changes in the Digital Media Landscape. Organized by MBA students at Haas, U.C. Berkeley, California.

16. Adobe MAX 2008. Designers and developers imagine the next generation of browser-based talk. Moscone Center, San Francisco.

16. Fall IETF Meeting. Minneapolis, Minnesota, US.

17. Future of Mobile. Jemima Kiss, James Brody, and folks from Google, Symbian, and Mozilla make this a must attend event. Kensington Town Hall, London.

17. Mashup Camp. Steve Repetti of DataPortability.org is speaking at this mostly un-conference. Mountain View, California.

18. Mobile Content Forum. The event for all those companies who made millions on ringtones and wallpaper. Register from your iPhone, baby. Hilton London Kensington.

19. Open Mobile Summit 08. Discount: Register by Oct 10 with priority code TRL and save $400. agenda. trailer:

Fantastic hallway with Skype's Jonathan Christensen, AT&T, Dean Bubley, Om Malik, Rebtel, BT Design's JP Rangaswami, Truphone's James Body, Orange, O2, The US FCC's Julius Knapp, David Isenberg, Amazon, T-Mobile, AOL, Nokia, Google, Symbian, Intel, TAT, LG, RIM, OpenMoko, Funambol, Qualcomm. San Francisco.

18. Robo Development 2008. Robotics small, large, smart, and social. Santa Clara, California.

19. SOA World and Cloud Computing. The 14th Service Oriented Architecture conference. Now the standard for platforming architectures. I want to hear the session on building real-time SOA systems. The program's big buzzwords: cloud and virtual. The Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, California.

21. London Geek Nights: Game Programming. ThoughtWorks UK Office, High Holborn, London.

22. YouTube Live. Concert. Fort Mason, San Francisco.

22. Berkeley beats Stanford. Football. Go Bears.

26. The Media Festival. The session I want: "Case study: Lessons from the adult entertainment industry; learn the secrets of success in mobile entertainment." Always two to five years' ahead in technology and business practices due to intense competition. Manchester.

27. US Thanksgiving. A nation shuts down for a long weekend of American football, turkey, beer. And gratitude.

30. St. Andrew's Day. Scotland's national day.

SkypeOut Feature Added to 3's Skype-Enabled Phones

Mobile carrier pioneer 3 has taken another step that reduces costs for mobile calling worldwide from any of the Skype-enabled mobile phone handsets in their offering. Effectively it means that 3's customers can not only make free calls to other Skype contacts but also to any landline and mobile worldwide via an implementation of a SkypeOut type of service at SkypeOut rates. Skype-to-Skype calls remain totally free as well as Skype Instant Messaging activity.
As a result 3's pricing plans and policy covers monthly subscribers and pay-as-you-go customers. For the latter a top-up will now provide ninety days of free Skype access. Most importantly there are no extra charges from 3 for using SkypeOut. And the fair use policy still applies. These plans apply to the two Skypephones as well as several models of both Nokia E-series/N-series phones and Sony Ecrisson phones.
What is 3's motivation to do this?

• They have no connection charges for Skype-to-Skype calls
• 3 will receive revenues through Skype's affiliate marketing program or a similar arrangement for SkypeOut calls.
• It is a key marketing tool for low cost recruiting of customers, building on their previous "Free Skype call" marketing activities.

With the forthcoming launch of Blackberry Bold at 3, similar customer benefits can be obtained using iSkoot, although without carrier support, there may be additional charges to access an iSkoot point-of-presence.
3 continues to pioneer development of business models for the incorporation of Skype into the mobile conversations world. 3's services are available in U.K., Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Hong Kong and Australia.

Tags: Skype, SkypeOut, 3, Hutcheson-Whampoa, Blackberry Bold, iSkoot

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Australian PM uses Skype

Kevin Rudd, Australia's 26th Prime Minister, spoke with Rove McManus on Sunday's show. On YouTube: part 1 and part 2.

This brings up one problem with simple IM ID's. You need multiple personae for each user account. For example, one username you can give to friends, another to work colleagues, one for family, another to strangers. 

This tool of faceted identity helps you manage social network overload. By letting you present different aspects of yourself to different publics, you contextualize relationships and shape the stream of your interactions.

Rudd would love to treat people appropriately.

Skype makes that difficult once your contact list rises above Dunbar's Number (~150 people). In Skype, everyone sees the same name, the same presence and mood, the same autobiography, the same sex/gender data, the same contact information. Everyone is managed by the same privacy rules. All 20 million Australians will see the same Kevin Rudd in Skype, even though he may to keep his mobile number hidden from most and convenient to a few.

Today's monolithic identity is baked into Skype. An upgrade would be worth it.

If only so Kev can talk with his daughter without logging in to his office and political Skype accounts.

tags: skype, australia, au, identity

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Letter to the Editor - Reconsider Skypecasts

August 27, 2008.

To whom it may concern.

It appears Skype has decided to end all SkypeCast as of September 1, 2008.

Skype we believe is an International Company owned by EBay.

We your clients, and supporters of your company, are devastated by your decision to stop SkypeCasts.

This action, has been a decision that will affect your standing in the industry; simply put it is a terrible decision that affects millions.

Letters are already being sent to the International Press and Television stations and Radio stations.

We your supporters and clients feel very strongly about this terrible decision.

In USA we the people are contacting our Congressman and our Senators, this decision by your company has affected millions of people in this country, and many other countries.

Your supporters feel this action, is one which should be reconsidered by your board of directors and your President and CEO. 

Your Skype published statement, makes a comment, that you are sorry for this inconvenience, that this may cause your clients using SkypeCast.

Surely there must have been an error in judgment in contemplating this action.

Inconvenience is not the description that should have been used; this is a disaster of international importance.

Many students as of this moment are using SkypeCast to teach the skill of English reading and speaking.

We have listed some of the countries from which our students have come to participate in this project.

More than 50 different countries supply students for this particular project.

Algeria, France, Germany, Spain, Columbia, Mexico, Albania, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Ukraine, Russia, Africa, Finland, Denmark, Morocco, Holland, Australia, Austria, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Albania, Turkey,  Philippines, China, Moldavia, Egypt, Poland, South Korea, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Brazil, Thailand, Canada, Indonesia, Belgium, Peru, Libya, Vietnam, Hungary, Taiwan, Switzerland, Venezuela, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Qatar, United Kingdom.

Personally as an English Teacher I and other co-teachers have instructed 651 students in a SkypeCast called English Lessons.

Involved in this English Lessons project which started in January 2008 and involved five hours of instruction every day.

Thanks to the dedication of many people, which included a host from Indonesia , teachers from Brazil , Russia, Ukraine, Egypt, China, United Kingdom, Poland, U.S.A., Bavaria, Germany, Greece, Australia.

Our project and the people involved are devastated.

Sincerely

English Lessons   jwhite6787@msn.com

See also:

• Skypecasts home page
• Goodnight Skypecasts, Peter Parkes, 26 August 2008
• Some more on Skypecasts, Peter Parkes, 28 August 2008
• Alternatives to Skypecasts, Jim Courtney, 29 August 2008

tags: skype, skypecasts, skypecasting, skypecast, community

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Michael Bartlett: What Skype means to me

On the occasion of Skype's fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com.

Mike Bartlett is Skype's Director of Windows Product Management, working from London.

Having worked at Skype for over 3 years, sometimes you forget the human power of communication. I had a powerful reminder of it a few months ago.

My girlfriend's father moved to Australia last year and she had not seen him since. I gave her a webcam and told her all about video calling. She was sceptical. She thought it would be weird. Well… she was, quite literally, in tears after her first call with him. Her two sisters down in Cornwall (which is on the south coast of England) actually got a broadband subscription just to make video calls after hearing about it.

So I was sitting in their lounge, it was quite late at night (those pesky time zones) and there were the three daughters kneeling on the floor huddled, around the laptop in their dressing gowns having a video conversation with their father and their two half-sisters who were getting ready to go to school in Australia. If you could see the smiles on their faces and hear the laughter, the giggling and the excitement then you'd know how amazing I felt sitting on the sofa watching this, knowing that I've played a part in bringing these emotions to millions of people around the World every day.

I can picture that scene clear as day, and that is what Skype means to me.

tags: skype, whatskypemeanstome, stories, australia

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Alex Kazim: What Skype means to me

On the occasion of Skype's fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com.

Alex Kazim, former President of Skype, is now CEO of Tokoni, a true life storytelling community.

Skype changed my world.

I was involved in the acquisition of the company and its management. But I worked through Skype. We used it extensively to manage Skype's offices in Tallinn, Luxembourg, London, Stockholm and San Jose. And I lived through Skype. I used it to spend time with my young kids every night, to see with my own eyes how much they changed each and every day as I commuted around the world.

I've since moved on from both Skype and eBay, but it's still very much part of my world. I use it to see my family when I travel. And we use it exclusively for Tokoni, my new startup, connecting our employees in the Bay Area, Seattle and Austin and even our testers in China.

But Skype changed a lot of people's worlds.

I still remember the South African mother who told me how thrilled she was to be able to see her grandkids after her daughter had moved to Australia. I remember coming home one day and having my young daughter look at me and the computer and wonder why I wasn't still in the little box. And I remember the story about how a mission in Africa was able to participate in the funeral of their Father in Atlanta. Live. As if they were there.

Because that's really what Skype is all about. It brings us together. It keeps us connected. Even when we're worlds apart.

tags: skype, tokoni, life, whatskypemeanstome

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Howard Wolinsky: What Skype means to me

On the occasion of Skype's fifth birthday, Skype Journal will publish a series on "What Skype Means To Me." You are invited to email your essay or short thoughts to editor@SkypeJournal.com.  

Howard Wolinsky covered high tech and health care for 26 years from Chicagoland (Barack Obama is his Senator) before writing Skype's U.S. blog.

Back in late 1995, I was new on the tech beat at the Chicago Sun-Times.

I asked to cover the Net because I was tired of the medical beat. My bosses knew I was an early Net adopter so they set me loose to cover the emerging tech. I covered the pre-boom Internet, the dot-com boom and the dot-bomb, and then on to Web 2 and beyond before I left the paper in January.

Voice on the Net was among the technologies that intrigued me back then and does to this day, both personally and as Skype's US blogger.

The problem back in those days was you couldn't easily connect with friends and family. It was a bit like ham radio.

I remember using some early tech and speaking with a guy who claimed to be on a hammock on a Hawaiian beach. Another guy claimed to be in Austria. So they said.

Then, new tech came along, with an interface resembling a cell phone, that enabled you to put your IP address in as a substitute for a phone number.

It was a step in the right direction. But it was hard to get those friends and family on the line unless they were nerds.

There were always problems with sound quality. Echo. Echo. We were still on dial-ups modems in those days.

The big breakthrough came with broadband service. And of course Skype arrived five years ago and changed the game.

Regular audio calling is a great leap forward with Skype, with hi-fi sound quality. You can use cordless Wi-Fi phones so you don't even need your computer on to make a call. And you can make Skype calls over a regular phone; so you don't have to use headsets (though personally I prefer them).

Plus, you can use SkypeOut to connect at reasonable rates with people on old-fashioned phones. Video Calling on Skype will expand horizons further as people become accustomed to seeing the people with whom they are speaking.

Skype, with its low rates, has expanded my world, enabling me to do interviews with sources around the world for international and domestic publications. If I had to pay standard phone rates, I wouldn't be able to afford to do some of the work I do, interviewing people in Europe, Africa, South America, Australia and Asia.

Skype, which on August 29th is five years old, has changed my world — and I hope yours — for the better over the past five years.

The barriers of cost that once made global calling prohibitive are falling in the Skype world.

Thanks to Skype calling and IM, I am in touch with friends and family in Western and Eastern Europe, Australia and the Middle East. While in Peru earlier this summer, I helped new friends call their families back in the US; they were thrilled, grinning ear to ear.

As I rode on a bus to Stonehenge recently, I was chatting on a 3 Skypephone to a friend in Tucson. In London, I talked on the wireless phone to a friend back in Chicago. I hope this will come to the USA, along with other mobile technologies

More changes will be coming as the technology expands and improves.

Happy Fifth Birthday, Skype. Many happy returns.

tags: skype, life, reporting, journalism, What skype means to me, voip, howardwolinsky

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4b Wishlist: Do more with contacts in multichat

The new Skype for Windows 4 beta consolidates all the elements of a chat into one vertical pane on the right side of the main Skype window.

The upper half shows an alphabetic list of participants in a multiparty chat or conference call. People in the room. What else can we know or do with people in a room?

You can hide the list, but what else could you do with that space?

Sorting compares/contrasts people in the room. Sort by:

• Most recently contributed to the chat/call
• Freshness/aging by participation
  
• Mutual Availability 
• Of the times I'm online, what percentage is this other person also online?
  
• Time zone, relative to yours
• When are the Australians waking up, rejoining the conversation?  
  
• Contacts vs. strangers
• Which of these people have I yet to befriend?
  
• Provocateurs, Amplifiers, Lurkers
• Who triggers threads vs. who jumps in? Look at Marc A. Smith's research on mining Usenet for social network and relationship data. You can look at time gaps in conversation, followed by responses.
  
• Visualize participation volume
• Who has been most/least active? Show a chart (pie chart?) or meter of the number of words contributed to the chat or seconds spoken in the conference call. Acknowledge contribution, encourage the quiet to jump in.
  
• Other profiled demographics: country, age, gender.

What other info would be useful if I move my mouse over someone's name in the panel? Hover information:

• Faces
• Mood text
• Last text contribution to the chat
• Show the contextual menu now shown by option/right-mouse clicks.

Other options:

• Slide show of profiles, rotating through the participants
• Highlight the last contributor
• Animated moodgeist of those in the room
• Highlight people who contributed recently in other chats in which we are both members

Help those in the room make the most of being in that room. Help us with the metawork of scheduling, the facilitation and moderation of the conversation, launching sidebar talk, building reputation through social grooming and participation.

Thanks.

P.S. I miss drag and drop in 4b.

tags: skype, technology, wishlist, collaboration, im, 4b, beta, moodgeist

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