Using Skype mobile for Verizon Wireless

Here's the Say It Visually! whiteboard guide to Skype mobile on Verizon Wireless phones. Positioned as freeing you from your PC (the way, um, mobile phones do). Bonus points for unlimited Skype-to-Skype calling from your phone with your flat rate Verizon data plan. On YouTube.

tags: explanation, communications, verizon, wireless, mobile, sayitvisually

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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CES2010: Make a Skype call. Take a Skype break.

Skype is sponsoring the email stations. Or should we call them Skype stations? This one was in the Venetian around the corner from the press room.

Nicely done. Useful to attendees (Vonage sponsored free phone call booths in the past). Visible and memorable. Presumably low cost.

Skype has a much lower footprint at this CES than before. No eBay booth, no lavish parties, no press conference, no sponsored VIP zone. They're taking meetings and will be reporting from the show floor for the Skype blog.

tags: skype, marketing, promotions, ces, #ces2010, skypestation, kiosk.

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @evanwolf.
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Holiday Skype calls unite families

Telephones bring families together at holidays. We make room at the dining table for a laptop, a Skype window between two homes.

Thanks to Barry Silver for the beautiful photo with the Moses family: Shankar, Manakshi, Sita Chan, and Umba. cc-by. You can see Barry's reflection in the screen and his picture in the lower left corner of the Skype window.

Skype set up Asia-Pacific USO centers with Skype credits and webcams for soldiers and sailors calling home. Stop by to Skype home at USO Guam, USO Japan in Yokosuka, USO Okinawa, or USO Korea in Seoul. I'm sure you already know the international date line and time zone differences.

P.S. Does anyone make wide-angle or panoramic webcams?

tags: skype, video, family

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

In-Skype advertising

A few more ads for the English language North American market within the Skype for Windows 4 client. Some are tips, like this new one for The Phone Booth Experiment.

 

Turn on Skype-provided tips, help messages, promotions and public service announcements through the "Alerts & messages" controls under the Tools > Options menu command. Or turn them off.

Use the #inskypeads tag for alerts you see inside Skype. You can always tweet them to @skypejournal email them to tips@skypejournal.com and we'll share them. Thanks!

tags: skype, advertising, design, ue, ui, ux, inskypeads

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

Odd Skype promotion: Call a phone booth

The Phone Box Experiment from the:viral:factory, the people who brought you the Skype Laughter Chain. Rob is hanging out at a Spanish payphone for ten days. Call Rob. Or Skype him at +34 951 055 675. See if Rob answers. 

Ad Age quotes a Henry Cowling statement: "We were inspired by the phenomenon of the Mojave Desert Phonebox, which became known as the loneliest phone booth in the world, and gathered a huge following of people who would either trek to the phone box or call it randomly, just to see if someone answered."

That, and to demonstrate Skype click-to-call and international SkypingOut (SkypeOuting?).

As stunts go, it's pretty cheap. But I clicked. At two in the morning Spanish time. Rob didn't answer.

Hi, my name is Rob Cavazos, born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico.

I’m 28 years old and a huge Manchester United fan. I speak German, Spanish and English and have lived in England, Mexico and Germany.

My favourite film has to be a three-way tie between Chasing Amy, The Princess Bride and Amores Perros. I love to play sport, including American Football (come on Green Bay Packers!) and basketball.

Some people say that I look like a hobbit, especially after I broke my nose shooting a fight-scene in a student film. I’ve been hit by a car twice (not the same one) which is probably why I like walking round London in the middle of the night when it’s really quiet.

I’m always up for meeting new people so just give me a call.

At a loss for what to say if he picks up the phone?

Ask Rob to repeat Inigo Montoya's line from The Princess Bride: "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." With passion. Once again. Tell him Phil from Skype Journal sent you.

tags: skype, marketing, promotion, stunts, spain, phonebooth, payphone, landlines, skypeout, robcavazos

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

Skype Concept Art: "Free to Roam" Tee Shirt

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

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 Concept Art: "Free to Roam" iPhone wallpaper

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

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 Concept Art: "Free to Roam" laptop skin

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

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 Concept Art: "Free to Roam" poster

Ashley Hutchinson created this art for a YCN 09 design competition. Her theme: "Free to Roam... It's about more than just free calls." Ash's flickr set, used with permission.

tags: skype, art, ashhutch, ahutchabove, conceptart, ashleyhutchinson, graphicdesign, huddersfield, illustration, typography, animation, ycn

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.

Deutsche Welle: "Has Skype declared war on cellphone providers?"

Deutsche Welle's Michael Altenhenne interviewed Skype's Sten Tamkivi (with remarks by Jean-Jacques Sahel) for a "Made In Germany" television news segment. Posted 2 September 2009, it takes the theme of Skype against big mobile phone companies like Deutsche Telekom.

While the positions are old news by now, the Skype Tallinn headquarters tour is fairly unique. Sten shows Skype's anechoic chamber and acoustic test dummy, the silver globe chandelier meeting room, the autobot racetrack, a huge logo-engraved table, expansive open-plan offices, and video conference rooms. I took a few dozen frame grabs from the video if you care to put names to faces.

tags: skype, dw, tallinn, ee, estonia, Deutsche Welle, DW-TV, economics, Vodafone, T-mobile

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.

Why do TV dramas mention Skype but not show it?

This week's episode of CW's new nighttime soap, The Beautiful Life, includes Skype in its opening dialog...

Sonya

No, Mom. Do not come to New York. That's a terrible idea.

[Unintelligible voice on the phone]

Because, I don't want my baby anywhere near this snake pit.

[voice]

Did you download Skype yet?

[voice]

It's not that difficult.

...but Skype is not the video chat shown in a later scene.

Could it have anything to do with Skype's terms of service for broadcast? Skype not only requires you to

1. register your show,
2. give Skype spoken credit before and after using Skype in a show,
3. prominently display the Skype logo and
4. give Skype the right to edit or cancel your video.

That's a lot of power for a few seconds of using Skype. This may work for newsrooms, game shows, and daytime talk. Theatrical productions have more money at risk. I'd be reluctant to bet on Skype's kindness. So substituting a generic video player (like "Video Chat" in TBL) or recorded video may be a producer's the path forward.

See also:

• If Skype placed product on TV shows...
• Melrose Place Skypes off camera
• Foody alert: vidSkype TV chefs
• Skype connects cast and crew of Star Trek: The Continuing Mission
• Why Oprah's Skype day was ineffective: tone and Skype
• Ashton Skypes Oprah, disrupting electronic field TV production
• Skype on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" TV
• Skype product placement: Who Wants to be a Millionaire (US)

• Skype Video for "Live On Location" Television
• The Venice Project steals an opportunity from SkypeBay
• Skype Video As a Broadcast TV Source
• Skype for Virtual TV Sports Event TailGate Parties

• Skype television commercials? and TV commercial from Skype

• SkypeTV
• The joy of hacking: Asterisk on Apple TV
• SkypeTiVo - Personal

• skyping friends while watching television

tags: skype, television, tv, TBL, productplacement, tos, eula, terms, thebeautifullife, Sonya

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 Night in Sapporo

Would love to have Skype Nights in California, but that's just me. Here are some snapshots from 10 September in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan.

Mr. Shinichi Iwata, general manager of Skype Japan spoke. He concluded "Skype is expanding, it's going viral, I hope to introduce it more and more."

London video called in to the group. And Poken were sold and exchanged.

  

Thanks to Takako Tominaga, Daizi Ikeda (flickr), BitStar, skype_sapporo (@skype_sapporo), you1, takako yoshi (post), the Hypocrite blog, for the tweets, posts, and photos.

tags: skype, devrels, marketing, japan, events, skypenight, community, sapporo, hokkaido

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.

Melrose Place Skypes off camera

Ella:

"Yesterday I took a building-wide poll after the murder and we all agreed we'd feel a lot safer in the courtyard if there was some sort of security camera. So with Jonah being the building's resident film school grad slash A/V geek, we figured you could hook us up."

Jonah:

"Yeah, I mean, I guess. Sure. I have a camera I use for Skype."

From the "Melrose Place" Nightingale episode.

tags: skype, productplacement, tv, melroseplace, melrose place, webcam

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.

From Russia with Love: Hitler and Skype

33x3sketch published Гитлер и Скайп (Hitler and Skype) two weeks' ago. Over 800 thousand people have seen it since. This blog post has hundreds of comments.

The mostly German overdub of "Der Untergang" (2004) parodies Russia's major mobile operators lobbying to ban Skype.

I'd love an English transcript or highlights, but it looks hilarious.

tags: skype, hitler, video, youtube, untergang, parody, comedy

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 competitors suck. So says recruiting video.

meaningfulwork asks "Has your job expired?" in this video.

This leads to http://MyJobHasExpired.com.

Which leads to http://newjobs.skype.com/

The concept started with Skype alumnus Villu Arak (@villuarak), now CEO of Hill & Knowlton Estonia who brought the idea to Skype. The collaboration started then. Villu said "all actors, except for the evil dandruff-skiing boss, are Skype employees who volunteered to participate. The director is Andres Maimik, a young Estonian filmmaker who also does commercial work through the Kuukulgur production company."

I used to work in the staffing industry and it loves industrial metrics like time-to-fill-an-opening and average-cost-to-advertise-a-job.

This campaign seems focused on attracting people with Skype's personality traits. Quirky humor, curiosity, ambition, sense of self worth, a desire to have your work matter. Not to mention you're a YouTube user, you're socially active online, you're a knowledge worker. And maybe you're ready to be appreciated, to make a difference, to do something new and challenging. To be with people like you.

In other words, instead of driving traffic to the job site by keywords from skills ("Cocoa developer wanted"), Skype's recruiting from a smaller pool of people who might actually fit Skype's playful, rebellious culture. (Among other things, a culture where sharing videos is an easy, common social gesture.) This should be a much better return on everyone's time.

tags: skype, hr, staffing, humor, recruiting, advertising, branding, brand, hillandknowlton, ee, estonia, myjobhasexpired, newjobs.skype.com

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.

A few shots from the Skype party at CTIA Mobile 2009

Company parties at tradeshows have messages. Skype's Wednesday night party at last week's CTIA Mobile 2009 event had a few.

• Fruit: Celebrating the launch of Skype for the Apple iPhone and announcement of Skype Lite for the Blackberry. Without permission to use the logos, Skype had the two fruit (apples, blackberries) on murals, in staff wigs, inside furniture, in cocktails, in ice sculptures, and in deserts.
• Circus: Performers from Cirque du Soleil (or something similar) performed throughout the evening, on stage and intimately. Jugglers, strong men, gymnasts, acrobats, mimes. Buxom hostesses in dramatic wardrobe spent an hour learning how to demo Skype for iPhone and four hours in makeup. Message: excitement.
• Ice: Skype ice sculptures decorated a Bellagio ballroom. An ice tower at the entrance, an ice pool table (along with pool cues and billiard balls) on the terrace, and a large monument in a lounge area. Message: we're showing our money.

Everyone there had a great time. Good food, smart people, pleasant music quiet enough that you could talk them, warm weather, and elbow room amid garishly over the top decoration and eye candy.

This was the first year Skype showed up in force at CTIA Mobile. The party was spoils of Skype's war as the company moves into mobile telecom in a big way, with high margins, high growth, increased share, and sustained profits.

After the circus acts, Scott Durchlag introduced Skype's first television commercial. 

A six foot tall ice tower in the Bellagio hallway.

 

A full size pool table cast in ice. Folks played for hours, even as it melted. The far right pocket was a sure thing as it warmed up first.

This large ice statue overlooking the courtyard was filled little apples, symbolic of the iPhone.

After the party, the ice crew dismantled the Skype sculptures.

Heavy, massive ice blocks.

Skype carted off in pieces.

I asked several CTIA Mobile alumni if the event was overkill. They all said it was a shout out to the mobile carriers that Skype was here in a big way and here to stay.

My take: Old school B2B industry marketing. Just one deal with any of dozen heavyweights there will pay for Skype's party, press conference, Showstoppers press event, and sponsorship of the VIP Lounge at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

tags: skype, party, ctia09, ctia, citamobile09, bellagio, lasvegas, vegas, marketing, promotion, april, blackberry, apple, circus, iphone, tv, commercial, advertising, ice, fruit

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.

Slides from the Skype iPhone press conference

Scott Durschlag presenting at CTIA Mobile 2009 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. A nice mix of

• Skype rhetoric (enabling conversation, Skype everywhere, person centric vs. network or device centric),
• dazzling numbers (kabillions of minutes served, a million new users every three days, the next 100 million users are in China),
• some product stuff (Skype for iPhone number one download in markets around the world, Skype Lite for Blackberry coming in May)
• ended with a pitch to carriers. Dear Mobile Carriers, we're here, we're staying, we're growing, partner with us.

Skype Alien stalks reporters

The reporters, queued for yesterday's Skype press conference, are more interesting. than the circus performer. Blasé, reflexive shutterbugs, won't interrupt conversations despite looming monster, while others pose for portraits. 

Technorati tags: skype, pr, publicity, clown, circus

Skype Red: The Skype name origin

You've heard several stories about how Skype's founding team conjured the name. A Chuvash word meaning "the whole word can talk for free." Short for "Sky peer-to-peer."

Now for the simpler truth.

skype is the sound of a vampire bite.

Two teeth
sliding into warm flesh
lips surrounding the wound

Which founders knew this?

We're not telling.

Technorati tags: skype, vampires, skypeforvampires, s4v, bite, teeth, origin

TV commercial from Skype

 

sfx:

soft sound of fast typing on a computer keyboard

text:

Sarah had a baby girl at 6:30am

sfx:

Skype water drop, into music

father's voice over animation:

She's beautiful, so beautiful. We're calling her Laura. We think she looks like a Laura. She already has a full head of hair.

animation fades to father's face, pulling back revealing father, Sarah and Laura are on a wide-screen video call being watched by grandparents

father

and she's got my eyes. luckily for her, everything else is pure Sarah.

announcer:

With free Skype-to-Skype video calls, you can be right there with them, wherever they are.

fade to slide:

Skype logo + "Free at Skype.com"

The ad reinforces existing brand elements: sounds of people using the product, the transition from IM to voice to video, family connections, and life events. Oh, and clouds.

We won't know for a while where or how much air time Skype is buying. English accents suggest this ad is targeted to the UK.

One thing: the Skype video used by the family has a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, not available with today's consumer webcams. Is that a buried product announcement or a vision of the future?

Hat tips to Dan Furrier and Kara Swisher.

tags: skype, ad, ads, advert, advertising, tv, television, video, marketing, promotion

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.