The 134 Year Long Skype Call

1178315:33:42. 134.5 years. So this call started in 1875, the year of the Metre Convention. A strange bug between Windows and Skype, considering Skype is less than six years' old. You'd have to be a vampire to stay on a call this long (see: Time: a Skype Red Software Design Challenge).

So you have two bugs. One that sets the duration incorrectly and another that doesn't present time with years and days. Hat tip to Toni from Germany for the screenshot.

tags: skype, bug, bugs, windows, time, duration

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 for Vampires: Making the business case

[Editor: From an internal report.]

Is there a market?

There is clearly an underserved market with different needs.

Can Skype serve that market?

Vampires use phones. Here are some shots of Bill pulling a mobile from his pocket in True Blood, Season 2 Episode 1. Stands to reason that if they talk and use phones, they could use Skype.

Will these users spread Skype faster than the Skype average?

Vampires are persuasive.

With so many still in-the-coffin, they value trusted and private connections. Like other underground subcultures, tools that help them stay connected help them survive.

Will this segment use Skype more than average?

We don't know. We suspect most of their communications are short, frequent, and bursty vs. long, occasional, and regular. The challenge will be to uncover sub-subcultures and patterns of use within the vampire communities.

Will this improve our brand?

Skype's brand is so happy, cheerful, laughing, blue skies. A hint of smoke, a touch of dark, might make Skype a more vivid, cutting brand.

How will rivals respond?

Microsoft: Ballmer will re-launch Live.com by buying and launching Dead.com. 

Google: Android and iPhone apps that blend Wave and Maps with GPS to find the nearest blood banks, Trublood retailers, vampire bars, graveyards, and college campuses. Starting with Stanford. 

AT&T: Lawyers and lobbyists to criminalize VoIP (Vampire over Internet Protocol).

Deutsche Telekom: New fees for calls to dead people.

What's the cheapest way to test our assumptions?

We tried focus groups, but we kept getting goths from Whitby.

We tried ethnographers to live among vampires and report their behavior, but they kept getting turned. or disappeared.

Maybe we should just put something out there and see what happens?

tags: skype, s4v, vampires, skype for vampires, branding, strategy

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.

Trueblood photo credit: copyright HBO.

Time: a Skype Red Software Design Challenge

Skype for Vampires is Time Aware.

Making the most of every night is not enough. Vampires want to make the most of every day too.

German Skype partner PamConsult announced Pamela V software that turns on automatic voice mail and IM attendants before dawn. You never need to miss a daylight message from humans or from vampires in other time zones.

A new clock counts down the minutes until dawn, with alerts at the –60 and –30 minute marks. For early risers, the clock also reports the wait until dark.

Because sunrise and sunset times depend on longitude, Skype now gathers location information from IP addresses on laptops and desktops and more accurate GPS data for S4V Mobile users.

Five Digit Years

S4V resolve bugs that bothered vampire Skypers for years. Skype now holds birth dates going back 100,000 years. The big change was changing age in profiles to support five digits, complying with IETF RFC 2550.

Still on the wishlist: Century. Many senior vampires were raised in eras when calendar dates were less standardized and education less common. You should be able to pick your origin century as an alternative to Julian calendars dates.

Skype restores birthday alerts. Adds death day alerts.

The first release of Skype for Windows 4 left out contact birthday reminders. Skype for Vampires restores them. Skype added two new fields to profiles. First Death Date is your date of conversion to vampire status, or a rebirth as some call it. Last Death Date is when you are really, truly, completely dead. So now Skype helps you celebrate two lifecycle milestones with your friends.

Last death date turns out to be very useful in managing your relationships but hard to get people to fill out.

tags: skype, s4v, skype for vampires, skypeforvampires, pamconsult, time, years, centuries, ui, ue, ux, vampire, vampires, skypered

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.

Skype Red: The Hardware Story

Skype for Vampires creates new opportunities for Skype's hardware partners. As with any (in)human factors design, Skype certifies gear to meet the particular needs of its demanding customers.

Skype's Jonathan Christensen said the new certification standards inspired hardware to use every drop of power in Skype's SILK and NYLON Superhuman Wideband Codecs. "Our partners, like Logitech, Panasonic, Toshiba and Sony, are creating a Skype call fidelity so high you can mesmerize humans as though you were in the same room."

Different Abilities	Technical Response	Products Upgraded
Heightened Vision	High frame rates Higher resolution Wide spectrum (into the infrared) Higher color depth	Webcams Displays NYLON lossless video compression
Visual Sensitivity	Filtering out frequencies found in sunlight that trigger allergic reactions	NYLON codec
Heightened Hearing	Higher audio frequency response range and sensitivity Noise reduction to drown out distracting sounds picked up with sensitive ears	Microphones Speakers

Logitech webcam, Vampire Red edition. Certified for Skype for Vampires.

tags: skype, vampires, skype4vampires, logitech, panasonic, toshiba, sony, fun

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.

The Social Vampire: A Skype Red Design Challenge

When vampires tweet, follow, friend, and bite

Vampires vary more than humans in the degree of social connectedness and styles of social interaction. Skype for Vampires brings several features built on their social behavior.

Groups in Groups. Groups of vampires are called different things in different countries and subcultures. Depending on size and strength of ties, they have been called nests, clans, families, tribes. Skype "contact categories" now let you nest contact categories.

Unflattening Social Graphs. Skype contact groups are flat and democratic, unlike pecking orders among vampires. S4V lets you define hierarchy within contact groups. So you know who's the master.

Instant Cabal. A Skype preference automatically form groups by clan/bloodline affiliation. This can be a big time saver and better models real vampire-vampire relationships.

People Rank. S4V can sort your contacts using bloodline social proximity calculations. Social proximity shows how close you are to someone within a social graph, answering the questions "how many contacts do you share?" "how strong/active are those connections?" LinkedIn shows social proximity in a business context; Skype in the vampiric context. 

My Vampire(s). With a nod to twitter, Skype now lets non-vampires "follow" a vampire, and a vampire "claim" a non-vampire. Vampire affiliation and custody of non-vampires now shows up in search and search results, profiles, and automatic contact lists. Unclaimed humans can set their profile to the "BiteMe!" option in the My Species field.

Dating. Skype partnered with Lovebitten, a portal partnership for interspecies dating. The bitecurious can launch Skype chats and voice/video calls from the Lovebitten site. 

tags: lovebitten, bitecurious, biteme, skype, sociology, social, linkedin, twitter

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.

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

Skype for Vampires – Top 5 wishlist

5. Video: Sparkle correction.

"I brake for vampires who sparkle"

— bumper sticker

I keep getting requests for help with webcams from those few vampires who tolerate daylight and who glow brightly in full spectrum sunlight. I don't know if this is a request for Skype Certified webcams, for Skype partner On2 which makes most of Skype's video codecs, or for Skype itself with its NYLON and DUSK supernatural wideband codecs. 

4. Video: Blood filter.

A few drops on the collar can put people off. So please remove blood on the face, or the walls.

3. Blood Sounds.

What the Skype acoustic palette sounds like to people without supernaturally enhanced hearing

Skype already makes that great "blood droplet dripping into a pool" sound. How about the sounds of blood splashing? The cap coming off a bottle of Trublood? The beep of a microwave after warming some Trublood to body temp? During file transfer, how about a throbbing pulse?

2. Video: Coppertone® Suntan filter.

"Can you make us look less pale?" If you can add a golden or tan skin tone in Photoshop, why can't Skype give us a golden skin tone?

1. Emoticons.

New vampire emoticons, please!

 

Bonus: Extend the promotion of free Skype credits with Trublood purchase. The word is still bleeding out.

tags: skype, video, coppertone, emoticons, vampires, skypeforvampires, s4v, trublood, trueblood

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.

Skype for Vampires: New Emoticons

Skype's designers had a unique brief: enrich Skype IM conversation for vampires. Notes from the original design specification:

Title

vampire IM emoticons

Short Summary

We're building an IM product for vampires. One visual element are the emoticons vampires might use in ordinary conversation. We're looking for a few, well crafted emoticons in small size and larger display size.

Description

User Considerations:

• vampires are real, having coming out of the coffin in 2006;
• vampires drink TruBlood, the product featured on the HBO show;
• vampires vary in age from teenager to ancient (think centuries); 
• vampires are social with tribes, territory, and "bloodlines". 
• vampires, like Skype, are global with social connections that cross national borders.

Emoticons used for feelings are typically derived from the smiley face.

Potential emoticons from our Thursday brainstorming session (and we're open if you have other suggestions):

• Vampire, V''''V
• Thirsty
• Bite
• Smiley Fang
• Blood
• Garlic
• TruBlood bottle (first emoticon product placement, see http://www.trubeverage.com/)
• TruBlood Type O - hearty and satisfying
• TruBlood Type A - light and delicate
• TruBlood Type B - aggressive and energizing
• TruBlood Type AB - smooth and refined
• Plasma (weak blood)
• Stake
• Holy Water (H2O with a halo)
• Sunrise (when we go to sleep)
• Sun Glasses
• Sun Block (SPF-1000)
• Toothbrush, dental floss
• Sunset (when we get up)
• Sire (the vampire that brought you over)
• vampire, Vampiir (eesti spelling) ,veripard, vere-imeja
• Coffin/Sleep

What I Want

• Be consistent with our Skype emoticon library(http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/emoticons/), not Yahoo!'s or Microsoft's or QQ's. 
• Files for each emoticon, on white background
• Skype's emoticon size is 19x19px.
• Bonus points if you have time or imagination for animated versions for one or more. 
• Character. This is for the everyday use by millions of people, so it better have heart. A bleeding, pulsing heart. Have fun, show the gist.
• Gender Balance.

What I Don't Want

• Too cute. Put on your Skype design hat; you don't want to belittle or offend our vampire customers or employees. 

Prior art:

• A Yahoo! style emoticon.
  
• 3-D treatments
   

tags: skype, emoticons, s4v, skypeforvampires, design, ui, ue, ux, smileys, trublood, trueblood, bloodtype, branding

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.

Vampire Identity: a Skype Red Software Design Challenge

Skype for Vampires offers the first Vampire-Ready Digital Identity System

Along with Skype for Vampires comes a new ID system, reflecting deep research into vampire market needs.

Multiple Pseudonyms, Persistent Identity. As you might imagine, vampires may wish to remain closeted. S4V now lets you define multiple aliases. You can apply aliases to individual contacts and contact groups. Your core digital identity should last as you shed aliases over the decades.

My Species. Each alias may have its own species indicators. You can choose from Human, Vampire, Dhampir, Werewolf, Pixie, Decline To State, BiteMe! We can only guess what  BiteMe! presence means.

Profile attribute: MyType™. Vampires can share their personal tastes using the common ABO blood group system (A, B, AB, O). Humans will be able to share their blood types in their profiles. You will be able to search the Skype directory for people according to MyType.

Real Vampire™. Is this contact really undead? Skype partnered with the American Vampire League to certify Skypers users as AVL members in good standing. Building on technologies like OpenID and OAuth, this is Skype's second use of third-party authentication after its MySpaceIM partnership. They are promoting VoID, the Vampires over Open ID protocol.

These features should also be useful to humans. We all want to share ourselves differently with different people, applying the appropriate social context. Your boss shouldn't know you hang out at vampire bars, your bloody friends shouldn't know you go to church, and your church committee shouldn't know how you voted. Skype now makes that possible.

See also:

• Your MySpaceIM account dies when you do. Skype Journal, 2007.
• WhoAmI - A Web2.0 Platform for Faceted Identity Management through Aggregation of Social Media. Stephan Baumann, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence
• Faceted Id/entity: Managing representation in a digital world, danah boyd's thesis on contextualization of identity.

tags: skype, skypejournal, bloodtype, realvampire, mytype, myspecies, biteme, vampire, dhampir, werewolf, pixie, presence, aliases, facedtedidentity, identity, id, trublood, trueblood

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.

Mobile Skype for Vampires

From the product pitch: "We'll bundle apps for the market to sweeten the attraction of mobile Skype for Vampires."

tags: skype, vampires, mobile, location, skypeforvampires, skype4vampires, s4v

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.

Vampires work Skype's graveyard shift

Like many companies, Skype learned trusted, valued employees were vampires. Gilles Annespie, HR director, affirmed Skype's commitment to workforce diversity and equal opportunity extended to all employees, even the undead.

 
Vampire-ready jobs are tagged "graveyardshift" on the Skype jobs blog.

Embracing change. Workshops at Skype offices helped employees who wanted to "come out of the coffin" to their colleagues. "Beyond the normal anxieties of people acknowledging something new, we wanted to deal constructively with change" said Annespie.

"Some of our best developers worked late and missed meetings. Now we know why" said a Tallinn team leader. Half the quality assurance team came out at the evening sessions. "It's the focused, ruthless pursuit of bugs that makes them so good. That's why we're pretty sure most of our private beta testers are vampires too."

To become a more vampire-friendly workplace, Skype's bigger offices turned a few wire closets into emergency sleep spaces. The light-proof "day bunks" have beanbags, locks from the inside, atomic clocks, and wi-fi. All Skype offices are now open around the clock. Refrigerators in every lounge stock Trublood in all the popular types.

Staffing up. Skype actively recruits vampire programmers, both for its staff and for its third-party developer program. Skype named Bertoine Antout Manager of Vampire Community Relations. The team will host VampDevCamp, an unconference for undead hackers at Skype House London on 31 October 2009. 

Miller Roberts, Skype's general counsel, said it was hard extending health, disability, and life insurance to vampires. Coverage used to end with death. Skype's legal affairs team rewrote contracts with more than forty insurers, in a dozen countries, to cover all current and future undead employees within the first 30 days.

Some paychecks were briefly stopped during the transition when newly added "first death" dates were added to legacy payroll software. 

tags: skype, vampires, hr, payroll, skypeforvampires, s4v, skype4vampires, graveyardshift, trublood, trueblood

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.

Skype for Vampires rumor

They have to be joking. It's such a small market niche. Can't the noble dead make do with the same Skype everyone else uses? s4v seems off strategy. We'll see.