It is great news to hear that you are working on application-to-application messaging in the public API for Skype. I believe that a Skype has a promising future as a collaboration tool for e-learning, so this development bodes well for the future.

The application-to-application messaging api is very important and valuable to me and many others. I've been building p-to-p software on my own for several years, and the problems of NAT routers, firewalls and scalability have been making this approach more complex and less feasible over time. By opening up this resource to a wide base of users, Skype can

this is great news !!!

Application to Application Messaging will be a killer API function, if it means that applications can directly communicate with each other via the skype communication network-the Skypenet. Plusing global index search and presence of the plug-in application or service , app2app transforms the p2p into presence-to-prensence, which is not only about buddies but also about applications and services. Imagine something exciting based on this, such as a serverless CS-like on-line game and a new marketplace for auctions and e-retailing.

I'm not a developer but I'm particularly psyched (or skyped, as the case may be) to see that more creative and technical input will help evolve Skype to its fullest potential.

I believe the following directions could benefit the service and its many possible applications immensely:

a) All versions of Skype, across all platforms, should be developed at equal rate and be fully compatible across the board. The slow update ratio for OSX (Tiger) versions, incompatibility with the popular iSight webcame/mic for instance, are a major problem and almost give iChat an unnecessary advantage.

b) Cross-platform thinking could be expanded well into USB-enabled next-gen videogame consoles like PlayStation 3, XBox 360, Nintendo Revolution and, better yet, wireless enabled portable gaming systems like Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. Both regular phone applications and fully integrated in-game P2P voice communications could be a huge market to corner through Skype.

I hope this can serve as inspiration to some of you. I have full faith in your creativity and business savvy at Skype & Co.!

I got to tell you, you guys are making my start-up happen. Gonna file a provisional patent before I blow the whistle, but Skype is an absolute greenfield of opportunity. When are the app-to-app and enhanced profile API available!?

Sharing good! Not sharing Baaaaaad!

There are great news. But one of the most important question is: WHEN? When are you going to release this new API?

Our start-up is currently working on the software project related to the skype. And the features of new API listed above will be very useful for our project. Is it possible to get the draft of new API documentation?

It's good to hear about the new API - When at first I looked at the Skype API I was disappointed to note it only helps you use the Skype application itself, and placed it aside as irrelevant to any software I would like to develop.

However, a question remains: If I was to use the Skype API for app2app communication, how would that look in a software's installer? Would it require the user to install the Skype application as well? Or will the Skype application and the

1/ Call forwrding. A killer function!!!
But only if we can redirect call being online and then go offline, the calls remaining redirected to the number we gave until we go online again to change the setting. We want to be able to redirect calls from any place in the world. eg: I'm going to Singapore at my supplier office. Before I leave from France (where I live) I redirect all my calls to his office and then I shut down my computer (don't want to have my computer running a week while I'm out...)

2/Extensible profiles.
Great, but give me the ability to enter personnal info linked to another uer's profile!!! Comments is one of them but not only. One of the problems of current Skype profiles is that although there is a phone number field, nobody fills it because nobody wants to share it with everybody. Best is the solution when a user A enter the phone number of users B himself after he as given that number. Of course it duplicates info on Skype server (User a and user B will store user's C phone number and adress separately), but you'll get closer to contact management (as in outlook for example), which is necessary to anyone using Skype for business.

For info concerning profile, look at Yahoo Messenger. their product is not good at all for telephony, but contact management there is great!!! almost perfect. I do currently store all my business info on yahoo. I'd love to do it on Skype as I'm using it more and more for work but I can't.

Why? Contact management in Skype is not good. I have to store separately John's Skype account and John's phone number separately (unless John would show his phone number in his profile, but John almost never does!!!). Let me associate information that I and only I set linked to his profile.

We will then all switch to Skype completely and for the all thing. Telephony+contact management. This is something to do if you want to convince corporate users! yours. simon

"If I was to use the Skype API for app2app communication, how would that look in a software's installer? Would it require the user to install the Skype application as well?"

A Skype client must be installed locally before any other application can use the Skype API.

Thanks,
mat

Any word on when there will be an API for Pocket PC?

Can someone please tell me how can I get the Skype API ? ? ? ?

In general I think all the new enhancements sound great. The only comment I have is that it would be good to see the call forwarding ability to be able to re-route an incoming skype call to any other skype account rather than skype out only (if that was the planned intention).

glennbull: call forwarding supports both Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls.

Hi Lenn,

Can you elaborate on App2App messaging? Does that mean that applications can exchange voice messages or text messages or pictures or what?

Thanks,

Tarun

It would be useful if the current time (for the correct time zone) could be shown on the contacts list. I have contacts in widely differenct time zones and it would be useful to know what their local time was before I decide to call. This could be done simply by entering their time zone (GMT hours plus or minus) into their profile or locally as an option in the contact list information and use the local system clock as reference.

Very cool! In particular I like the APP2APP tunnels. However, there's a danger, you may have over zelous sysadmins trying to shut down skype because applications then start do do "bad things" like filesharing using the API forapp2app tunneling.( Somebody, for example, might wind up re-inventing Kazaa and you know how that went. How are you going to prevent that? )

Will you provide plugin support for the big 2 web browsers?

With all this tunneling going on, you will have what Radia Perlman refers to as a Headergram with no room for the data .

Not a developer but very interested in the unfolding of Skype.

Some of the above answers some of my previous questions to the technical department, but i think there is still a lot to do. Hope the search improvements mean that I will be able to see details for "on" and "off" line registered users. As you know at the moment when searching it will only bring back info of those users on line - so if you're searching for someone you better hope they are logged in to find them.

Someone mentioned using the local clock to know when he was called by his international contacts... This may be open to abuse, so it should have a time stamp from the internet, as someone trying to trick you may adjust their local clock, make a call to your voicemail and re-adjust their clock (not sure why they would want to do that, but rest assured someone will do it).

Also, i note, by it's absence that one of my major problems with Skype is not addressed here, maybe i'm on the wrong page...

When is it going to be possible to open multiple sessions of Skype on a single PC without having to right click and "run as" (which doesn't work on my XP PC). I have business Skype user accounts and personal ones (more than one person uses this PC). So I should be able to log on more than one account (as many as we like) and monitor them. THIS IS A MAJOR REQUIREMENT AND NEEDED NOW!

Also a list of version releases, dates and what was improved would be nice. You could also give us some idea of future release dates.. (THE WHEN'S)

Keep up the good work guys.

Steve

And another IMPORTANT development that will really send shivers down the telephone companies boots...

I should be able to stick my digital home Skype phone in my pocket and use it through someone elses base station. I should be able to limit what bandwidth (number or percentage) I allocate to an "outside user", (user other than my own handset). So if I go down to the local bar and they have Skype with a base station, I should be able to make an outgoing call. Not sure the system could work out where I am to make an incoming call, maybe it could try to look for my handset from the last know base station used, or there could be some way of letting the system know a list of base stations to try (the ones from your home to the offices, no need to search the entire world). But even just to have outgoing calls initially would be great (and help reduce my massive mobile phone bill)

Get this off the ground and heads will turn..... (and roll probably)

A new excited user...

In addition to the other presence enhancements, could you make it possible to programmatically add contacts? The App2App messaging is great.

I think Skype is a phenominal program...the only feature I would like added would be to increase the number of conference callers available. 4 + a host is not quite enough for me...I would like 7 or 8 + a host. Not for the phone calling feature mind you, but just for peer to peer communication. Otherwise, keep up the great work!!!

i hope skype will be able to use ALSA sounds, nothing is worse than not being able to use hardware mixing (OSS requires exclusive soundcard access ).

is there anyway of developing a program with call forwarding like....

Press One to contact .......
Press Two to contact....... and so on?

The most significant USP for Skype is the presence on-line information that assures synchronous communication / prevents time-wasting failed calls. This would be further enhanced if each account had an extra set of attributes entitled "Specialist Area of Interest One", Two etc. A flag could be set by the user to allow his/her on-line status and willingness to receive calls to be displayed to all other users with the same specialist area of interest. For example, as a risk management specialist I would be interested in talking to any other risk management specialists who had indicated their willingness to receive calls on this topic when they are on-line. In this way global communities would develop....

Is there any plan to expand the number of people that can be in a conference call?

Topic is "SET USER target DISPLAYNAME"
when could you support this kind of API for our developers to edit some information of contacts?
Thanks and best regards!

I would love to be able to upload multiple voicemail greetings and have them customized to come on depending on my contact list.

So ideally there would be one greeting that would kick in for a "Friend" versus "Business" versus "Unknown" etc (based on call ID).

Perhaps this already exists in a plugin but, at present, I am generally using Skype from the Mac. 'Tis beautiful indeed...

Please, Please, Please make a SkypeJabber gateway. It should be very easy to make a Jabber server at skype.com that whould translate any message send to someone@skype.com via Jabber to a Skype message to user someone. Also a backlink would be possible, so that you can IM a user called other@jabber.com or any other domain and get the message delivered to them via the gateway.
I see this as a major step in unification of IM networks. The united networks will survive, but the isolated ones will dwindle. You can still make clients use your client by offering additional services (like the calling ).

Internet and telephone price calculator

I developed one program to calculate the internet and Skype telephone usage. It can be used in small stores to charge the internet and telephone usage.
See more information in: http://homepage.oninet.pt/151mte/

António Rodrigues

is there a way to have more than 5 people on a conference call? Looking for 10.

A new idea to develop in Skype API:

Skype Emocracy = SkypEmocracy

What about voting with Skype with 5 milion users!

The idea is to use P2P for voting with:
positive votes
neutral votes
negative votes
abstain votes

Results are measured with visibility and classification.

Visit my page, you will understand:
http://emocracia.no.sapo.pt

I wanted to know if it will be possible to make the video telephone calls with Skype on operating system windos 2000. thanks

Editing Profiles will be great, where is it on your priority list

Maxm77

I need some suggestions. I want to develop web application that shows all available users of skype online on my website. Can any one help me how to do that ?

Jabber support would be way cool. It is a real pain to have to jump between messaging platforms just because folks aren't on skype.

Mike