Have you ever wanted to learn another language? I tried French at school but in England we don’t learn until we are 11 years old and by then it’s too late.

My wife is Brazilian and her parents don’t speak a word of English so you can imagine what it’s like when the mother-in-law rings, for some reason she is convinced that I speak fluent Portuguese and talks to me for ages. In reality I can order one beer, two beers or even three beers, say I am hungry or thirsty but beyond that I start getting out my depth.

When I try to explain that the wife is shopping and won’t be home for another 3 hours it usually results in phone calls every 20 minutes to see if she is home yet.

Why am I telling you this? because my life could soon get easier thanks to the Voice Services Program announced by Skype today.

Now imagine, the next time my mother-in-law calls and my wife is out, I could use voice services to locate a translation service and conference in a translator that speaks both English and Portuguese to translates enabling us to communicate more effectively.

The use of voice is only limited by your imagination, it’s a great way to open up IVR systems to provide Skype’s global user base with access to your existing voice solutions.

You can build voice services that provide train arrival information, sports scores, weather forecasts, daily horoscopes, or just about anything you can think of.

There are 2 service models available for making money:

• Free services: these are free for the Skype caller. As a content provider, you will pay a small per minute fee for receiving these calls.

• Chargeable services: callers will pay per minute from their Skype Credit. As a content provider you will receive a share of call revenue

Charging for your services is entirely up to you define the per-minute charge to callers. You receive a percentage of the call revenue, so the more users that call your service, and the longer they call, the more money you make. It’s that easy!

For more information on the Voice Services Program go here: Skype voice program