It was June 2007 when the Skype Developer Program started looking towards to the following year and began working on the 2008 API roadmap. We decided that instead of only having a round table discussion with our engineering team in Tallinn, we would collect information through different channels to ensure we were listening to all third party requests. One of the most prominent suggestions was about mashups.

We decided to test the waters by introducing a mashup competition around the Skype public API. Within a week of our first meeting programmableweb.com and Skype Journal were supporting and sponsoring the event: Skype’s first Mashup competition from 1st of July until the 31st of August 2007 with a trip to Prague for the winner.

As soon as we announced the competition, we knew it was the right way to progress. Feedback we had received from the developer community, bloggers, analysts and journalists said that by opening up the API to mashups, it gave developers a chance to build even further with Skype. Paul Amery and our team took that point into account and added the concept of "Plug-Out" to the 2008 Roadmap and used the event to launch the new category and development channel around the API.

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In the end, there were over 20 mashup applications with a lot of worldwide competition for the top prize. The overall Global and European winner was PamFax and they were awarded with their shiny trophy at an event on our Beta Testers and Partners days in Prague. Then, Paul, as a pilgrim or a rock star, went on a worldwide tour to meet our partners face to face and to announce the 2008 roadmap to the media.

The first stop was a BBQ at the Skype San Jose office where the North America winner, Jiwire was awarded with their prize. A week later Paul, Lester and myself arrived in Tokyo and awarded Twitter4Skype the Japanese mashup winner at an event organised by our Approved Interator Ubion INC. It was certainly a pleasure to end our competition in Tokyo.

As a summary, I’d like to thank those who answered, supported and contributed to this first competition. It shows that when a company listens to their partners’ needs, the whole community benefits. Also, the competition clearly shows that Skype has a community of fast and creative genius and developers: in less than two months, more than 20 mashups were developed by software companies, senior developer and students. That is a serious illustration of this dynamic developer community and we endeavour to continue to support and do more with them in the future.