August 2005

Skype is proud of being international and localized. We have partners in many countries, our services and software are available in tens of languages, both official and user-supported.

Yet a critical piece of the puzzle has been missing. No matter where you came from, if you wanted to buy our paid services, you were always forced to pay in the Euro currency. This was all fine and good for our European Union friends, but there are many of you in the world who haven’t seen a single Euro and conduct their daily lives in another currency. And we forced you to perform confusing rate calculations all the time (“How much does this cost in my currency? How about this call? How much credit do I really have left?”)

Or, we’re happy to say, it used to be so until now. Dollar payments for Skype paid services are now available as public beta.

Continue reading "Let's roll those dollars (yet another beta)" »

Personalise Skype has been launched! It’s a service that allows you to break out of the familiar Skype sounds, ringtones and pictures “box” and download some first rate pictures for your profile and ringtones to make your cat purr or make your neighbours go mad. We’re all different so why should I have the same ringtone for incoming calls as Jaanus and having default Skype picture in the profile is no fun at all. Also, it helps your friends to find you in their contact list.

Sounds interesting? Check out our Personalise Skype pages and if you want more information about the service, how it works, requirements to use it or what happens if you change your computer then head over to our Personalise Skype Help pages. Personalize Skype requires the new Skype for Windows 1.4 that we just made available as beta.

Continue reading "Personalise Skype launched" »

It’s the day of the good news. We’ve just released Skype for Windows 1.4 beta as a secondary download. As usual, we recommend public betas only for advanced users and for testing — there are known issues but overall it should not break your computer or wreak havoc in some unknown way.

What’s new? Most importantly, significally improved call quality. We continue to work to maintain Skype’s leadership in defining how calls over the Internet should work and sound, and 1.4 is a major step forward on that path.

Featurewise there’s the über-requested call forwarding. This means that you can forward your incoming Skype-to-Skype and SkypeIn calls to either another Skype Name or to any landline or mobile phone. Yes — no more missed Skype calls! For forwarding calls to landline or mobile you need to have sufficient Skype balance available, but otherwise call forwarding itself is free and open to everyone.

You can do tons of cool stuff with forwarding — such as let your grandpa call you on your SkypeIn number. If you’re not around your computer, the call is automatically connected to your mobile, without the caller ever noticing the difference. Or, you can forward to multiple numbers and Skype Names, and the first one to pick up receives the call.

We’ve also spiced up Skype for those who’d like to see more personalized sounds, ringtones and pictures. You can get them from our webstore and the selection is certainly big. For now, this new service works only with Skype for Windows 1.4.

There are several improvements to search, adding contacts, Getting Started Wizard and finding contacts from your Outlook, Outlook Express and Opera address books. Following are some other changes you may find interesting in this version. Full list of changes is in the change log.

Continue reading "Skype 1.4 beta: better sound quality, call forwarding, personalization" »

Today we are sharing the all-new Skype for Windows Mobile Pocket PC v1.2 - Beta.

Skype for Pocket PC provides you with the freedom to enjoy Skype on the go: in the home, office or outdoors - wherever there is a high speed data network (WiFi, 3G or EDGE) which your Pocket PC can connect to. So, find your favorite WiFi hot spot and Skype away. If you get an EDGE or 3G enabled Pocket PC with a high speed data plan, you can really start going places, while talking to your buddies for free.

Version 1.2 offers the ability to make Skype to Skype calls, Skype Out calls, instant message chats and to send and receive voicemail. We also worked hard to provide good voice quality. Supported languages now include: English, German, French, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian and Spanish.

For the best sound quality we recommend you use earphones, a device with a CPU of at least 300MHz as well as built-in WiFi. If you don’t plan to use earphones, we recommend you turn on the ‘echo cancellation’ in the Skype application (You can do that under Tools / Options in the Skype PPC application). If you plan to use an external WiFi card, your devices should have at least a 400MHz CPU.

You can start using it today but remember, this is still an evaluation version and hence it is not perfect, yet. Just download the following file to your Windows desktop or laptop: http://www.skype.com/go/mobile Note: Do NOT download this file directly to your Pocket PC, as it will not be recognized. Rather download it to your desktop or laptop computer and then use ActiveSync to transfer it to your Pocket PC.

Please share with us your comments on voice quality, ease of use, places you enjoy using Skype on your Pocket PC and what exact device you are using it on. Just post your comments here or on the Pocket PC forum at: http://forum.skype.com/viewtopic.php?t=33354

Thanks for helping us make a better product for you!

Nitzan Shaer Product Manager, Handheld Devices

A sincere thank you from all of us at Skype to the 500+ developers who contacted us in just 24 hours wanting to work together to join Skype and the open Web. The response has been amazing and has come from developers, bloggers, and just plain excited end users wanting to get started today. Here is just a sampling of what people are telling us:

“I would like to use SkypeNet API to bring Skype to mobile phones equipped with WLAN.”

“I want to add Skype presence to some cool WAP/XHTML sites I have!”

“I would like to integrate skype status into the Lotus Notes client.”

“I work with Public Schools in the UK to develop improved communication and shared practices using cost effective, innovative technology.”

“I would be very interested in looking into building a small server system using the Skype API.”

“I would like to share Skype on my blog.”

“We are interested to integrate Skype User into our hotspot network and technology.”

“I’d like to get more details on the SkypeNet API. We are interested providing services on Linux / PHP systems that incorporate Skype functionality and SkypeNet seems perfect.”

“Our groupware software can be a good platform for the SkypeWeb API.”

“We’d like to get started right away with SkypeNet. WE LOVE SKYPE!!!”

“We are intressed in using Skype as communication channel to web user.”

“I am interested in developing a skype application for interactive TV.”

More information will be sent out to all of you who have reached out to us over the past few days telling you when and how you can get started adding SkypeWeb to your Web sites and blogs, and using SkypeNet to support Skype IM and presence in your applications. SkypeWeb will require a future release of Skype to enable the feature and a beta will be coming soon to get you started. In the meantime, thanks for your support and creativity. We can’t wait to see where you’ll take this.

As part of celebrating our second year anniversary, Skype has a present to give back to the internet for all of the amazing support we have received from the internet community. We are announcing two new initiatives that make Skype and the Web a little more interesting and open up new possibilities for the developer and partner community. After all … sharing is good :)

Introducing SkypeWeb

We’ve heard from you that Skype doesn’t just let you talk for free over the internet, but has become an integral part of managing communication with your family, friends, and colleagues. Letting people know when you are available to talk via Skype makes the tool smarter unlike the telephone which just rings even when you are busy. SkypeWeb will enable you to let others know when you are free and make it easy for them to reach you from any Web site, blog, email, or just about anything that can speak HTML. SkypeWeb extends Skype beyond your contact list and lets people connect with you via Skype even if they are not a Skype user.

How will it work? Simple actually, just tell Skype that you want to share your online status with the Web, copy and paste a few lines of HTML and script that Skype will give you and voila … your Skype status is on the Web. Look for more announcements in the coming weeks from partners who will make sharing your Skype status on the Web quick and easy.

Interested in working with us to make it easy for Skypers to share their status on the Web? Drop us a line at skypeweb@skype.com.

Introducing SkypeNet API

Wouldn’t it be cool if your friends using other IM applications could contact you on Skype? We want Skype to be the worlds largest open IM system on the planet! What if you could use Skype to communicate with a product reviewer on a Web site, to chat with other players in an online game using Skype? All of these things and a few more that we haven’t dreamed up yet will become possiblities with SkypeNet API, a new set of tools and services that programmers can use to take Skype into new places that you may have never dreamed of before.

SkypeNet API will enable developers to access our IM and Presence system and bring it into new applications without needing to have the full version of Skype running on the machine. Think of it as mini Skype that can bring Skype to new places and let you do things you couldn’t do before. Details on the SkypeNet API will be coming soon, but we want to start the fun now. Interested in getting on board with SkypeNet now and just can’t wait until we publish more?

Contact us at skypenet@skype.com

Sometimes we hear people think that Skype is a rockstar-only company and that you must have three PhD-s to work here. This is most certainly NOT the case. Many of us are just starting their career or are here for the summer as interns. This is also true for Steve, today’s featured staff, who came to Skype as part of a student exchange program.

Download this interview as MP3 or OGG (length 4:22).

Continue reading "Steve Zhang" »

We just hit two cool numbers fairly close in time. Today we passed 150 million downloads, and a few days back, 50 million registered Skype Names. It has been argued about what numbers are useful to track for whatever purpose may be in question — be it Skype’s future or how we are doing currently or what not. All that business lingo aside, we think large round numbers like 50 or 150 million are just fun, so we thought we’d let you know.

Today we feature a Skype developer community member — Dick Schiferli, the author of Skype’s oldest and one of the most successful plugin Pamela (website at pamela-systems.com). A lot of interesting insight into what a developer expects from Skype, how are new add-ons born, what we can both do better to bring a better experience to users, from someone who has been around in the IT industry for more than 20 years.

Download this interview as MP3 or OGG (length 19:18).

Continue reading "Dick Schiferli" »

The Skype Toolbars for Outlook and Internet Explorer that we’ve been working on for a while now, have now their own page on skype.com. We’ve had a lot of requests for toolbars for more apps like Firefox, and those are being worked on too.

Also keep an eye on our Extras Gallery which now has its own RSS feed so that you can monitor what new&cool stuff is added there.

Since a few days ago, we require all customers to be registered in our web store when buying SkypeOut, SkypeIn or Skype Voicemail. In simple terms, it means that you cannot buy anything until you have confirmed your e-mail address with us. It is a simple procedure that requires you to just click a few buttons, and the web store walks you through it at the time of your first purchase.

For more info on why this is necessary and how it works, see our Knowledge Base. One specific known issue is that sometimes the e-mail may not come through because of restrictive Junk Mail filters — see this article for explanation and possible remedies.

Our user research people are putting together research groups that help us better understand who you, our users are and what you expect of Skype. Which services and initiatives interest you, which don’t, which areas we can improve… that kind of thing.

We are conducting the groups at our office in central London. So if you are close to London and would like to be involved, we would value your help. As a thanks for your contribution, we’ll be giving you vouchers for SkypeIn, SkypeOut, Skype Voicemail and a bunch of other stuff.

If you’re interested in participating, e-mail research ‘at’ skype.net and let us know. The groups meet over the next couple of weeks, so be quick.

A review published on CNet highlights the main differences between Skype and other IM products offering Internet calls. Although the review is over two months old, nothing has radically changed in any of the contestants by now, so the table is still fairly accurate. Skype is the most localized one of the crowd, supporting over 20 languages officially and tens more unofficially through our translations forum. And this is a very valid comment.

Skype is the only messenger to offer encrypted data transfers, making it the most secure instant messenger of the bunch.

The other items unique to Skype in that review are the availability of inbound phone calls (SkypeIn numbers) and no ads in the interface.

Skype is reportedly being used from an Antarctican station to keep in touch with the rest of the world. See the related scenery.

photo from flickr.com

The German Skype forum www.skypeforum.de recently held a contest of Skype pictures. They asked the users to create images that had anything to do with Skype while being cool and/or funny and/or serious. We supported them with some SkypeOut and Voicemail credit for the winners.

Tons of great stuff submitted! We’re glad to see Skype provides this much inspiration to people :) Below is a selection of the works. Rough translations are provided in some cases — sorry if I got it wrong, German speakers please correct then.

Continue reading "The skypeforum.de Skype pictures contest" »

The Skypiquette doesn’t really exist yet. (Indicated also by the fact that the word turns up nothing in Google.) So let’s create it. As etiquette describes how to behave in daily real-life social situations and netiquette does the same on the Internet/web, we can say that Skypiquette is a shared set of rules that make your and others’ life and communications on Skype easier.

Here are some rules we’ve found useful ourselves.

Continue reading "Skypiquette" »

Skype Chat (some people call it “Instant Messaging”, but doesn’t “chat” sound much nicer and cleaner?) is the hidden gem of Skype. True, Skype is first and foremost about calling. But there are many times when you’d want to use text chat instead of, or together with, voice calls. So we went to great lengths to make it useful for ourselves — there are probably thousands of Skype chats going on among the Skype staff and our friends and partners at any given time — which hopefully means its useful and fun to you too.

There are some things in the chat feature that are not obvious, but once you get to know them, you’ll love them.

Continue reading "Skype Chat tips and tricks" »

Folks in our secret undercover engineering labs were kind enough to let me play with our recent WiFi phone prototype. We’re working with many companies on a wild variety of hardware concepts and the WiFi phone is just one example.

So it’s a piece of hardware that you can use to make Skype calls on a WiFi network without needing to use a computer. Don’t yet ask for photos, screenshots or details on how much it will cost, when and where it will be available etc — we bring you the news as soon as we know more ourselves. Until then, you’ll have to live with these remarks.

Continue reading "The WiFi phone prototype" »

Skype is taking over the Japanese retail world. Wherever you step in, you see counters like this.

Continue reading "Japanese retail takeover" »