September 2006

As Sony Mylo is rolling out, opinions and news are pouring in. One bit in the recent AP/FOXNews review caught my eye.

The music player can handle MP3, ATRAC as well as secured and unsecured Windows Media Audio files, but not anything purchased at Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store. /—-/ Songs can be transferred to the Mylo through a USB cable, but I couldn’t test that functionality as Sony didn’t include that cable with the review unit. I was able to upload a few MP3 files to the device through Skype and got them to play.

So… in some settings and also with these new gadgets, Skype File Transfer may prove to be the most versatile and convenient way of transporting things between your and your buddies’ computers and other devices, both at home and at office. We sure know it “in-house”, as we at Skype use the File Transfer daily for moving about, well, just about anything we need to. Cool to see the rest of the world is realizing this too.

Just a while ago, we put out some pages that quickly give you an overview of the most essential Skype features. Sometimes you may simply have a question, “so, what can this Skype thing do?”. Or you may need to explain the same thing to someone who’s not yet familiar with Skype. The features pages help you do that, as they’re the essential collection of the most important things you need to know about the topline Skype features.

For example, did you know that…

• … you can put Skype calls on hold?
• … the video calls work even if only one of you in the call has a webcam and the other doesn’t? Obviously, for best results and mutual enjoyment, it’s best if both of you have it.
• … the Skype chat emoticons are among the coolest and most expressive ones out there?
• … you can see your Outlook contacts in Skype?

All this, and more, on the Skype features pages.

I’m reviewing the submissions of a contest we recently had and still have, where you could submit your stories and win something if the judges find it to be good. There’s one submission that really cries out loud to be posted here — a poem to Skype. Not sure if it will win, but it’s one of the better ones I’ve seen :)

Skype, you are my honey,
because you save me money.

With you I stay in touch,
with my friends so very much.

You’re so easy to use,
how could someone not you choose?

I use you ev’ry day,
and hope you are here to stay!

Following up on what appears to be the Asian week on this blog, here are some more pictures from Beijing Dazhong Electronics store, where we had an activity just a while ago now. Dazhong has 92 stores and is one of the top four electronics chain stores in China. In Beijing, they have more than half of the market share, and this was one of our first retail promos in mainland China.

Continue reading "Skype posters and banners at Beijing Dazhong Electronics store" »

More news from PCHome and Taiwan. Skype and PCHome recently did a campus tour in various Taiwan universities. I had a word with the tour organizers and also learned a bit what the universities and students are like there.

How many students signed up for a Skype Name during the tour so far?

We don’t have an accurate number of this, as you can count it in different ways. For example, some people tried Skype a long time ago, but did not use it for more than a year. They claimed that they would come back to use it again as soon as they learned about SkypeOut, SMS or other new features. Others had been on Skype for a while, but did not know you can use Skype to call traditional phones. We are quite sure most of them will try SkypeOut as we could give them a Skype Credit voucher to try out.

Continue reading "PCHome-Skype Taiwan university campuses tour" »

We are delighted to announce that tomorrow Skypecasts will host two great authors, Michael Connelly and Shari Caudron. Skypecasts is a great way for fans to listen to their favourite authors discuss their new books and even get the chance to participate in a Q&A session.

Michael Connelly, who is most notable for his award-winning Detective Harry Bosh series, will talk tomorrow at 17:00 about his new book Echo Park. Michael will read an excerpt of his newest book and take questions from the audience. The first 25 Michael Connelly fans to log on to the Skypecast will receive a signed copy of Echo Park.

Shari Caudron has written several articles and essays for national magazines in the US. She has also written two books, “What Really Happened” and “Who Are You People?” the latter being featured by National Public Radio. It was also nominated as Typepad’s Book of The Month for September. To share your fanatical views with Shari don’t hesitate to join this Skypecast tomorrow September 26th at 2PM PT.

For more information about these two Skypecasts on September 26th:

Michael Connelly Skypecasts - 5PM GMT

Shari Caudron Skypecasts - 2PM PT

Skype and PCHome Online are running a campaign where we added Skype on a number of Taiwan community portals. Do you know what are the popular community portals in Taiwan? Neither did I. So here are a few screens of what’s going on there.

www.wretch.cc is the biggest online photo and blog community in Taiwan. Wretch has put PChome-Skype download link on their main page and their users can put a Skype Name and Skype button next to their pictures / blog.

www.gamer.com.tw is the most popular online game site in Taiwan. Popular with the college students. Users can put a Skype Name and Skype button in their game blog.

www.anyway.com.tw is the most popular online travel website. Users can put a Skype Name and Skype button to their ‘On my way’ blog.

We reported previously that Lech Wałęsa is said to be a big Skype fan. Niklas went over to Poland to see that for himself. He also met up with several other Polish dignitaries in a panel discussion “Freedom of communication — privilege or necessity?” held in Warsaw, Poland on Tuesday, Sept 14, by Skype and our Polish friends at Onet.pl.

Continue reading ""Freedom of Communication" in Poland with Niklas, Lech Wałęsa" »

To celebrate the International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and to showcase how you can customize Skype yourself if you’re bored of the default texts, we bring you the Skype “talk like a pirate” language file. Just download the file and then in Skype, click “Tools”, “Change Language”, “Load Skype Language File”. Click on the picture to see the larger texts, shipmate.

Credit for this goes to Claudius who maintains the German Skype blog and our eBay friend Adrian. :-)

Continue reading "Arrrrrrrr, ye Skype "talk like a pirate" language file" »

Jessica is conducting research on this topic. If you’re interested in this and believe you have insight, please contact her directly.

How universal is the Internet? Will blogging lead to an exchange of cultures within the online community uninhibited by age, gender or geographic position? In an attempt to research this and other aspects of user behaviour online, an ongoing investigation is underway to compare how French speakers and English speakers communicate online, looking at the extent to which the Internet is influencing language in the two different cultural settings. I am interested in hearing from Skypers (please include profile) who may have a particular point of view about the way in which society uses the Internet.

Here is a novel example of how one online partner is integrating Skype functionality in to their offering.

Social dating website www.teamdating.com is now allowing members to show their Skype status to one another and communicate directly via Skype IM chat or Internet phone call.

Here’s how Teamdating.com has gone about integrating Skype:

1. They have added a field for members to ADD their Skype ID during the Sign-up process

2. They have given members the ability to download Skype during the Sign Up process

3. Once logged into the site, members can enter/edit/turn on/turn off their Skype online status straight from there Team Home page

4. All Teams can view other teams’ Skype online status, and then initiate Chat or Calls

5. They have added Skype to their “Get Social” list of preferred links, so again, for members that do not have Skype, they provide them access to download it from the site

If you have an online community website then this is a great example of how to partner with Skype to enhance your user’s experience and differentiate yourselves from the competition. For more information of how to do this, see the Online Parnters section of the Skype website.

By integrating Skype in to your website, you can also be listed in the Skype Extras Gallery

It’s here. No longer a preview, it’s now a “beta”. Download. More info in our Mac blog.

Already during the preview phase, we got lots of “thanks” and kind words from the Skype for Mac community, along with suggestions and problems feedback. All appreciated and useful.

Stepping back from this specific release — why Skype Video is cool is that it’s one of the few video calling solutions that’s simple to use and really just working across platforms and networks.

If you’re on Mac, please help us by telling us what you think of this beta, or comment on the forum.

You often see big news about major new products on this blog and on our website. Launching new stuff is only a part of what we do at Skype. Another, often invisible but in the long run the more important part is improving what we already have, based on what you tell us.

Here’s a small example about a fix that we just put out there regarding how you buy SkypeIn. We have this concept of “reserved number” — that is, a SkypeIn number that you don’t currently own but that’s reserved to you. That may happen when you just click around when buying things on Your Account (when you select a number, you must initiate the payment in 30 minutes), or when you have a number that you owned previously, but you didn’t renew it so it “expires”, so to speak, but we still keep it with you for 90 days just in case if you want to change your mind and still extend it. Whew…

So anyway, you have these reserved numbers associated with you. But they were hard to find because their list was below the country selection, which in layout terms means “(very much) below the fold”, and nobody ever scrolled down so nobody ever saw those. And you told us, “dear Skype, this stuff is really confusing and hard to use. How about making it easier.” We looked at it and weren’t really sure why it was placed where it was, but what the heck, let’s just make it easier then.

And so now we display these reserved numbers right above the country flags so they’re really really hard to miss. More clarity in the purchasing process means more happy Skypers and less support load for Skype. Everybody wins. (Click on the picture to see the bigger version.)

These days, the old stigma regarding online dating has all but disappeared. A lot of people are starting to realize that All You Can Drink Margarita Night at the tiki bar might not be the best place to meet your eternal soulmate—and that maybe Match.com might yield better results (although we’re still not buying Dr. Phil’s advice).

I’m eager to hear from Skypers who have met their special someone online—either via Skype itself or through a 3rd party dating service—and who then bolstered their “virtual” relationship over Skype before meeting in person. If that’s you, click here to give me (most of) the juicy details.

Skype for Windows is “officially” available in 27 languages. When you go to “Tools”, “Change Language”, you can choose a language that you like.

Did you know we actually have many more languages that you, the public, have translated Skype into? While we do not bundle these with the official release, the translators do a great job of keeping their work up-to-date. So Skype is available also in Lithuanian, Slovak, Uighur, Hrvatski, Thai, Albanian and many other languages.

To download the community translations or participate in making them even better, just head over to our Skype Translations forum where all the translation action happens.

Here is a promotion run by a Skype partner Perfectel together with Fleurop-Interflora. If you buy a bunch of flowers from Fleurop-Interflora, you will receive a free Perfectel USB phone. More importantly, if you refer five friends and anyone one of them buys flowers, then all 5 friends and yourself will receive a voucher for 30 minutes of SkypeOut. The campaign runs until November 30, 2006.

As the dinosaurs above are explaining, the Skypecast server is temporarily down. We apologize for the inconvenience. A well-skilled team of technicians and geniuses are currently working overtime to fix the problem, and we promise not to let them rest until it’s taken care of. Please check back in tomorrow if you’d like to host a Skypecast, as we expect to have the issues resolved as soon as possible. In the meantime, why not feed your brain by clicking here and listening to a recording of a previous Skypecast with a candidate for UN Secretary General?

UPDATE: back to normal now.

The next VON Conference is happening in Boston on Sept 11-14. I’ve had a few people ask if Skype will be there. The answer is no, we will not be at this show in any official capacity. You may find some random Skype staff wondering around, but unfortunately we will not be speaking or exhibiting at the event.

However our Partner Ascalade have announced that they will be exhibiting their new Skype Certified™ VoIP phone, at booth number 508. And looking down the list of exhibitors, I can see several other Skype partners, including Polycom, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Linksys, and RTX . So if you are attending, be sure to pop by and visit these stands.

This is one of those cool posts where it’s so fulfilling to click “publish” :) Do you still remember the North American free calls announcement? Free SkypeOut calls within North America and Canada until the end of 2006. Still ongoing.

Many thought “why only America”? Well fear not Europe, because Skype is with you. As of right now and until the end of 2006, all SkypeOut calls to landlines within France are free. Unlimited. Zero price. No catches.

If you’re from France or just speak French, check out our French site and the French blog for more ongoing coverage.

A couple of things to point out…

• in France, this applies to landlines only. In North America, it covers both landlines and mobiles.
• you can call for free within the individual “islands”, that is, within North America and France. You cannot call North America from France for free or vice versa — in this case, the regular SkypeOut rates continue to apply.
• in both North America and France, if you use Call Forwarding then it costs you the standard SkypeOut rate.

What’s next? Can we expect more “free countries”? What happens in 2007? I don’t have the info to post here just yet, but 2007 is not that far away any more, so we’ll have to come up with the answers soon, so stay tuned for that. And until then, enjoy the free calls in USA, Canada and France.

Here is an interesting promotion being run by one of our partners. If you buy a bunch of flowers from Fleurop-Interflora you will also receive a free Perfectel USB phone. More importantly, if you refer five friends and anyone one of them buys flowers, then all 5 friends and yourself will receive a voucher for 30 minutes of SkypeOut.

Just another example of how our partners are finding creative ways to spread the word about Skype.

I asked Susan who won our third birthday card competition a few questions about how she came in contact with Skype and what is she up to these days and what we can improve in Skype for her.

A few words about you. Who are you, where do you come from, what do you do?

I’m from the US (Virginia). Lived there for 30 years and worked in the electronic data security industry for the last seven. Then I decided I needed a change. I wanted to experience another culture - to broaden my horizons - so I left the States and went half way around the world to teach English in South Korea. I currently live in Seoul. I have been here for one year and love it. I am extending my stay for another year.

Continue reading "Susan the birthday card competition winner" »

The Skype 3rd birthday card competition is now over. A big THANK YOU to all of you who sent us a card.

We got over 160 cards from all over the world. We got e-cards, pictures, videos, even a podcast. What we like especially about the cards was their diversity, both in content and where they came from. Skype is truly spread all over the world and it shows well in the cards.

Here is the winner as well as some other highlighted entries.

The winning entry

Here it is. Click on the picture to see the bigger, better readable texts.

It comes from Susan, originally from the US but currently living in South Korea. Congratulations, Susan! :) We will shortly ship you the prizes, one USR9610 speakerphone and one USR9601 USB Internet Phone from our friends at US Robotics, as well as a Skype Cordless VoIP Dualphone from AmperorDirect.com.

Read an interview with Susan.

Continue reading "Skype third birthday card competition results" »

Ming Campbell, Leader of the UK Liberal Democrats party is hosting a Skypecast tomorrow morning regarding the need for a constitutional reform. This provoking Skypecast will enable people to share their views and opinions in a live debating format and shows how Skypecasts really connects people.

For those who would like to know more about the Liberal Democrat’s Taking Power Policy and have the opportunity to ask live questions to Ming, join this exclusive Skypecast tomorrow at 10h15.

Do you want to know how we make Skype? Like… really? really really?

Due to the distributed nature of the teams, we use chat a lot. Now, the good thing about the chats is of course that everything you “say” gets recorded. And we’ve been collecting the “best of” from these chats. Sort of our own little mini-version of bash.org, one of the best Internet sites for geek jokes.

Here’s a mini-policy for these. For obvious reasons, you won’t find references to any “sensitive” stuff, ongoing products or projects. I’ve anonymized the quotes to protect the innocent. However, what you see here is 100% genuine, with perhaps only typos corrected and some four-letter words “asterisked”, and comes straight from the Guts Of The Organism That Is Making Skype.

It may be disturbing at times. Unexpected. Maybe funny. Maybe at times not so intelligent as the stuff in 37signals’ chats. (As said, some of the good stuff also has to be left out.) Sometimes black humor. As Jaan, one of Skype’s founding engineers has said…

I like the Monty Python-esque atmosphere in Skype — everything and everybody can be laughed at and being serious is considered a crime (I think you’ve noticed the attitude if you’ve browsed this far on our website)! So, if you don’t have a sense of humor, please don’t apply for a job at Skype, thank you!

If one of Skype’s masterminds says it, this is how it must be :) So… here are some quotes.

A: B would like to have a speech :P
B: I have a dream
C: (clap)

the problem with massive chats is that you boys always turn serious scientific effort into 5th grade class trip to zoo

Continue reading "How we actually make Skype" »