April 2007

Yesterday we put out this piece of news about how more than 10 million Extras have been downloaded from our Extras Gallery, with CrazyTalk and Pamela being among the more popular ones.

Just out of curiosity, I pulled our records about how quickly Skype itself reached 10 million downloads. We released Skype in August 2003, and it hit 10 million downloads in April 2004, bringing it to roughly six months. For the extras, it only took four months. So I think this is a powerful example of how Skype continues to foster ecosystems and complementary businesses around it. Hopefully we can show similar figures with our other new initiatives down the road.

Here’s an interesting and hopefully inspiring use of Skype in education. (Thanks to the one who sent me the email ) This time, it doesn’t come from a university — instead, it comes from K-12 where we have seen many similar great stories and a lot of innovation happens. I’m not even ten years out of high school, but I’m already feeling old here. (And I’ve always been wondering what’s this “K-12” thing. With K meaning “kindergarten”, it’s nothing more than simply a shortcut for referring to the whole education system from kindergarten up to the 12th grade in the US. I guess you could also call it “everything before college”. So no further magic.)

Anyway, through the Infinite Thinking Machine and Learning is Messy blogs, we travel to Agnes Risley Elementary School in Sparks, Nevada.

After learning of a new, homebound 4th grade student in his class who has leukemia, Mr. Crosby found the resources to connect the student to her classroom from home using Internet connected computers, webcams, and Skype.

Photo reposted from “Learning is messy”

Just watch the video produced by the 4th graders. There’s not much that I can add here.

An interesting email I got about how Skype and podcasting are used to create an interactive learning environment. In case of 1-on-1 coaching, the lesson typically remains between the student and the teacher. Here, you can listen to the sessions that others have had and so it’s a learning experience even if you just observe and don’t engage in a dedicated session yourself.

Dear Jaanus

Thanks for the news you provide through your ‘Skype Around the World’ blog. I’ve found the stories about innovative uses of Skype great reading!

I thought you might be interested in having a look at a podcast I produce weekly for advanced level English Language students. Students contact me to sign up for an interview through Skype. The interview is student driven and the content is determined by, for example, the particular exam they might be doing or a situation at work that they want to practise for such as an interview or meeting. The interviews are recorded using Powergramo and then posted as a podcast for other advanced learners to listen to. Each podcast features an introduction to the skill being looked at, the interview itself and then feedback from me on the student’s performance.
The podcast is hosted at podomatic: http://www.splendidspeaking.podomatic.com
I use podomatic to host these podcasts rather than my own dedicated website as I’m hoping that students will eventually use the service to create their own podcasts, using them perhaps for ther own informal audio-portfolio, where friends and teachers can offer feedback on interviews or monologues they may carry our independently of me. I also help run another site for esl learners called flo-joe. We have noticed a steady increase here in students working independently, peer reviewing each other’s writing tasks and the hope is I can help them to do the same with their speaking skills.
Hope you like it!

Best wishes

Pete

Peter Travis
http://www.splendid-speaking.com

Hi. I’m back. I was off for a few weeks, but life at Skype never stops and a lot has been happening. So instead of posting something original, today I’ll reuse the great work of my colleagues and point you to a few random items in our other blogs (did you know we have quite a few? See the list in the right sidebar and subscribe to the ones that interest you.)

Skype 2.6 beta for Mac OS X. I like. Typing indicators, joining public chats and many other goodies. See the post for the full list of what’s new.

Secondly, our values. Now this is really really important and I’m happy to see these posted. We often say that values define “how” we do things, and here they are, updated for 2007. It’s likely we’ll keep updating them, similarly as we have also done before, but this is where we stand today.

The values are an extremely interesting read. I was part of the team compiling them, and so I can assure you that we didn’t just create them “out of the blue”. They capture a wealth of experience, insight and learnings from the past few years of Skype and the daily challenges and opportunities we’ll need to keep managing.

And while we’re at it, are you keeping an eye on our jobs site feed? It has a constantly updating list of our available positions, together with great interludes such as this “softer side and values” post.

Finally, if you’re a Skype-related developer, or just thinking of becoming one, you can come see us and other developers in person if you happen to be in London in May. There’s a Skype developer event happening right at our London office on Thursday, May 10th. As space is limited, and for facilities security, please register by e-mail by following instructions in that post.

We just started a blog of its own for Skype Prime — skypeprime.skype.com. This is where we will be sharing ideas for promoting and pricing Skype Prime services. Of course this is also another channel for users to send us feedback. Skype Prime is still in Beta status and your ideas and comments will help to make it better for the final release.

If you’ve already signed up for Skype Prime to get paid for your skills and talents subscribe to the RSS feed. It may also be worthwhile to take a look around if you haven’t even heard of Skype Prime before.

I know, I know, I’m late to the April 1 party. But this Skype for Cows release is still hilarious Though it doesn’t cover the new version’s most obvious feature, MOOd messages.

“Ask not what Skype can do for you — ask what you can do for Skype.”

Remember how we started the dialog about consumer rights on wireless networks in the US? I haven’t posted on it for the past month, but things have been quietly moving on. And now, we are at a stage where we need your help.

If you agree with what we are suggesting (read the previous post for more information), then please help us by going to the FCC site here and show your support by sending in your comment. The “Proceeding” number that you should use is RM-11361, and you fill in the rest of the fields as indicated, and just send it in. The deadline to do this is April 30, so be sure to send your comments over the next few weeks.

I took a few days off. When I came back, people greeted me with this thing about how Skype restricts freedom of speech about political topics on Skypecasts.

Conspiracy theories are cool, but as it often happens, this one is simply not true. We don’t filter out political content in Skypecasts. On the contrary, they’re a great global platform to discuss the world’s current topics with anyone in English and other languages and we encourage this in every way.

The gory truth of why people may not have been able to register a Skypecast is that they may have hit a technical system bug that may have prevented some people from starting a Skypecast. Sorry about that. We get these from time to time and yes, it’s unfortunate, but it has nothing to do with moderation. I suggest that you bookmark the Heartbeat site for future reference — if we have major trouble in any part of our systems, we’ll post updates there.

As for Skypecasts guidelines, please take a look at our Community Guidelines for Skypecasts and Skype Etiquette, that define the guidelines for how we view and define things. Among other things, it says:

Skype reserves the right to ban temporarily or permanently users who breach these guidelines.

We have found that it makes sense to develop these guidelines and policies together with our community, rather than trying to come up with a definitive list of fixed keywords or something like that. We rely on you as the community to report things that you find objectionable — you have a “Report as inappropriate” button for each Skypecast. Please use it if you find objectionable content. And yes, I know we have taken down Skypecasts as a result of these reports, but instead of politics, they have been about grossly abusive or illegal content or images.