March 2008

I came across a post by John McArthur, head of Walden Technology Partners and a recent convert to Skype. What got my imagination going was his experience with Skype (paired with a Logitech webcam) that sparked memories of his visit to the New York World's Fair in 1964. That year, AT&T demonstrated its Picturephone, an effort to add faces to the voices in a phone conversation. The concept never took off and AT&T now calls it "big, expensive, and uncomfortably intrusive."

Continue reading "Video calls more than 50 years ago" »

In our work, we run into all kinds of stories where people have put Skype to good use in their lives.

Distant lovers enjoying dinner -- and each other's company -- over a free video call. Local-government officials replacing meetings with multichats. Homesick soldiers keeping a line open with their families. There are a lot of people who use Skype religiously, but until this post today by our US blogger Howard Wolinsky, I didn't think of it in literal terms.

If you believe that missionaries tend to be hardline Luddites who eschew modern technology, Malcolm Lanham's Mercy Ministries/Global Outreach will help prove you wrong. And if you are a missionary who, Luddite or not, has been limited to handwritten letters and once-a-month phone calls, Lanham's story may help you expand your horizons a bit.

Those of us at Skype and the broader internet communications industry are mourning the loss of a very strong voice in our community today. Word reached us this weekend that Russell Shaw, a blogger over at ZDNet's IP Telephony blog who has been a follower of Skype since our beginning, passed away.

At the young age of 60, Russell left us while he was doing what he enjoyed most, covering the industry in San Jose, CA for eComm2008 and VON.x.

Continue reading "Farewell, Russell Shaw" »

The Hollywood Reporter has done a nice story on how quick-thinking CNN tech staff in the US helped the network out of an equipment crunch by using Skype to carry a video interview.

This isn't the first time a major network has done so, as the article also points out. But it could help open the rusty floodgates. We're all used to seeing journalists in khaki-colored vests filing reports from the world's distant hotspots over the videophone, and strangely, the choppy quality of these reports does add a layer of raw believability to what is being transmitted. (Similarly, AM broadcasts to me feel more "radio-like" than the squeaky clean FM signals or the kills-bugs-dead sterility of satellite radio)

Continue reading "Skype "a good thing" for CNN" »

In his book "Yes Man," Danny Wallace tells us (among many, many other silly things) about his correspondence with Omar, "son of the murdered sultan of Oman", who needed to enlist Danny's "professionallism" in fleeing the country with 40 million bucks. A cool 10 million for Danny's troubles and it's "God's will". That's my kind of god, I tell you.

Serious officials in ill-fitting suits don't really like young sultans, presidential widows or sad princesses who need regular people like us to pull them out of a pickle. I guess they have a point.

A few days ago, however, the topic got a bit more interesting for me. That's because some generous soul is busy populating people's inboxes with what appear to be Skype lottery certificates. I mean, what's not to like about 200,000 dollars?

Continue reading "When something is too good to be true" »

Before you read on, let me remind you that it's Friday. The fifth day of the week. The day some people like to thank God or goodness for. In other words, Friday.

One of Skype's enduring values has been the ability to not take ourselves too seriously. The method today: mutilation by anagramming. The victims: three Skype slogans/taglines. Two of them are officially retired while one keeps showing up for work.

So, without further obfuscation, let's see if you can return these to their original form:

- Just throw freak in potent ethylene, rest
- Ear of well-clothed freak thrown
- The bat-eared peak

Perhaps anagramming them will be easier if you're a fan of bad horror films. Just a thought. Good luck!

The weekend is nigh and you're probably cherishing the thought of sleeping in on Saturday. Then again, you could be a selfless and dutiful Eastern European male who knows about International Women's Day and will wake up early to get your significant female other some flowers and cook her a proper breakfast.

In any case, I wanted to draw your attention to a nice piece by our UK blogger Peter. Inspired by a this week's Wall Street Journal article on businesses that banish useful and cool technologies, he's linked the issue to a Guardian story on the experimental spark that has led a couple of big firms to attempt morphing the monster known as corporate IT policy into a cute little puppy.

For quite some time, we've had bloggers sharing the Skype story in a number of countries -- if you're fluent in Portuguese or, say, Japanese, make your choice among the links on the right-side column on this page. But there's been a certain gap in our otherwise toothsome blogging smile.

Today, we're plugging it.

Please join me in welcoming Howard Wolinsky, who made his Oprah-themed debut on our oven-fresh U.S. blog today. Howard is a Pulitzer-nominated 27-year veteran of the Chicago Sun-Times who recently left the paper and now covers high tech, medicine, nanotech and business as a freelancer.

Not only is he a great writer with a keen nose for a good story, but has spun a darn good yarn about his own early moments at the Sun-Times. If you think you know what happened in the States on March 30, 1981, you're off to a good start. If this date doesn't ring a bell, get up to speed by reading about it in Howard's own words at GapersBlock. Trust me, it's worth your time.

So let's welcome Howard, his quirky sense of humor and the unique prism that this life-long reporter brings, to the Skype blogging fraternity!