August 2008

From the supporters to the sceptics among you, we’ve been enjoying reading what people have been saying about Skype over the last week or so. As Skype turns five, many of you have taken the opportunity to speculate about the future, or to reiterate your criticisms and concerns – but to everyone out there who’s wished us a happy birthday, thank you

Dan York’s Disruptive Telephony blog has an incredibly comprehensive assessment of Skype – and I suggest you head over and read the full post yourself – but thought it was worth picking out some highlights:

Continue reading "On five years of Skype" »

For those of you who don't know me, I'm our US blogger, writing regularly about Skype news, views and the inside track on the company from a uniquely American angle.

Back in late 1995, I was new on the tech beat at the Chicago Sun-Times.

I asked to cover the Net because I was tired of the medical beat. My bosses knew I was an early Net adopter so they set me loose to cover the emerging tech. I cover the pre-boom Internet, the dot-com boom and the dot-bomb, and then on to Web 2 and beyond before I left the paper in January.

Voice on the Net was among the technologies that intrigued me back then and does to this day, both personally and as Skype's US blogger.

The problem back in those days was you couldn't easily connect with friends and family. It was a bit like ham radio.

Continue reading "Happy Birthday from Howard Wolinsky" »

I'm staring at the blinking cursor on an empty page. This page. And it occurs to me that five years ago today, Skype was that cursor. An impatient speck on the world's radar screen, vying for attention that would help write a new chapter in the history of communication.

With the benefit of five years of hindsight, Skype's success now appears so logical, so natural. As if Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis and their skeleton crew of Estonian programmers had planned it all along.

Hmm. They simply couldn't have predicted where this journey would take them and millions of others - who, among them, have clocked up more than 100 billion Skype-to-Skype minutes. Visionary foresight is one thing. But expecting Skype to have touched close to 350 million users by year five, to have enabled billions of conversations, enriched and even enabled millions of relationships, and along the way to have helped transform one of the largest industries in the world? That would have been downright delusional.

Continue reading "Five Years of Wow" »

I posted a few early photos and videos of the 3 Skypephone S2 on the UK blog on Tuesday, but thought it was time to share some more of what we've seen around the blogosphere.

The combination of free calls and cheap high speed internet access (using the handset's HSDPA modem capabilities) seems to be a favourite among those who've tried the phone so far, and I've summarised a few of the latest reviews below.

Continue reading "3 Skypephone S2: the blogosphere's verdict" »

The decision to retire Skypecasts wasn’t an easy one to make, and I understand that many of our long-time Skypecast users will be upset. However, the reason for retiring them is this – we want to focus on making Skype software for Windows, Mac, Linux and mobile phones truly great, and so unfortunately we have to be strict about what we concentrate our efforts on.

Many of you have commented on the original announcement, and given the number of comments, I’m not going to be able to reply to each of you individually. A number of you said that you were worried that the move would reduce the opportunities to meet new people, as well as making it harder to keep in touch with friends, and so I’d like to respond specifically to some of those points:

Continue reading "Some more on Skypecasts" »

At Skype, our aim is to offer products that delight people and enable the world's conversations. Part of our vision means coming up with new ways for our community of more than 338 million registered users to stay in touch.

Skypecasts is one of the many features that we've developed to enable these conversations. What we've learned by watching how the product is used and through user feedback is that Skypecasts is not quite measuring up to our high standards and expectations for connecting and delighting our users.

As a result, we have made the decision to retire Skypecasts from active service for the immediate future, effective 12 noon BST on Monday, 1st September 2008.

This decision is consistent with Skype's efforts to prioritise resources towards the products and areas of innovation that that will have the biggest impact on the Skype community.

Philosophically, we continue to believe in the concept of Skypecasts - group communication on a specific topic of interest. As such, we will look for ways to reintroduce this functionality in a way that lives up to both our and our community's high standards.

To those people who regularly enjoy hosting and taking part in Skypecasts, we apologise for the inconvenience and hope we'll be able to release a new and improved Skypecasts product in the not too distant future. We'll be sure to let you know when that day arrives.

Peter Parkes is reporting on big news on the availability of the new 3 Skypephone in the Skype blog.

While in the United Kingdom recently, I not only got to meet with Peter, but also tried out the earlier version of the an earlier version of the 3 Skypephone.

Sadly, this phone is not available in the United States. But I got a look at what may be coming someday.

My Skype address book popped right up after I registered the phone. So I decided to give it a spin.

I called Chris, a friend back in Chicago, via Skype on the phone. The sound quality was great--plus the call was free.

I did run into a voice connection problem in a rural area outside the old Roman town of Bath.

Still, I was able to do a Skype chat with a friend in Tucson while on the tour bus outside Bath en route to Stonehenge. (Hope you enjoy my photos.)

I told my friend Ted that I couldn't get through on voice. I joked that the Roman cell reception was poor.

I told Ted the issue was there was no "roamin' (Roman) plan." (Nonetheless, Bath was a planned Roman city, roaming plans or not.)

Ted suggested that the Romans didn't have GSM, but were strictly analog.

I learned later that Ted wasn't far off. A manager in a 3 store in a shopping mall in Liverpool, not far from the Albert Dock, told me that in some areas voice didn't work because of antiquated infrastructure. He wasn't talking about aqueducts, either.

Still, the Skype chat with my man in Arizona worked great.

In the blog, Peter asks: "How does the S2 compare to the original 3 Skypephone?

"New user interface -- even easier to use than the original 3 Skypephone, with a carousel interface which makes switching apps speedy. It preserves the integrated Skype phonebook, so your contacts' Skype names appear alongside their landline or mobile phone numbers."

The S2 also can take photos and can browse the Web.

Maybe someday, we'll be able to use this phone, or something like it, in the USA. Meanwhile, while UK residents can enjoy the 3, we are still on the "II" in the Stone(henge) Age and can only dream of the III.

Although it hasn't exactly been kept a secret, we're all very excited to announce that the new 3 Skypephone is here. It's called the S2, and as with the first 3 Skypephone, Skype is fully integrated, so you can make and calls and send instant messages to Skype users anywhere in the world absolutely free.

Equally, it's absolutely free for other people to call you or message you on Skype while you're using the 3 Skypephone S2. Of course, it does all of the other things you'd expect a mobile to do too - make calls, send text messages, take photos and browse the web.

How does the S2 compare to the the original 3 Skypephone?

New user interface — even easier to use than the original 3 Skypephone, with a carousel interface which makes switching apps speedy. It preserves the integrated Skype phonebook, so your contacts' Skype names appear alongside their landline or mobile phone numbers.

Better build, screen and camera — it has metal keys and back as well as a bigger screen (2.2" vs. 2") at higher resolution (240 x 320 vs. 176 x 220) and a better camera (3.2 megapixel vs. 2 megapixel).

HSDPA broadband and built-in dongle capabilities - it has built in modem drivers so you can use the cable that comes in the box to plug it into your laptop and get online.

Facebook and Last.fm apps and RSS reader - convenient access to Facebook and Last.fm, plus your top RSS feeds, while on the move.

Where can I get one?

It's available in the UK only at present, and it's available to buy now. It's priced at £69.99 on Pay as You Go, and it's free with a contract from £15 per month.

Update: Our calling subscriptions have been updated to include Moscow, St Petersburg, Buenos Aires and Córdoba (Argentina) - please refer to the more recent blog post for the latest information.

When we launched our subscriptions back in April, we had always planned to increase the number of countries included. And today, we’re happy to announce the first two new members of our unlimited calling club: Finland and Israel (finishing 22nd and 9th respectively in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest).

This is great news for existing subscribers, as Skype's subscriptions now offer even better value — and is very exciting for people who call Finland and Israel on a regular basis.

Continue reading "Unlimited calls to Finland and Israel now included in subscriptions" »