Skype in United Kingdom

Cross-posted from the Skype for Business blog.

We’re holding small focus group discussions with potential partners and businesses. If you’re intrigued as to how Skype could benefit your business, or interested in helping us refine our offerings for business customers, please get in touch through our marketing research partner Hawkeye.

Groups are this Thursday evening in London. There is limited seating, so please email Janese Evans with your contact information and, a few sentences about the size and focus of your business.

We’ll get back to you as soon as we can with a few questions and the details. If you qualify for a open position and participate in the discussions, you’ll be paid an honorarium to compensate you for your time.

Cross-posted from the Skype for Business blog

Our user experience research team needs the help of UK businesses to shape the future of our business products and features.

In their continual drive to improve our products they’d like to visit your premises for half a day and conduct interviews with a selection of Skype users and decision makers, and observe how Skype is used in your business. Data collected will be strictly confidential and not shared or used for any purposes other than improving Skype for Business.

Your feedback has the potential to influence design changes, new features and product offerings. We’ll also offer compensation of €200 of Skype Credit (or equivalent in Pounds Sterling) for your time.

If you’re interested in participating please complete this form.

Gordon and Rita Galletly make a Skype video call to their friend Mitchell Block.

Today is Britain’s Silver Surfers’ Day, and to celebrate the occasion, I thought I’d bring you a heartwarming story from a few months ago. Our friends at Age Concern managed to set up a conversation between two UK-based senior citizens and one of their friends in the US at one of their regular IT events at their centre in Islington in north London.

It was the first time Gordon and Rita Galletly hadn’t seen their old friend Mitchell Block for 20 years, so the Skype video call was a special occasion, but the Galletlys seemed to be bitten by the Skype bug after the experience.

There are loads of events happening today to celebrate – take a look at the Digital Unite blog for more details – but to all of you older readers, now’s the time to introduce a friend to Skype

Gordon and Rita Galletly make a Skype video call to their friend Mitchell Block.

Keira Knightley in a TV interview – photo by moonhouse.

When Rupert Friend was asked how he and Keira Knightley keep in touch when they’re on location in far flung places, his response was an emphatic:

“We use Skype – old school!”

A Skype video call is the key to their often long-distance relationship, according to articles in mypark and OK.

Still, ‘old school’ isn’t bad for a five-year-old piece of software, eh?

Our buddies at 3 have put together a nifty Facebook app which lets you find out which of your Facebook friends are using Skype.

Simply add the app to your profile, tell it your Skype name, invite your friends to add it too, and it’ll tell you which of them are Skype users – it’s a great way to expand your Skype contact list.

You never know, there might be a few surprises in there – you could end up having a video call with a long-lost university friend, or catching up with a business contact by instant message. And with hundreds of thousands of people signing up to Skype every day, you’ll be able to spot them as soon as they join

Some of you may remember the video we made to show off the video features of Skype 4.0 for Windows.

Our friends at Poke and Flynn helped us put together the final video, but they also managed to sneak a quick look behind the scenes and catch up with our resident Rubik’s Cube genius.

He’s responsible for all of the Rubik’s Cube action you see in the video – and the photos below might help you figure it all out

Faking it

Hand make-up

Hand model

On set

From the 1st May, there will be no data charges or top-up fees to use Skype on 3 in the UK. Whether you’re a contract or pay-as-you-go customer, you’ll be able to make unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls from your 3 mobile without paying a penny. No more minimum monthly top-ups, just free calls.

Later this summer, 3 will be introducing a new SIM, priced at just £1.99, which will bring free Skype-to-Skype calls to anyone in the UK with an unlocked compatible phone – all you’ll have to do is pop the SIM in, download Skype from 3, and you’ll be free to make as many Skype-to-Skype calls as you like without worrying about cost.

In the UK, Skype users already make 1.5 million minutes of calls on the 3 network every day – and with these improvements on their way, you’ll soon have no excuse not to join them

Update: there’s some more information on the 3 UK website.

For those of you reading this in an RSS reader, you can watch the video here. You can also grab the embed code if you want to use this video in your own blog.

Until now, Skype hasn’t done much in the way of advertising. Readers like you have been spreading the word, people have written nice things about us in the papers, but in Europe we’ve never done something as daring as renting a billboard or the back page of a magazine.

So, it might come as a bit of a surprise to discover that Skype’s taking its first steps into the world of TV advertising – and in case you haven’t caught a glimpse of it already, take a look at the clip above

It's due to start in just a few minutes, so I'll keep this brief: Josh Silverman will be talking to Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves today at 11am GMT

Watch the video stream live (English, Windows Media format)

We’re always trying to come up with ways we can improve how Skype can help your business. To help us do this we are inviting our business users to talk to us about how they use Skype.

We are planning a research group in London on the 18th February 2009. As a thank you for taking part in the research, we will compensate you for your time.

We’ve hired a research agency called Saros Research Ltd to help us organise this research. If you are interested in participating in the project, please fill in our short questionnaire.

Replies to your email will be directly received and processed by Saros who will confirm your participation and the location of the research group.