July 2007

Our enemies friends over at the Yahoo! Messenger blog linked to this article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:

Roughly one-third of U.S. employees use instant messaging at work, many without the knowledge of their employers, according to a 2006 survey by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute. Many employers remain reluctant to endorse it officially fearing security breaches and distracted employees. But tech consultant Gartner Inc. projects that instant messaging will be the “de facto tool for voice, video and text chat” for 95% of employees in big companies within five years.

True, most IM systems can be distracting, but Skype chat (as we like to call it) is different. The differences are subtle, but allow you to stay productive, as well as having more fun.

Persistent chats

• When you start up Skype, all of the chats you were in the last time you used Skype will still be there. You can restart a previous conversation instantly, even if it involves a group of people.
• If you go offline, you won’t lose any messages. Next time you go online, they’ll be delivered to you.

Discrete chats

• If you don’t want a little ping or animation every time someone sends you a message, you can turn them off.
• Even better, you can turn them off selectively. You can choose to be alerted only when specific keywords are mentioned in the chat, for example.

Flexible chats

• With a single click, you can turn a chat into a call, or a group chat into a conference call.
• Sending a file to everyone in a group chat is as easy as sending a file to one person.

Safe chats

• All messages are encrypted, and go straight from one computer to another most of the time. No servers for the French government to worry about.
• If you’re on Windows, and using the latest version of Skype, you can edit your chat messages for a short while after you’ve written them. If you need to correct a mistake, you can do so.

Bringing this all back home, and with a quick hat tip to Helen Keegan for pointing it out, is the OxIS Internet in Britain report. According to the research, 60% of internet users in the UK use instant messaging — and an earlier report by M:Metrics says that nearly 6% use mobile instant messaging services, such as IM+ for Blackberry.

Looks like we’ve still got a way to go in the business world, as it’s clear from the OxIS report that students are much more likely to use instant messaging than people who work. If IM is to become the “de facto tool for voice, video and text chat” as Gartner suggest, then it’s going to have to become a lot more Skype-like.

I arrived back in London from Tallinn yesterday — a very constructive trip, despite getting stuck in Stockholm on the way there thanks to a cancelled connecting flight. The irritation was compounded by the fact that the internet connection in the hotel was the slowest I’ve used for years. It was a bit like going back in a timewarp to 1997, which is odd, as the hotel itself looked like it was from 1987…

Once I’d finally arrived in Tallinn, and after Tuesday’s media event, the team of Skype bloggers discussed issues of style and tone as well as strategy — how we blog in a crisis, how we blog about things our legal team would prefer we didn’t blog about, and how we retain editorial independence from Skype.

Unfortunately, I can’t say much more at the moment, but I’ll be able to say more about the outcomes of our discussions soon. Watch this space

Update: Thanks to all of you who’ve spoken to me individually — now safely arrived in Tallinn after some little flight-related hitches, but it’s not too late to contribute. Hit me up on Skype or leave a comment here and I’ll make sure your feedback counts.

On Monday I’ll be heading to Tallinn to join the rest of our Skype bloggers and forum moderators, along with Villu Arak, who heads up the main Skype blog, and Ike Roelfsema, who manages the forum side of things.

We’ll be talking about the way Skype works with communities online, and discussing how we can improve the way we talk to people about Skype — whether it’s good, bad or ugly.

Here’s a good example: yesterday, the Today programme on Radio 4 featured an interview with the chairman of the BBC Trust, Michael Lyons. When the connection failed halfway through the interview, John Humphrys revealed that he was using Skype. Good or bad? The Inquirer’s coverage and PCW’s The Test Bed offer different points of view.

As Jaanus pointed out a year ago, Skype invests a lot of time in improving the quality and reliability of calls (and perhaps not as much as it should in the quality of its door signs). It’s just a shame that the call from New Zealand (where Michael Lyons was) to London cut out in the middle of his conversation.

I debated whether or not I should blog about this - on one hand, it’s a bit embarrassing; on the other, it’s a great example of the way in which Skype can make conversations possible - and free. For a public service broadcaster like the BBC, that’s very important, and that’s ultimately why I’m writing this.

When I meet with the other bloggers next week, we’ll talk about the way we write, and what we write about, and I hope that we collectively agree to carry on telling the embarassing but fun stories as well as the ones which are fun without any embarrassment.

What’s your view? How do stories like this affect the way you think about Skype? It’dbe good to hear from you. Post a comment below, or chat to me on Skype — whichever suits you.

Oh, and John, if you’re reading, give me a shout and we’ll send someone round to make sure you’ve got your internet connection set up properly…

The BBC reported yesterday that Gamblers Anonymous are using Skype to help their members in Dumfries and Galloway to speak to their peers.

Faced otherwise with a long journey to either Carlisle or Glasgow, using Skype will allow members in the south of Scotland to get advice online using Skype’s call and chat features.

Gamblers Anonymous is kitting out its members with Skype phones so that they can get in touch for free - a move which could save them thousands of pounds a year on their current phone bills by using Skype’s free conference calling instead.

As the guys at Crowdstorm say…

It’s research time again, folks

E-consultancy reports that people who do a bit of research online before hitting the high street spend 10% more than those who don’t.

Whether this is because they’re encouraged by what they see online or tend to be bigger spenders anyway isn’t clear, though.

Perhaps most interestingly:

Some 80% of consumers who research before making a purchase say they ended up buying a brand from their original shortlist, while the rest were influenced in store.

I don’t think this rules out shopfloor marketing entirely, but it certainly demonstrates the value of getting things right online.

Of course, if it’s shops and restaurants you’re looking for, then SkypeFind can help you find the answer. Shopping we haven’t quite got round to yet, though…