January 2009

Attendees at a fund-raiser for the Interface Charitable Foundation inspired by
Stop Hunger Now at the Green Lodge at the Sundance Film Festival last Saturday weren't surprised when Paris Hilton didn't show up in person.

The celebrity is famous, among other things, for being late.

But the crowd was delighted when Hilton appeared on Skype Video.

Hilton commented on the Video: "Skype Rocks."

A bit later at the party hosted by philanthropist Scott Lazerson, now of the Interface Charitable Foundation and former executive director of the Larry King Cardiac Foundation, there was another surprise. Hilton popped into the room to encourage attendees to reach deep into their pockets to help the charity.

J.R. Savet, CEO of SMG PR, the Los Angeles entertainment marketing public relations firm, who organized events in the Green Lodge linking celebrities with green causes, said the fund-raiser was a success, bringing in checks totaling in "the mid-six figures."

He organized two other events involving Skype Video.

One involved super-star Olivia Newton-John, who called in from Los Angeles with her husband "Amazon" John. She was really was in LA, said Savet.

Newton-John was executive producer of "Big River Man," winner of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary.

The film is about about Slovenian endurance swimmer Martin Strel, "who swims rivers--the Mississippi, the Danube, and the Yangtze to date--to highlight pollution in the world."

Savet said Newton-John was "tickled by the Skype technology."

And John Maringouin, the director, told the group that this movie could not have been made without Skype, which he used for business meetings and to coordinate the movie's production from Eastern Europe to the Amazon.

Finally, at another event, Oscar nominee and recording artist "Bird" York in LA and famed violinist Lili Haydn performed in the lodge.

"Thanks to Skype, we all shared our feelings about change and hope over Skype,"said Savet.

Photo credit: Michael Bezjian

I discovered Barbara Muir, the Canadian portrait artist, who was sketching friends and relatives online using Skype Video.

She enjoyed the unusual lighting and the fact that she was catching people in intimate places in their homes, such as their kitchens, bedrooms and offices, from which they made Skype calls.

She blogged about the experience. And then I blogged about her.

So then the Skype people hired her to do some sketches from a party at the International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month in Las Vegas.

Muir's subjects were in Vegas, while Muir was in Toronto. What stays in Vegas shows up on Toronto and can be broadcast all over the blagosphere. (That's as in blog, not as in Illinois' controversial governor, "Blago.")

Now she's blogging about it at again at Barbara Paints.

Of the experience the Skype sketcher said: "This whole project would have been impossible without the wonders of Skype,and wouldn't have happened at all if it weren't for the blog..."

Here's a couple of her sketches.

She plans to show more in coming days.

The students from Worcester (Mass.) Academy in this Skype Video share their "super-awesome adventure" witnessing the inauguration of Barack Obama today.

They describe slapping high fives with strangers on the National Mall in the record crowd estimated at over one million.

David Bill, their teacher and the director of academic technology, said they had some tech problems competing for bandwidth on the mall. But he said Skype came through "perfectly" as the students connected via webcam to fellow students back in Massachusetts and Maine and to a TV crew at WBZ in Boston.

Students back home saw them projected bigger than life. Middle-school students asked questions via Skype Video and high school students asked questions via Skype chat.

We ended our Video call by slapping virtual Video high fives. A fitting end to a super-awesome Video call.

David Bill, director of academic technology abd a history teacher at Worcester (Mass.) Academy shared his school's plans to take a group of students to the inauguration of Barack Obama.

I caught up with Bill and the crew them via Skype as they were trekking in the cold--you can see their breaths-- to find a spot to watch the festivities on the National Mall.

Maya, one of the students, explained that they will be using Skype to share the experience with students back in Massachusetts. She panned the camera in her laptop. I even spotted the famous--infamous--Watergate complex in the background.

Stay warm, kids. I'll check in later.

Check out their progress online.

Oprah Winfrey, who very publicly backed Barack Obama's candidacy, took her show on Inauguration Eve on the road to the Kennedy Center in D.C.

Her surprise guests were Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill.

US Magazine reports the Bidens are strong on family. And Skype helped them maintain those ties.

US magazine reports: Their son, Beau, attorney general of Delaware, "is stationed in Iraq with the Army National Guard, and Biden mentioned that he and his wife had him on Skype while they went out on stage at Grant Park." The park in Chicago is where Obama-Biden went for the election night victory celebration.

It should be noted that Oprah isn't only a fan of Obama, but also of Skype, which she has used to connect to viewers live in their homes.

David Bill is a history teacher and director of academic technology at Worcester (Mass.) Academy.

He and 11 high school students will attend the inauguration of Barack Obama next week in Washington, D.C. But they plan to share their trip with students back home.

Using Skype, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube, they will be providing students at Worcester with a front-row seat of history.

In this Video, Bill describes how he plans to use Skype Video, setting up laptops with wireless cards, webcams and tripods, to share interviews with people and views of the inauguration parade route.

You can follow the students at their online HQ.

Any schools that might want to connect with the project can reach the Worcester Academy students on Skype at wainauguration

He can be reached at david.bill@worcesteracademy.org

Staci Pies is director of Government and Regulatory Affairs for Skype, where she works at the state and federal level to drive public policies that protect consumer access to innovative technologies.

Josh Silverman spent the day at the annual State of the Net Conference in Washington DC, where the hot topic of discussion was the state of the global economy, and the impending passage of President-elect Obama’s economic stimulus package.

This stimulus package currently includes proposals to bring broadband Internet service to the entire country. The FCC can play an important role in doing this by reforming the Federal Universal Service Fund, to support broadband connections in rural and low-income areas. This will benefit the entire country by creating significant economic and democratic opportunities for all US residents.

Today, anyone who is making or receiving landline phone calls using a phone network pays a portion of their phone bill into a fund that is used to subsidize the phone network in high cost and rural areas of the country.

At the moment, this fund subsidizes only narrowband networks, which are of limited value. Skype, as well as many other organizations which understand the value of broadband connections, believe that the Universal Service Fund should be used to provide everyone in the US with access to affordable, open and neutral broadband connections.

This will allow people across the US to take advantage of life-changing broadband services and applications, Skype included, of course.

At Skype, we believe that people should have the ability to use Skype over any broadband connection and on any broadband-enabled device. Given that the Universal Service Fund is funded by US taxpayers, Skype believes that service providers that receive money should be subject to two conditions:

Continue reading "The State of the Net - reforming the Universal Service Fund" »

Peter Parkes reports on the main blog that a new high had been reached in Skype usage: 15 million.

In other news: The BBC tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jonesmade a Skype call from an airplane above Las Vegas sing Row 44 from a small aircraft during the International Consumer Electronics Show.

The reporter reached BBC on Skype with two firsts: "a live broadcast from a plane, and a video call."

But it wasn't perfect: "It was always going to be tricky to go live onto BBC World, and although we did manage to contact London, and they saw us for a minute, a software glitch then froze the picture."

But he sees Video on airplanes as inevitable:

"I hear you asking, do we really want to see the internet reach every corner of our lives? Isn't it a bonus to have somewhere that you can't be reached? Well, maybe, but I'm afraid it looks to me as if you won't have a choice - the internet is getting airborne, and for those of us addicted to connectivity that means one more place where we can obsessively check our email."

In the article "Living Apart for the Paycheck," New York Times writer Jennifer Conlin describes how two-career couples live apart in the down economy to keep the money flowing.

And Skype, she reports, can be the glue that helps keep them together.

She tells of Prof.Gautman Ghosh, of the University of Pennsylvania, going on Skype Video to amuse his two-year-old son Emilio who is 9,000 miles and 16 hours away in New Zealand, where his wife Ceclia has taken a job at the University of Otago.

"We talk in the morning and around dinner, when my wife needs my help the most," said Ghosh. "This was a career decision we simply had to make for financial stability."

Reginald C. Richardson, a vice president of the Family Institute at Northwestern University and a lecturer in psychology, observed: "I think we are going to see more and more commuter marriages in the future, given the global economy and the fact that our technology now makes this more doable," Dr. Richardson said.

Skype is looking to share similar stories. So why not let us them know about your circumstances and contact information. Please write to Skype@kaplowpr.com.

When the economy goes south, everybody appreciates getting a break on essentials.
And that includes phone service.

At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Scott Durschlag, Skype's chief operating officer, shares with CNET columnist Larry Magid's podcast how consumers benefit from free to cheap calls on Skype.

CNET's Marguerite Reardon reports said down times have resulted in a surge of new Skype users as people look for ways to cut their phone bills.

"We are seeing consumer take-up of Skype accelerating because people feel they can get value and quality without making a huge trade off," Durschlag said. "And we're seeing a whole new opportunity in the business market, as companies that I'd never have thought would be a target for Skype are pro-actively coming to us and asking for a solution."

Magid said in Lary Magid at Large also says he uses Skype a lot while he travels overseas. He said Skype beats out cellular and hotel rates.

(True that. But I find Skype also has helped me cut the bill for domestic calls--both local and long-distance. While doing my taxes yesterday, I saw that Skype had cut more than $1,500 out of my annual business expense for phone service compared with a few years ago. I am saving myself and the publications I work for a bundle.)

Durschlag said even the mobile operators are opening up to Skype.

Another news flash: Durschlag said VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is "dead" as only audio calls. He said on any given day, 30 percent of Skype calls are Video. And on Xmas that was 42 percent and New Year's Day almost 50 percent.

So brush your teeth and comb your hair, you may be on Skype Video.

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Silvia Tolisano calls her blog "Langwitches." That's the fun way of saying she's a language teacher.

Over the past three years as technology integration facilitator at San José Episcopal Day School in Jacksonville FL, she's been using the magic of technology, including Skype, to teach preschoolers through six graders, aged 4 through 11, about the world outside their classroom.

For example. a traveling teacher set up a webcam to share views in the classroom in Florida of Volcán Arenal, the most active volcano in Costa Rica.

(Coincidentally, here's a photo of the volcano that took in 2004 The locals called it the "oso," or bear because it roars.)

Five days ago, Tolisano announced a major expansion of the program with "Around the World with 80 Schools" in her blog, Langwitches: The Magic of Learning through Technology.

By week's end, she had signed up more than 50 schools. Most are in the US, but she also has linked up with schools in a dozen other countries. These include Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, England, Estonia, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Spain and Thailand.

She's looking for schools in Africa and Europe in all grade levels, including high schools. You can contact her through her blog.

At the very least, students will say "hi," "shalom," "guten tag," "buenos dias," etc. to each other. They may serenade each other with sons. But the conversations will last as long as five minutes and involve geography, social studies, writing and math.

Tolisano doesn't see language as a barrier: most of the schools are English-speaking.
The rub is with time zones, such as a school in Thailand with which there is a 12-hour difference. "We're never in school at the same time as the school in Thailand," she said.

But Tolisano, a technologist and teacher, is a problem-solver: "We'll have picnic dinners and sleepovers to make Skype calls to Australia and New Zealand."

These are tough economic times. But people are finding Skype is helping keep them connect with loved ones around the world-for free or low cost.

To help spread the word, Skype is looking for your personal stories on how Skype audio, Video and chats are helping couples living apart due to economic reasons.

Maybe one spouse is in Dallas, and another in Atlanta. Or one in Chicago, and another in London.

Skype would appreciate it if you could share your story in a brief summary about your circumstances and contact information. Please send any leads to Skype@kaplowpr.com.

Skype's big news out of the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is the continuing march toward mobility: Skype anytime, anywhere.

Scott Durschlag, Skype's chief operating officer , shared the vision at a press conference and at the main blog.

Durschlag said: "One of our major priorities is to let you take Skype with you wherever you go, so you can use Skype anytime, anywhere, on any device or network. To make this possible, we've been hard at work developing versions of Skype which will run on your mobile devices, in addition to continuing to innovate with our desktop products."

He announced two new additions to Skype's product line:

--A new lite version of Skype Android-powered mobile device. The software enables users to chat with or call other Skype users, as well as call landlines and mobiles around the world. It runs on Android-powered mobile devices, beginning with the T-Mobile G1, as well as more than 100 other Java-enabled mobile phones from Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG. It's now available for the first time for US users.

You can download it now by visiting the Skype website on your mobile phone, or if you're an Android user, visit the Android Market. Following our announcement last month of a new Skype for Windows Mobile 2.5 beta, Skype is now available on nearly 200 mobile devices.

--Skype will be available to the new Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), mobile devices with larger screens and enhanced battery life. Skype will be available for free voice and video from the palm of your hand. The first version of Skype for MIDs will be based on the Intel Atom processor and Moblin-based Linux OS. Skype will be pre-installed on these devices later this year.

More information on the MIDs Beta are available from the Garage blog.

Durschlag said: "These two products represent a big step towards our goal of making Skype available everywhere. Now, following the recent updates to Skype for Windows Mobile last month and the recent introductions of the 3 Skypephone S2 and INQ1 mobile handsets, we're making progress towards our goal. Over the next 6-12 months, you'll see Skype become available on an even wider range of mobile handsets and platforms."

He noted that a final version of Skype 4.0 for Windows will be available soon with enhanced sound.

All this, and it's only January. 2009 is shaping up to be a big year for Skype.

Skype today released Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac, the latest version of its internet communications software for Mac users, previewing spiffy new features coming this year on other operating systems.

This new software was demonstrated during ShowStoppers at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco.

Highlights include:

--Skype Access, pay-as-you-go public Wi-Fi access. Skype Credit enables you to pay by the minute.

The Access service is provided by Boingo Wireless and enabled by Skype.

Skype Access allows Skype users to connect to any of the more than 100,000 Boingo WiFi hotspots worldwide - including airports, hotels, cafes and metropolitan hot zones-- with a single click, and to pay per minute only for what they use with Skype Credit. Skype Access scans for available WiFi hotspots and presents a pop-up dialogue box displaying
the price-per-minute to use the Boingo network using Skype Credit.

With Skype Access, you only pay for what you use, and there's no need to fiddle with credit cards or log-in details.

--Screen Sharing. This new feature enables you to share your desktop.

Screen Sharing is similar to a Skype Video call, capturing, encrypting and transferring the content of your screen in real-time to the person you are sharing your screen with. Once there, the content is decrypted and shown to the other person on their screen.

If you are using Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac, you are also able to share your screen with Skype for Windows and Skype for Linux users, but cannot see theirs (yet).

Both of these features will be built into versions of Skype for other operating systems sometime in 2009.

"The goal of the major new features in Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac is to makes Skype easier to use everywhere," said Scott Durchslag, Skype's chief operating officer. "Skype Access is perfect for those times when you need to make a few Skype calls or send some instant messages or emails while you're on the go, and screen sharing is a productivity tool that enables collaboration between two parties, regardless of their location."

The beta also offers enhanced video and audio quality.

For more on the new Beta and its features, go to the Mac blog.

Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac is available for download.

WTSP in Tampa couldn't be more psyched about the Florida Gators taking on the Oklahoma Sooners.

Reporter Janie Porter in Fort Lauderdale used Skype to conduct her search for the "biggest Gator fan."

She even found some guy who claimed to swim with the gators--apparently alligators--in a swamp.

Porter's on-air colleague's marveled at how Skype, which they previously had considered to be a phone service, could be adapted to broadcast use.

Porter said she set up the whole wireless broadcast by herself with Skype. The news team declared Skype as the wave of the future, enabling TV reporters to more mobile than ever.

At the journalism website, Poynter Online, Amy Gahran makes the case "Skype: Why Every Journo Should Use it."

She describes how she got stung with extra charges on her cell phone: "It was about $70 more than I expected -- because I'd exceeded my allotted minutes. Ouch. Then I realized I should have been using Skype more."

She provides the ins and outs of various Skype features and money-savings.

She notes that conversations on Skype can be recorded--an important consideration for journos. She recommends Call Recorder for Macs and Pamela for PCs.

Gahran said: "The bottom line: Skype is a useful courtesy option for journalists who work in a traditional newsroom. But for journalists who telecommute, travel to locations that offer broadband Internet access, or are self-employed, it can be a major money-saver. Even if you want to keep your landline, with Skype no long distance or international calling fees apply to calls you make. You don't need to use Skype for every call, but since journalists often can't control how many calls they'll need to make or receive, Skype can offer you more control over cell bills."

As a journo myself, I have used Skype for years.

Here's my take:

For no cost or low cost, I have extended my range of interview subjects around the world. I no longer limit myself to U.S. interviews. There's a whole world out there and talking to people outside the U.S. adds depth and texture to my stories.

Skype's money-savings have helped as well. I now make virtually all calls--local, and domestic and international long distance--on Skype. I dodge all those nasty AT&T toll bills to call downtown Chicago and faraway suburbs. But I also now routinely can make international calls without breaking the bank.

This has opened new markets for me. I no longer just work for American publications. If the pubs had to pay for international calls made on AT&T, they couldn't afford to hire me.

So journos, what are you waiting for? Check out Skype and talk to the world.

Susan, who with her twin does the 5 Minutes for Mom blog, shares how Skype enables her family to stay in touch with her husband Rob's family in Itaty.

When her in-laws signed up for internet service, her brother-in-law set up a webcam and Skype. It has been a big hit.

Susan said: "For Nonno and Nonna, seeing and hearing their little granddaughters through the computer is priceless.

"Every Saturday morning, we call Italy computer to computer through Skype. Julia loves to show off her toys to her little cousin Emily and say 'Ciao' to all her aunts and uncles. It means so much to us that Julia can still be seeing her family in Italy every week and really knowing who they are. She constantly talks about Nonno and Nonna and her memories of being there on their farm stay fresher when she can see and talk to them regularly."

Skype Journal's Phil Wolff has made his "2009 Skype predictions."

Among them:

--Peak Skype usage will top 18 million simultaneous users.
--Skype will serve 23 billion minutes in 2009Q4.

Wolff predicts tongue in check Skype will appear in:
--Hannah Montana: The Movie, spurring the rise of Skype pajama parties.
--The Sinatra Club, using the new Skypeoke feature.
--Star Trek, as ancient technology.

I have a prediction of my own: On the brink of a new decade, I predict that a year from now Phil Wolff will making "2010 Skype predictions."

San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien may be in the tech world's epicenter. But he admits in his column that he had shied away from video chat.

He notes: "But that's about to change because of an e-mail from my mother.

"Seemingly out of nowhere, this note from her landed in my inbox: 'Have you heard of Skype? Apparently you can use it to do free video calls on the computer.'"

O'Brien notes: "My mother, who lives just outside Kansas City, tends to be a reliable barometer for when a technology is gaining adoption outside the hermetically sealed bubble that is Silicon Valley. Well, my mom, and Oprah. As one of only a handful of people on the planet who don't watch Oprah's show every day, I had missed the fact that she's recently begun using Skype to make regular video calls with her audience.

"So, get ready for your close up, America. Video chat has entered the mainstream."