Category: Skype
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Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac OS X: A First Look at Group Video
Continue Reading: Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac OS X: A First Look at Group VideoContinuing on from Part 1 where I looked at the new user interface in the Skype 5.0 Beta for MacOS X including using chats and making audio calls, let’s look at video and the new Group Video. UPDATE: I now have a video review available on YouTube showing the Group Video feature in action.
Video – and Group Video
Making a video call is very much the same experience as an audio call – make the call with the video button next to your contact or press the video button in a audio call. You get your standard small “preview” screen and you see the person you are calling. You can pull up the video window so that you can see the chat. If you don’t move the mouse over the window for a bit, the controls fade away so that you see the entire screen of the other persons video. All in all pretty nicely done:
(And yes, I deliberately covered some of the names of the chats. 🙂 ) For those curious, the person I’m calling is Chaim Haas who works with PR for Skype.
Adding someone else in launches the Group Video feature where you first have…
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Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac OS X: A First Look with Screenshots
Continue Reading: Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac OS X: A First Look with ScreenshotsCould it really be true? Was Skype actually delivering a MacOS X version that was close to parity with the Skype for Windows version? After all the complaining we Mac users have done?
Yes, indeed, for better or worse, today is the day… Skype is releasing Skype 5.0 Beta for MacOS X!
First Thoughts
I say “for better or worse” because the initial reaction that pretty much every Mac user is going to have is:
OMG, Skype COMPLETELY changed the user interface!
That they did… and some people will love it… and some will absolutely hate it. The good news for those of us who have ranted about Skype’s fragmented product strategy is that this release brings the UI much closer to the Skype for Windows UI so there is a more consistent experience across the platforms. (Although Jim Courtney points out that the UI is NOT the same as the Windows UI.) The bad news for many “power users” is that this release brings the UI much closer to the Skype for Windows UI! 🙂
Counting myself among those “power users” (and working at Voxeo where we are huge users of both Skype and Macs), I can say that…
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A Brief Primer on the Tech Behind Skype, P2PSIP and P2P Networks
Continue Reading: A Brief Primer on the Tech Behind Skype, P2PSIP and P2P NetworksWhat is an overlay network? What’s a DHT? How does a node compare to a supernode? What differentiates a “pure” peer-to-peer (P2P) system from a “hybrid” system?
UPDATE: Unfortunately, this post is no longer accurate with regard to Skype’s infrastructure. After the massive Skype outage in December 2010, it was expected that Skype was exploring ways to make their system more stable and resilient. In early 2012, Skype (at that point now owned by Microsoft) was reported to have replaced much of the P2P supernode infrastructure with supernodes hosted in Microsoft data centers. Since that time we’ve understood that additional changes have been made for resiliency’s sake. Given all that, it’s hard to know exactly how Skype’s infrastructure exists today. This article below does, though, provide some background into the basics of peer-to-peer (P2P) infrastructure.I have a series of posts planned over the next few weeks related primarily to Skype and some of the changes brought about in Skype 5.0 for Windows that are interesting from a technology point-of-view – but in order to write those posts, I need to build a bit of a…
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TechCrunch interview on Skype’s plan for the enterprise
Continue Reading: TechCrunch interview on Skype’s plan for the enterpriseWhat are Skype’s plans for the enterprise? What do they see as their target market? On Saturday, TechCrunch posted an interview, with David Gurle, Skype’s General Manager and Vice President of Enterprise, focusing on these questions: “Skype’s VP Of Enterprise On Future Strategy, Products And Competitors.
While not deep on details, the interview did offer a few interesting glimpses into their plans. For instance, Skype is looking at industry-specific business-to-consumer apps:
For example, Skype will soon be offering businesses a way to establish Skype-powered virtual video call centers, allowing enterprise customers to talk to their own customers across multiple devices, platforms, geographies, and more.
Such an offering could certainly be interesting. I was also intrigued by this:
When I asked him about Skype’s future, Gule says it is in creating a one-click solution to allow you to reach a partner, friend, manager, employee, or business contact from any platform.
The “directory problem” has always been a challenge, i.e. where does your master directory live… it will be interesting to see what Skype comes up with for their answer.
The interview has more info and is worth a read for those of us continuing to track and monitor what Skype…
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Skype 5.0 brings Facebook integration, group video – but ONLY if you are on Windows
Continue Reading: Skype 5.0 brings Facebook integration, group video – but ONLY if you are on WindowsSkype today released version 5.0 for Windows which looks quite cool…
but is also completely unusable to me.
First off, Skype 5.0 includes a brand new Facebook integration that wasn’t in the beta program and, per Skype’s blog post, let’s you:
- see your Facebook News Feed in Skype
- post status updates that can be synced with your Skype mood message
- comment and like friends’ updates and wall posts
- call and SMS your Facebook friends on their mobile phones and landlines
- make a free Skype-to-Skype call if your Facebook friend is also a Skype contact
Phil Wolff over at Skype Journal walks through the new release (which is where I got the screenshot at right) and shows how the integration works. You have a new “Facebook tab” in the 5.0 Skype version that has both a “News Feed” and a “Phonebook” subtab.
From what I’ve heard from folks trying it out this morning, the Phonebook does a one-time import of all your Facebook contacts and then you can call or SMS them via their regular PSTN phone (if it’s in their Facebook profile) or via Skype if they are a contact. I’m not clear on how you keep it up-to-date…
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Skype rolls out more multitasking control with new version 2.1.2 for iPhone
Continue Reading: Skype rolls out more multitasking control with new version 2.1.2 for iPhoneSkype today nicely release version 2.1.2 for the iPhone providing a key change for iPhone 4 / iOS 4 users.
As shown in the screenshot on the right, there is a new “Go Offline” option that allows you to control how Skype behaves when you switch to another application. For those of us who have used Skype on an iPhone 4, this was one of the challenges that was at times frustrating. When you simply switched to another app, Skype went into the background which is good in that you could continue to receive calls, notifications, etc.
However, in my experience I found that sometimes I did not want to keep getting those notifications – and more importantly I found that Skype would suck down the battery with all of the communication it was doing.
You now have an option in the Settings (which you need to access through the regular iPhone “Settings” app versus through the Skype app) where you can change how long it will be before Skype goes offline when it is put into the background. Images of both settings screens are shown below.
I’ve just installed this new version, so I haven’t yet seen what impact…
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Skype celebrates 7th birthday by giving away 400 minutes to everyone
Continue Reading: Skype celebrates 7th birthday by giving away 400 minutes to everyoneHaving just hit the ripe old age of 7, Skype is throwing a party for itself and giving every user 400 minutes to call a particular country during one month. Details at:
http://happybirthday.skype.com/
Skype promotes this as “400 minutes of calls to landlines” and the the little asterisk gives you this disclaimer:
This offer is applicable to our most popular 34 countries. If you choose to call the USA or India, you can also call mobiles as part of this offer
Regardless, it’s a pretty cool offer if you frequently call people in those regions. Of course, it’s curious to see the distribution of the “most popular 34 countries.” For instance, it looks like my friends who want to call Canada are out of luck, eh?
Happy Birthday, Skype!
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
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Mashable Faceoff Poll: Skype vs Google Voice – care to vote?
Continue Reading: Mashable Faceoff Poll: Skype vs Google Voice – care to vote?The folks over at Mashable.com are running one of their “faceoff” polls between Skype and Google Voice – right now it’s neck-and-neck between Skype and Google Voice. Care to share your opinion? Click on the image to go to Mashable’s page:
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
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Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPO
Continue Reading: Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPOBack almost a year ago, I wrote about the sale of Skype to private investors – Onward the disruption – Skype’s sale to private investors is a great step – and wondered how this “new chapter” would work out for Skype. Judging by the news today, it seems to be working out quite well!
Through a SEC filing, blog post and news release today, Skype announced that it is filing for an Initial Public Offering that could raise as much as $100 million USD. Skype’s blog post naturally had none of those numbers but others have dived into the details of Skype’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Some of the articles out already:
- The Next Web US: Skype Going Public With $100 Million IPO
- GigaOm: Skype Files for a $100 Million IPO
- Read Write Web: Skype Files for Initial Public Offering
- TechCrunch: Skype Files For $100 Million IPO With Miniscule Profits
- Business Insider: Skype Files For $100 Million IPO
Longtime readers know that I’m a huge user of Skype and have written here quite a bit about Skype. I’ve certainly had my issues with their direction, but I continue to be one of their paying customers and use…
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Skype vs. Fring: Is Fring not telling the whole truth?
Continue Reading: Skype vs. Fring: Is Fring not telling the whole truth?Today mobile startup Fring is in the news for their claim that Skype is blocking access for video calls to and from Skype users. Fring issued a news release and wrote a rather inflammatory blog post which has garnered them coverage on TechCrunch and many other sites. With typical David vs. Goliath fervor, much of the reporting so far seems to have favored the small startup Fring fighting for connectivity with big company Skype.It seems the situation isn’t so clear. Skype’s legal chiefVP of Legal, Robert Miller, fired back with his own blog post which included these lines (to which I added emphasis):
An hour or so ago, Fring reported on their blog that we had blocked their access to Skype. I want to make one thing absolutely clear: this is untrue.