Category: Video
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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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Video: The story behind Voxeo’s 16,000 port demo system at SpeechTEK
Continue Reading: Video: The story behind Voxeo’s 16,000 port demo system at SpeechTEKThis week I’ve been down at the SpeechTEK conference in New York and in the Voxeo booth we had a system that was running 16,000 simultaneous phone calls using our new software release, Prophecy 10. While there, I recorded a video interview with Voxeo CEO Jonathan Taylor where he explained what we did and why we did it. I thought I’d post it here, because while I’m obviously biased, I think it’s a fun example of making a demo system for a trade show/conference. Enjoy!
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Video parody: What happens when you install iOS 4.0 on a iPhone 3G
Continue Reading: Video parody: What happens when you install iOS 4.0 on a iPhone 3GAs readers know, I recently wrote about how upgrading my iPhone 3G to iOS 4.0 was one of the dumbest things I’ve done and also recently linked to Lifehacker’s post about downgrading your iPhone 3G. So naturally you can expect that I’d be amused by this recent parody of Apple’s commercial:Sadly, it’s far too true… (although I haven’t yet personally experienced the issue with not being able to accept a call)
Kudos to “adamburtle” for putting the video together.
P.S. I learned of this video through the ZDNet article, Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4… and yes, Apple should make it clear that you will severely degrade the performance of your iPhone 3G by “upgrading” it.
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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.
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How to use a USB headset with the Apple iPad
Continue Reading: How to use a USB headset with the Apple iPadAs I note over on the Voxeo web site, I recently posted a video showing how you can use a USB headset with the Apple iPad. The video is available on YouTube and you can see it directly here:WHY might you want to do this? Well, primarily if you want better audio quality when using VoIP on your iPad… and if you are like me and always find Bluetooth headsets sucking up too much battery power, it’s nice to have a wired option.
Next up, figure out what else can be plugged into that USB connector… 😉
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Skype 5.0 Beta 1 with multi-party video: Phil Wolff gives a tour…
Continue Reading: Skype 5.0 Beta 1 with multi-party video: Phil Wolff gives a tour…While I may rant about Skype’s multiparty video being Windows-only (or “kvetch”, according to the VoIP Princess), I still do think it is an excellent development. I’m on Skype conference calls quite often and it would be great to add video. More often, I’m in a video call with someone and we realize we need to bring someone into the call… which we do… and drop everyone to audio.So, rants aside, I’m very much looking forward to trying out the feature whenever Skype makes it available for the Mac. In the meantime, those of us who choose the Mac will have to live vicariously through blog posts such as this one from Phil Wolff at Skype Journal:
Notes from Skype Group Video Test
Phil went screenshot-happy and captured a whole sequence of shots experimenting with the new feature. Looks very cool.
Thanks for sharing, Phil.
P.S. And by the way… nice hat! 🙂 UPDATE: Just after publishing this post, I noticed that Phil has another post up, “Skype 5 beta and group video bandwidth” where he’s investigating the network paths and video used by the multi-party video. Good stuff!
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Why I’m NOT excited about Skype 5.0 with group video calls
Continue Reading: Why I’m NOT excited about Skype 5.0 with group video callsBy all accounts I should probably be incredibly excited about Skype’s new 5.0 beta 1 with group video calling. After all, I’m a huge daily user of Skype and make video calls pretty much every day. It would be fantastic to be able to add video to some of the conference calls I do… particularly where I work with a globally distributed team.I should be excited… but I’m not.
Why?
Because yet again, Skype continues to follow their fractured and fragmented product strategy that I’ve ranted about before:
Skype 5.0 Beta 1 is Windows only.
I would love to try it out and use it… I’d be glad to give Skype feedback… I’d be glad to write about it here, talk about it and show it off on my video podcast… I’d tweet about and promote it on Facebook and other sites… as a fan, I’d love to help Skype promote its services!
But I can’t really…. yet.
You see, I use Macs exclusively these days. In fact, I work for a company of over 140 people… all of whom are Mac users… and all of whom are heavy Skype users. None of us can try this out. Sure……
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Video interview from ITEXPO about Voxeo, cloud, security…
Continue Reading: Video interview from ITEXPO about Voxeo, cloud, security…As I mentioned on a Voxeo blog yesterday, the good folks at TMC recently posted a video interview I did with them at ITEXPO back in January in Florida. In the interview, I discussed:- the Cloud Communications Summit and pushing communications out into “the cloud”
- security issues related to cloud communications
- what’s next in communications, including multi-channel communications (a component of what we refer to at Voxeo as Unified Self-Service)
Anyway, for folks who wonder what it is I do, part of it is telling stories in forms like this…
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VoiceOnTheWeb: A video interview with Skype CEO Josh Silverman
Continue Reading: VoiceOnTheWeb: A video interview with Skype CEO Josh SilvermanOver on his Voice On The Web blog, Jim Courtney posted this morning a two-part video interview with Skype CEO Josh Silverman that is interesting to watch. Jim summarizes the interview indicating that we should expect to see from Skype in 2010 the following:- a revitalized developer program built around a more comprehensive platform from which developers can, amongst other features, embed Skype into their applications
- Skype access on many more mobile platforms as well as taking advantage of wireless carriers’ recognition of Skype as a mainstream telecommunications environment
- expansion of video calling services, including a strong role in the introduction of Internet services as a feature on a new generation of television sets;
- launch of a formal comprehensive Skype for Business program targeted at small-to-medium businesses
- many more Skype video interviews on broadcast media – for example, Skype video (and voice) calling has been used quite extensively by several networks to facilitate communications with Haiti following the earthquake
And while Josh Silverman did cover all of those points, I personally found it interesting just to watch and listen to how he covers the points and where he is focusing his attention (through what he talks about). Skype’s at a…