Reliance iCall offers free international VOIP Calls

Reliance Globalcom has entered the VOIP space with Reliance iCall. Beware all Free VOIP Providers, Reliance can give you a run for your money. They are now offering totally free international VOIP Calls to multiple locations. Reliance Globalcom is one of the biggest carriers in the world and now they have launched Reliance iCall. With acquisiton of Flag telecom a few years back, the industry analyst believe over 85% of international call traffic is crossing through reliance network. Thats huge and massive for any telecom company. As we all know because being a leader in telecom, reliance can offer their partner rates as close to 1 cent to India. They are currently offering calls to india at 4.49 cents. The big news is they are offering free international calls as a part of their launch promotion. You can make totally free international VOIP Calls to the following countries: USA,UK,Canada,Germany,China,France,Australia,Singapore,Japan,Brazil. This includes landling and mobile as well. WOW, UK mobile for FREE? Thats just too good to be true. The bad news is the free calls are only available till 15th January 2008, so make the most of it before this free voip calls offer is over. RelianceiCall works via their softphone, which you can download. We still do not know SIP settings for Reliance iCall. They are not published anywhere and a ping to sip.relianceicall.com doesnt not give any response. We strongly suggest you give them a try. Never miss a Free VOIP service and especially from Reliance :-). If you are using Reliance India Call, then Reliance icall can be good alternative.

 

Skype for iPhone and iTouch from Truphone

Good news to iPhone users. According to Om , Truphone, a provider of mobile VoIP client using which cheap international calls can be made, is going to support skype chat and voice call from iPhone and iPod touch. This new feature shall be available to users on Jan 12th. Using this new client, iPhone or iPod users can call skype users and at the same time receive skype calls from other skype members. Hold on, some more good news, in addition to skype they also support Gtalk, MSN, yahoo messenger and twitter. So they are becoming more like a unified interface for all IM clients. This kind of feature is not something new; startups like iSkoot, fring, mig33, eqo, nimbuzz etc have been supporting the above mentioned features and more for quite sometime. Worthy of mention is iSkoot client, which was launched with operator 3 in a revenue sharing agreement. With crappy IM support on iPhone, these clients can fill in the big hole. The million dollar question really is- how do they make revenue out of these features. I guess truphone has other revenue generating features and hopefully these features will let them retain the customers. More like a carrot. With fring trying out advertisement model, you never know, maybe there is way to make money out of these features. Let's wait and see who solves the puzzle. In the meanwhile, folks enjoy all these features that come free. Off course, another caveat- you need to pay money if you want to receive skype calls. I have not tried truphone yet, but what I hear from other folks is that it just rocks and a must have mobile APP. They have more than 100,000 subscribers using iPhone and iPod touch.

 

Skype Has NOT Thrown Indepedent Developers Under a Bus

Screen sharing is a feature, not a collaboration service. Skype has left the door open for all its developer partners to continue to build their businesses with Skype embedded into their offering, especially when it comes to fully featured collaboration services. When you come from a technical background it's easy to confuse features with a complete business offering. For instance, "screen sharing" or "desktop sharing" is a feature appearing in many Web 2.0/Voice 2.0 communications applications and services. But a full collaboration offering for a business environment involves bringing together several features that deliver a significant ROI to the customers. Just to recall my own career history, working with Quarterdeck we did have some "utility" products that initially generated revenues of up to $50MM per year. But eventually they became features within a larger business offering - in this case the operating system itself. Memory management and multi-tasking were not always easy sells but had a market at the time. Today these features are hidden within Windows. It took Microsoft about six versions of Windows to get multi-tasking and memory management right. We also had the same experience developing a web browser; Microsoft eventually incorporated web browsing into the operating system as a feature. I have also been close to the collaboration market for many years. In fact Webex is an outgrowth of a whiteboarding service that Quarterdeck had acquired. When Quarterdeck evaporated (was sold to Symantec for remnants of software intellectual property), the team with whiteboarding experience went on to found Webex. Recently acquired by Cisco, Webex is now a major player in large enterprise collaboration activities, including desktop or screen sharing. It requires an entirely different underlying robust and scalable infrastructure to meet large and medium enterprise collaboration needs Yesterday Skype added a screen sharing feature to Skype for Mac. We can expect it to show up in Skype for Windows in the near future. But, as I mentioned in my post about Skype for Mac, it is a feature, not a full collaboration environment. There are several Skype Partners who offer a full business collaboration environment; they are not threatened by Skype's screen sharing feature. In fact, they may make Skype users more aware of desktop sharing and start looking for a more complete collaboration environment. What is in a fully featured collaboration environment? A common feature for all is that they support real time collaboration sessions for as many as 500 participants. That's not going to happen in any basic Skype client. Secondly Skype for Mac's screen sharing involves turning the user's desktop into a virtual webcam that goes through the Skype video channel. In other words you can do screen sharing or Skype video calling but not both concurrently. With the offerings mentioned below, the desktop sharing and other collaboration activity is via TCP/IP channels that are independent of the Skype video channel Take the recently launched InnerPass Skype Extra "Share and Collaborate, Communicate". Here is an enterprise document management company that has found a way to add Skype features that ride on top of their document management infrastructure. That infrastructure supports engineering drawings, FDA records, and business contracts amongst other document-intensive, mission critical documentation. As a result they have developed a Skype Extra that creates persistent "document rooms" which business teams may access for real time conferencing sessions. But the documents rooms can be accessed by individual team members between these team conferencing sessions. Version tracking is an important feature here. (A more detailed post on InnerPass's offering is coming soon.) Yugma provides the ability to collaborate across Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. There are session moderator features to switch presenter, start and stop recording, manage participants' role as active or passive, etc. It's a complete collaboration environment where the voice channel could be Skype's multi-party calling or, for more robust voice conferencing, use HiDef Conferencing. Lotus Sametime Unyte has been the poster child for an entrepreneurial Skype partner. Now within the IBM fold, it is being targeted to IBM's enterprise customers within a larger role of collaboration that was pioneered by Lotus Notes. No, Skype is not going after Webex or Yugma's or InnerPass's or the Lotus Sametime markets. Skype's screen sharing is another feature that's a peer with file sharing, video calling, IM/chat or SMS messaging. It's a person-to-person calling complement; it's not for highly robust, readily scalable business grade collaboration services. Phil, I'm sorry but Skype for Mac's screen sharing, to which I had access about a week before yesterday's announcement, is a feature not a collaboration service. Let my repeat my statement in my initial post on Skype for Mac: Skype for Mac's screen sharing feature is sufficient to support discussion issues as a complement to a voice and/or chat conversation; it is NOT by any means a replacement for fully featured desktop or application sharing offerings such as Yugma, Inner Pass or IBM's Lotus Sametime Unyte. It's "just" screen sharing. In fact, it is one of two options on the Skype for Mac's "Share" button, the other being file sharing/transfer. Bottom line: There are lots of opportunities for independent developers who want to develop a complete offering that makes an independent business. Update: Alec Saunders, who as Microsoft's original Internet Explorer product manager, led the effort to make MSIE a feature within the operating system - and effectively killed Quarterdeck's web browser, has his comments on this situation. Bottom line here is that Inner Pass and IBM are embedding Skype into other services they already offer.

 

Skype for Mac 2.8 Beta Launches

At MacWorld's Showstoppers event this evening Skype announced Skype for Mac 2.8 beta, with two major new features as well as several minor ones. Screen Sharing The most impressive feature is a form of basic screen sharing. Either a segment of your screen or the full screen is converted into a virtual webcam such that the screen can be viewed in any Skype client via the Skype video channel. While only a Mac can currently be a source for this screen sharing it can be viewed on any Windows, Mac or Linux client as video. Skype for Mac's screen sharing feature is sufficient to support discussion issues as a complement to a voice and/or chat conversation; it is NOT by any means a replacement for fully featured desktop or application sharing offerings such as Yugma, Inner Pass or IBM's Lotus Sametime Unyte. It's "just" screen sharing. In fact, it is one of two options on the Skype for Mac's "Share" button, the other being file sharing/transfer. Below is an example of a full screen image of a shared MacBook screen as seen in a detached Skype video window on my Windows laptop. Skype Access The second major feature, Skype Access, provides WiFi access for your MacBook or MacBook Pro via any Boingo access point. While I'm told it has been tested at many of the over 100,000 Boingo hotspots worldwide, I could not get it to work at a local Canadian Starbucks listed as a Boingo hotspot location. But then, this is still beta (and the problem may be with Boingo's interface with Bell Mobility). More importantly is to look at the "use case" for Skype Access. Cost for using Skype Access over Boingo is US$0.22/€0.16/C$0.23 per minute using Skype credits. Within a user's home country, Skype Access is probably more expensive than local alternatives; this is certainly the case in Canada. However, I can see the value if I am outside the home country and wanting to make Skype/SkypeOut calls, check email or do some web browsing at airports, restaurants, coffee shops and other Boingo hotspots as an alternative to much higher cost roaming wireless calls (for instance roaming U.S. to Canada on Rogers runs at $1.75 per minute) or $40 per day Internet access charges at some European hotels. With unlimited use Boingo subscriptions at $21.95/month for North America or $59/month Global, Skype Access is more appropriate for the occasional traveler as opposed to the hardened road warrior. It reminds me of the use case for PamFax where you can send faxes directly from, say, your hotel room for about $0.20 per page while avoiding a hotel's much higher $1.00/page charge for faxing. One other common feature between Skype Access and PamFax: both use Skype credits as the primary currency. Other features in Skype for Mac 2.8 beta: Skype for Mac 2.8 continues the use of a "drawer" attached to a Skype chat window; from the list of active chat sessions shown in the drawer you can select which session you want to view. But now there are three levels of prioritization available for those chat sessions. In addition chats can be sorted by name or date/time. The process for adding contacts to a chat session now simply involves clicking the "Add a Contact" button and entering the added contact's name. Your Contacts' Mood Messages can be tracked via a "Mood Message" chat session. While this can currently only be initiated on Skype for Mac 2.8, your mood message chat session will show up as a chat session on, say, a Windows client logged into the same account. Neat for keeping up-to-date on mood message changes, especially when a mood message provides location or reference URL information; it provides a Twitter-like experience. Add notes to contacts: when you go into a Contact's profile there is a separate tab for entering personal notes about that contact. Dan York, with a lot more Skype for Mac experience than I have had (I just acquired a MacBook ten days ago), has provided a much more detailed review of all the new features He has also produced an excellent You Tube video for his Emerging Tech Talk series: Skype for Mac 2.8 beta can be downloaded here January 6. Full Release Notes Skype Posts: Share Skype Blog, Skype Garage Blog

 

SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry: Pragmatic Cable, Internet and Wireless Convergence onto a Smartphone

In my early 50's youth when I was delivering afternoon newspapers in somewhat remote Saskatoon, Saskatchewan I always tried to be at one customer's home at 4:30. Why? At that time the only television viewable came via high rooftop antennae from transmitters far away (~400 miles) near Minot, North Dakota. If atmospheric conditions were favorable my customer would let me watch half an hour of a kid's program (probably Howdy Doody); most of the time we got to watch it masked by a snowy blizzard of faint reception. Getting any type of television reception at that time and location was, at best, a challenge and an adventure. Fast forward 55 years to this past week's 2009 New Years day afternoon. While riding as a passenger in our car, we sped along Ontario's main 401 freeway as I watched the CBC Sports color telecast of the third period of the NHL Winter Hockey Classic (live from Wrigley Field) on my BlackBerry Bold. It was one more test to carry out during the public beta of SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry. I viewed all the action in full color; equally as impressive was the quality of the stereo sound (which "swells" out well beyond the device). The only frame freezing probably occurred as my BlackBerry switched between cell tower sites. Otherwise I was experiencing a crisp picture with sharp colors and clear sound coming from my home cable TV box. Talk about convergence - a Rogers cable TV signal being transmitted back out over Rogers High Speed Internet to a BlackBerry Bold via Rogers 3G wireless. I have provided the detailed basic requirements for using SlingPlayer for BlackBerry Mobile on my recent Web Worker Daily post: "A New BlackBerry Experience Goes Beta: SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry" along with a history of SlingMedia's hardware and software products. Note especially that it requires a version 4.5 firmware upgrade of any BlackBerry 8x20. While it works via a WiFi connection on all supported devices, over a 3G HSDPA network (Rogers, AT&T and T-Mobile in North America) it only works currently on the BlackBerry Bold. Over the past 15 months I have been using SlingPlayer Mobile for Symbian on a Nokia N95-1 over WiFi connections. It has been a consistently reliable experience over that period; it also provided me with some benchmarks for testing the BlackBerry version's user interface and video/audio quality. Here are some of the experiences I have had with SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry on my BlackBerry Bold 9000 over the past few days of beta trials: a rock concert on HDNet where percussion, guitar chords and voice cover a wide audio frequency range a rebroadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas eve concert on PBS where over 200 voices, soloists and the orchestra provide an excellent source for testing the clarity of audio as well as the resolution of the video several sports events, including fast moving football and hockey action as a test for shadowing and pixelation Oprah Winfrey making Skype High Quality Video calls In all cases the experience on the Bold took full advantage of the Bold's processor power, network speed, native stereo audio and its widely acclaimed "stunning" color display. Simply stated, I became immersed in the programs I was watching to the point where the experience was transparent to the underlying technology. My only negative was more physiological than technical: I found full "playing surface" views of sports events could cause a bit of dizziness due to focusing on all the action within the Bold's display size; holding the device further away from my eyes addressed this issue. While I had some excellent viewing and listening experiences, a few comments: instead of a full visual representation of the cable box remote control, the remote control buttons are represented on a menu bar across the bottom of the screen. Note that in addition to the icons on the menu bar, one can "fast-track" to an item using the keyboard (for instance, M=Menu, O=Power On/Off, etc.) scrolling across any of the three menu bars is done via the BlackBerry's trackball. audio comes out by default over the Bold's speakers without the need to click on the "speaker" button the "Favorites" menu bar picks up your "Favorites" channels stored via SlingPlayer for Windows1 changing channels may cause a video freeze up for 10-20 seconds; this is an issue SlingMedia is trying to minimize. no apparent viewing experience difference whether using either a WiFi or 3G connection needs a bar to display volume level when using the BlackBerry's volume +/- buttons switches readily between a full screen video and a display that incorporates one of three menu bars needs to "reconnect" if you switch to another BlackBerry application while viewing (SlingPlayer application remains open in background but disconnects from the source); the "reconnect" time is 5 to 15 seconds. battery life on the Bold for continuous reception of a broadcast via WiFi is about 2-1/2 to 3 hours.; it's probably shorter on other 8xx0 models. I have also been able to get SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry beta working on a BlackBerry 8820 over WiFi where, once again, it provided an excellent true reproduction of the video signal within the limitations of the 8820's video and audio hardware. it can also be used to operate the PVR on my cable TV set-top box. latency: at midnight New Year's Eve, SlingPlayer for BlackBerry Mobile rang in the new year seven seconds after the broadcast version directly connected to a cable service. you can almost read those real time scoreboard bars that appear across the top of the screen during football and hockey broadcasts. And, for now for those not able to take advantage of SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry due to its current specifications: it works over a GSM/EDGE connection on unsupported BlackBerry 8xx0 devices; however, SlingMedia does not guarantee the resulting performance. This is really an application for 3G or faster wireless networks only; an attempt to connect my Bold in a rural area where there was only EDGE wireless failed. once SlingMedia releases this HSDPA version of SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry they will look at doing a version that runs over Verizon's, Bell Mobility's and Telus's 3G EV-DO network A suggestion for RIM: SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry demonstrates the full potential of the Bold's and 8900 Curve's 480x320/360 video display. Let's hope that newer versions of their firmware can achieve the same level of high quality video on the YouTube player and other video applications supported by these devices. If you have both a SlingBox and one of the supported BlackBerries, upgrade your firmware (where necessary) and give SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry a try (U.S., Canada, U.K.). Sling Media is now looking for feedback from its targeted user public. With over 500 channels to choose from, at any location worldwide where I can find a WiFi or (unlimited data plan) 3G HSDPA connection, television broadcast viewing has come a long way from having, in a fixed location, a single channel available only when atmospheric conditions permit. SlingPlayer for BlackBerry has significant potential for business road warriors; in addition to the entertainment aspect, it also provides immediate access to "breaking news" and business broadcasts from taxis, airports, coffee shops, restaurants (mind your etiquette, however). For those states considering legislation prohibiting texting while driving, they may also want to include viewing videos as a potential distraction. Update: SlingMedia announced at MacWorld that they are targeting to release a SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone this calendar quarter. (I would have put up a screen capture; however, the video does not make it to the BlackBerry screen capture programs I employ, including PC desktop programs.)

 

Access Your Skype Contacts via Truphone

Over the past few years we have seen the evolution of several conversation communities, some simply employing instant messaging; others employing both instant messaging and voice. Skype is the primary example with its support of IM, voice and video as well as auxiliary features such as file sharing (and, as announced tonight, basic screen sharing) but we are also seeing these services diffuse into Google, via GTalk's voice and chat capability, MSN Live via Live Messenger, and, in spite of its trying to define who they are, Yahoo. Truphone is a mobile voice calling service that I have used for a couple of years from a Nokia N95-1; it became critical in a situation I encountered in Germany two years ago. I have liked both the quality of the voice calls as well as the user interface, especially its use of the device's native address book for initiating a call. While they have had some hiccups with their recent product launches, Truphone has become the leader in providing low cost calling from the iPhone while breaking the carrier barrier via Apple's App Store. I will soon be reporting on Truphone Anywhere for BlackBerry. Now, under recently appointed CEO Geraldine Wilson, Truphone is making a move to grow their user base rapidly by leveraging the user bases of other services. This evening at the MacWorld Showstoppers event Truphone announced an enhanced Truphone for iPhone providing connectivity to these four conversation communities. Supporting both instant messaging and voice conversations, voice calls to, say, Skype contacts are free provided they go over a WiFi connection. Calls to these communities can also be made over a carrier's 3G network, usually at the cost of a local call. In addition Truphone is providing access to Twitter as one additional messaging service accessible via Truphone's iPhone application. In my interview this evening with new Truphone CEO Geraldine Wilson, she pointed out: Using Skype as an example, Truphone's enhancements set up an appropriate Skype client on a Truphone gateway and complete the call to the Skype contact, taking advantage of Skype's peer-to-peer architecture such that there are no resulting termination charges. By introducing instant messaging, Truphone is recognizing the key role IM is taking on in IP-based conversations where a conversation may start over a chat session and migrate to a voice session if deemed appropriate. Truphone sees the introduction of these enhancements as a key to building the Truphone user community; Truphone generates revenue through offering low cost calling to/from the landline and mobile PSTN network. Truphone is looking at adding BlackBerry and Android to their supported platforms for this service over the next few months. Key here are devices that support an application store in order to make user access to these services simple and trivial. To avoid high roaming charges it is recommended that Truphone for iPhone be used either over a WiFi connection anywhere worldwide but only over a user's home country 3G carrier. These new features go live on next Monday, January 12. Some outstanding questions: Given that the Truphone application needs to be active for conversations, how will this work when other applications are open? Currently if I have Truphone as the open application on my iPhone, I can receive free Truphone calls and my presence will be indicated to other Truphone for iPhone users if I am in their "Favorites" tab. However, if I am in another iPhone application, I cannot receive "free" Truphone calls over WiFi; nor is my presence indicated to others. I look forward to seeing how the enhanced Truphone handles Instant Messaging when Truphone is not the "open" application on the iPhone. This is where BlackBerry's full multi-tasking capability is a major advantage over the iPhone. Calling Skype contacts involves providing your SkypeID and password. What security is in place to maintain the confidentiality of this information. What other security aspects are compromised as a result of placing the calls via a connection to a gateway that supports the caller's Skype client. What is Skype's reaction to having Truphone siphon off what could otherwise potentially be SkypeOut revenues while leveraging the Skype user base and using the "free" aspect of Skype? We know Skype is working to launch mobile phone applications, probably this week at CES. With iSkoot and the Skypephone on 3's networks, as we learned at last year's eComm 2008 iSkoot presentation, a portion of carrier revenues are shared between Skype and iSkoot. A major step forward in making low cost calls worldwide, Truphone's moves once again emphasize that WiFi is becoming an ever growing alternative connection option to making wireless calls. At the same time it will be interesting to see how the business model plays out in a world where the cost of voice calling continues to move towards zero. GigaOm: Truphone Brings Skype to iPhone and iPod Touch

 

Skype throws independent developers under the bus to pursue WebEx market

Skype for Mac 2.8's new screen sharing feature signals Skype's move into the web conferencing and video conferencing space led by WebEx. Skype is also building screen sharing features for Windows and Linux clients. Skype's bundling free screen sharing into Skype's software will popularize the feature to hundreds of millions of people. This makes the market for online conferencing bigger. The bundling will also kill the freemium business model (try our free version, upgrade to our posh version) conferencing companies use to get customers. This will hurt the following Skype developers directly: Yugma  Mikogo Oneeko RemoteCall InnerPass Persony InstaColl Gogrok IBM Lotus Sametime Unyte Convenos 800Meet Back in mid-2005, Bill Campbell asked "Does Skype eat its children?" when Skype competed with presence developers with Skypeweb. Those developers abandoned Skype. Since then Skype competed with video developers, who've abandoned Skype. And with Outlook integration developers. And with Salesforce integration developers. And with mobile developers. Skype's ecosystem is littered with the bleached bones of third-party software developers. They filled gaps in Skype's product line. They made Skype's network more valuable. They bet their jobs on Skype's partner program being safe from Skype itself. Clearly, a bad bet. Skype desktop sharing will be wildly successful. Building it into Skype clients and putting it one or two clicks to add sharing to a call makes it 10 to 100 times more convenient than other systems. Ubiquity will change the way people think about desktop sharing the way ubiquity is changing how people think about video calling. WebEx-style meeting, sales, training, tech-support, and webinar services comprise a multibillion dollar industry. Skype desktop sharing will be disruptive to the industry: vastly cheaper, more convenient, more social. We'll hunt for market share stats this year. So while this announcement is great for Skype, the choice will chill investment by software development partners. Platforms must be safe, trusted, with manageable risk. And platforms must foster creativity, innovation, and opportunity. Skype's choice subverts developer trust. That's one hell of a brand note

 

Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X provides screen sharing, Wi-Fi access, chat features and Twitter-like mood messages

Guest Post by Dan York, reposted from Disruptive Telephony. Tonight out at the "ShowStoppers" event at MacWorld in San Francisco, Skype announced the new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version will apparently be available for download tomorrow, January 6, 2009, from Skype's website. [NOTE: I will update this post with the download link when it becomes available.] Continuing Skype's rather fragmented product strategy, they have rolled out some new features in this 2.8 beta release that will at least stop us Mac users from whining about Windows users always getting the good stuff first. Here's the quick list of what Skype notes is in this release: Skype Access Screen Sharing Improved chat management: ability to sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats Quick Add: much easier to add people to chats Mood message chat: mood message updates from your friends as chat messages Large avatars: 256x256 pixels Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests Ability to add your own notes to contacts Courtesy of Skype's PR team, I've had a chance to play with the 2.8 beta for a couple of weeks and have these thoughts below... SKYPE ACCESS Probably the largest "new" feature is "Skype Access", a service that lets you go to any of the 100,000 Boingo Wi-Fi hotspots and - using Skype - connect to the Boingo hotspot. When you connect, you pay on a per-minute basis and the fee (roughly 20 cents per minute) is deducted from your Skype Credit. You do not have to pay the Boingo monthly fee. You do not have to pay any hourly or daily fees. Judging from the news release and pre-release info, Skype is immensely proud of this feature but I will be honest and say it does little for me. I just don't use Wi-Fi hotspots as much while traveling (especially now that I'm paying for a wireless broadband adapter). However, I can see how this could be of value. If all you wanted to do was crack open your Mac and send some email, this gives you a great way to do that on a per-minute basis. If I were a heavy user of Wi-Fi hotspots, I'd want to do the math to figure out if it would just be cheaper to buy a monthly Boingo access. Regardless, it's an interesting move for Skype to get into the business of connecting you to Internet access. SCREEN SHARING The coolest feature of the 2.8 beta is a "screensharing" feature where you can share either your entire screen or just a portion of your screen with the Skype user on the other end. Now, this works with all other versions of Skype because it replaces your video stream with the screen sharing. So a Mac Skype user can share their screen with Windows and Linux users.... which is pretty cool. It's hard to show in a blog post, but if you watch my screencast about the 2.8 beta, you can see it in action: You can share either your entire desktop or just a section of your screen. You can also resize the section you are sharing while you are in the middle of sharing. When you stop sharing, you just flip back to showing your video. CHAT PRIORITIZATION By far the most useful feature I've found in the 2.8 beta is the ability to set the "priority" of a chat session - and then sort your chat sessions by priority in the Mac's "drawer" way of displaying chat sessions. I can just control-click a chat (either a private or public chat) and then go down to the "Set Priority" menu choice: You can then sort the chats based on their priority using the drop-down menu at the top of the "drawer": You can also sort based on title or date. Personally I've found the Sort by Priority to be very useful when you have, as I do, a zillion chats open at any one time. (And yes, I report to RJ, our CTO, so his chat gets the highest priority! ;-) ) MOOD MESSAGE CHAT - AND FOLLOWING (like Twitter) Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the 2.8 beta is the new "Mood Messages" pseudo-chat that you can enable in the Advanced part of the Skype Preferences: Once you enable the "Mood Message Chat", you get a new chat window that opens up that shows you the mood messages of all of your contacts: It also very nicely lets you set your mood message simply by typing in the window as you would to any other chat window. This is quite nice for someone like me who almost never changes my mood message in the regular window. This actually makes Skype mood messages useful to me. However, because of that other option that says "Show iTunes song in my mood message", you rapidly wind up seeing that a whole lot of people have that option checked and your Mood Message Chat rapidly fills with updates of music people listen to. What if you don't want to see their updates? Well, Skype has made it so that you can "follow" updates from your contacts through a simple menu choice: The down side here is that if you enable the Mood Message Chat, you are following all your contacts by default and have to go through and "unfollow" (i.e. uncheck the menu choice) people you don't want to follow. It would be great if Skype had a "follow by default" or a "stop following all contacts" choice... something along those lines to let you control who you are following. The intriguing aspect here is that this enables you to turn Skype mood messages into the kind of status updates that you typically have in Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other zillion services offering status updates. The great thing here is that it is simply another Skype chat window like all your other chats. (Of course, you can get a Skype chat for Twitter using "twitter4skype", but this is now with Skype mood messages.) I think, though, for it to reach any kind of real usage, you need more people to enable this feature (it is off by default) and actually start using it - and for that it also needs to be on more platforms. [As a tease, I'll mention that there is a way to integrate this mood message chat with Twitter, so anything I type there also shows up in my Twitter stream... but I'll write about that in a separate blog post as it's not directly tied to the 2.8 beta release. Soon...] QUICK ADD Another nice feature is the ability to quickly add someone to a chat through a button at the top of the chat window. You click on the window and start typing in a contact's name: Before you could always drag-and-drop a contact from your main Skype window into a chat, but now you can use this quick add button. It is particularly useful if you have a large number of Skype contacts. NOTES ON CONTACTS Another useful feature is the ability to add private notes to each of your Contacts. So you could store information about how you know the person... their interests... basically anything you want as it is a free-form text field: What's not yet clear to me is where these notes are stored. Are they accessible through multiple Skype clients if you were logged in on multiple machines? Or are they tied to the machine where you create the Notes? I'm guessing that they are stored with the local client like chat histories are.... but I'd need to have multiple installations of the 2.8 beta to really know this. OTHER FEATURES Skype also added a few other features: New set of icons Large avatars: You can now have images up to 256x256 pixels in size. Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests - so you aren't exposed to images that might be offensive. There are undoubtedly other features that we'll find as we work with it more. CONCLUSION So with this 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X, Skype provides some interesting new capabilities. I can see the screen sharing being quite useful to show people what's on my screen. The chat prioritization is great for heavy chat users like me. The possibilities of actually making the Mood Messages useful intrigue me. Frequent Wi-Fi hotspot users may find the Skype Access feature useful and economical. All in all, it's a great evolution of the Skype client for Mac OS X. I do wish, though, as I've discussed before, that Skype's product strategy weren't so fragmented. Sure, as a Mac user, it's fun for a few minutes to have some features that Windows users don't have... but that fun rapidly fades when I can share my desktop with a Windows user but they can't share their's. And they almost never use the Mood Messages because it's not convenient to do so. Perhaps most annoyingly, I am currently in a position where I am helping some Windows users get started with Skype and so I'm trying to help them with their Skype client... when mine is markedly different. It's a frustrating experience. I do hope Skype's new management can help converge the product streams so that the user experience (and technical support experience) is closer between platforms (while, yes, acknowledging that platforms have UI/behavior differences). We'll see. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy using this new beta on my Mac and seeing what else might be inside the release. Again, Skype indicates that the 2.8 beta will be available tomorrow, January 6, 2009, for download for Mac OS X users. I'll look forward to reading what you all think...

 

Skype over Boingo Wi-Fi hotspots, pay in Skype credits

Unconfirmed, coming out of MacWorld today. This is different from the Skype-Boingo 2005 co-marketing agreement for Skype Zones. Not sure if the Boingo iPhone app (news release) is related. More detail soon.

 

Bound for MacWorld and CES

Jim Courtney and I are heading to Las Vegas for the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show.  We'll cover Skype's press conference and see what interviews we can arrange. We'll also look for members of the Skype ecosystem to show us their latest. And for close-ups with innovators and Skype's rivals. I'm also going to the "Jobless" MacWorld Expo in San Francisco Tuesday morning. Please share your tips with us. Email, twitter, or Skype Me. Love to see you there.  Gear to pack for CES: Digital camera, Digital camera, Flip MinoHD, desk tripod, monopod, batteries, audio recorder, iPod, iPod cable, iPod earbuds, usb cable extender, Ethernet cable extender, power squid, laptop, laptop power brick, laptop headset, webcam, mouse, memory stick, usb hub, n800, n800 power, mobile phone, mobile power, ziplock bags. Non-gear: 3x5 cards, notepad, flair pens, writing pens. Clothes to pack: Warm, layers. Good walking shoes. Scarf.

 

OnState Virtual PBX: Taking On and Managing All Callers

OnState's Virtual PBX incorporates Skype as a contributor to lower cost, yet more productive, small business communications management activities. A mainstay for communications in any office with at least a few employees is the need to accept incoming calls, determine who is calling, what is their general need and getting the call to the right employee. In the interest of effective and productive customer and supplier relations, calls need an automated way to reach sales personnel, customer care, accounting or technical support or "the boss". Preferably this call management should be handled without any human intervention; over the past twenty or more years this has resulted in the evolution of increasingly effective Private Branch Exchange ("PBX") offerings from telecomm equipment suppliers. And it traditionally required a reasonably demanding capital expense, from $15,000 up. The basic functions of a PBX include: Receiving and answering a call from an external caller Offering a menu of options to determine to whom the call should be connected Transferring the call in response to answers provided either by entering alphanumeric or dialpad information or by using speech recognition. Accepting, recording and managing voice mails if nobody is available to take a call Ability to make a subsequent call transfer if deemed necessary However, IP-based communications technology along with web 2.0 tools provide opportunities for enhancing the PBX to build more productive and effective business processes when it comes to managing relationships with both suppliers and customers. For instance: An individual agent portal for overall conversation management Intelligent call queuing would permit an "occupied" employee to either put a caller into a queue for answering when available or transfer a caller to another employee with the skills to handle the call Chat sessions can be offered as either an alternative or complement to voice conversations Building a searchable call archive integrated into an email system such as GMail. Making call transfer destinations independent of the recipient's geographical location, whether "in the office", at a home office or out "on the road". Reducing and minimizing the costs associated with various PBX services. Building on its Call Center experience OnState has launched its Virtual PBX which provides all this functionality as well as: Receives calls via Skype, SkypeIn as well as Local DID numbers and toll free numbers in over 20 countries Call transfer to employees, agents and other designated recipients on their Skype-enabled PC, landline phones or mobile independent of geographical location An extension-based agent/employee/representative portal for managing incoming calls, including call waiting notification, queuing and redirection Integration into GMail, Zimbra and Salesforce.com A few weeks ago, OnState CEO Pat Kelly was our guest on a SquawkBox conference call where he provided more details about OnState's Virtual PBX, including a sharable slide show presentation accessible as a Google document. Bottom line; for as little as $15 per month per seat and no capital investment, small to medium enterprises and organizations as well can establish an enhanced PBX capability to facilitate both more productive business processes as well as more cost effective communications. Definitely a business model disruptor.