Ever wonder if Skype could replace your home phone line? Borderless Communicator publisher and independent Skype “statistician” Hudson Barton has outlined, with encouragement by Skype Journal‘s Phil Wolff, the complete details of how he has deployed Skype to become his home phone.

If you are considering this option here are some of the considerations:

• Skype Online should be offering numbers in your local calling area.
• Create a separate Skype account solely for the home phone configuration
  • There are no Contacts associated with the account (optionally you can create a separate set of contacts)
  • All inbound calls are concurrently forwarded to their two  iPhones (leaving one more PSTN call forwarding number available)
  • They still use their original Skype accounts for making and receiving Skype calls with their Skype Contacts

• Hudson and his wife answer ALL calls on their respective iPhones using the carrier’s voice channel
  • not on Skype for iPhone
• They also subscribed to a North American unlimited US and Canada Skype Calling Plan
  • $60 per year (vs $360 for a Time Warner home phone line)
  • Results in a 50% discount on the cost of their Skype Online number (net $30 per year)
  • Required since all inbound calls are forwarded to their iPhones on the PSTN
  • Provides outbound calling options (see below)
• Hudson has outlined the issues with respect to outbound calling.
  • Where a SkypeOut call would be the lowest cost, he uses Skype for iPhone logged into the same “home phone” Skype account.
  • However, due to battery issues he closes Skype for iPhone when not making Outbound calls. (recall that they answer inbound calls on their wireless carrier’s voice channel).
  • For outbound calls he can optionally set either his Skype Online number or a mobile number as the callerID for SkypeOut calls.
• There is no 911 service for the Skype Online number; however, it is provided by their iPhone carrier.
• Voice mails are left on the iPhones’ carrier accounts for ready access, not Skype voice mail.

With Hudson’s implementation, the Skype client is never open except when required on the iPhone for SkypeOut calls; Skype’s infrastructure works in the background to forward calls. No PC is required once the account is set up and call forwarding configured. Other than the mobile phones, no PC hardware is required for the ongoing use of the service.

Over the years I have experienced a couple of other situations where, while it may not be their only home phone service, users have taken advantage of Skype.

Use a PC-free Skype-enhanced phone. While there were once several offerings for this, the current offerings are the RTX Dualphone 3088 (cordless, landline and Skype) which can combine a landline service and Skype into one platform and the FREETALK Office Phone (Ethernet, Skype only) . Since the Dualphone works via a DECT-supported base station, you can have as many as four handsets around the home. Once again:

• create a separate Skype account for your “home phone” service
• ensure that you can obtain a Skype Online number that is toll-free to most of your callers
  • low cost unlimited calling US/Canada landline subscriptions are very common
• you have configured call forwarding options to send unanswered calls to a mobile phone
• obtain a Skype subscription appropriate to where you expect to place outbound calls
• 911 calls can be made via the landline or the user’s mobile phone.

In one instance the user is moving amongst several countries over a few months and they simply take their Dualphone with them and obtain a local landline service if needed.

My own home phone is a Dualphone equivalent; but our landline uses the Rogers Home Phone service where the plan includes 1,000 minutes of US/Canada calling and free calls to other Rogers Home Phone customers as well as any Rogers wireless phone in Canada. But a similar Skype configuration is not feasible in Canada as Skype Online numbers are not offered for Canada.

Bottom line: Yes, with the appropriate services available in your local calling area, you can replace your home phone with a Skype service. However, understand you will need a smartphone for 911 calling and you need to ensure your iPhone is kept charged to be able to receive calls.

Other posts:

• RTX Dualphone 3088: The Bloggers’ Have Their Say
• RTX 3088 Dualphone: An Ideal Home or Small Office Solution for Easy Worldwide Calling

Related articles

• Skype hits 145 million users monthly (voiceontheweb.biz)

Note: While eBuyNow (formerly In Store Solutions and producer of the FREETALK Office Phone) was a client of the author’s, this is no longer the case. The author currently has no interest in any product sales resulting from links within this post. He has been using the no longer available Phillips dual mode cordless phone for his Rogers Home Phone service.

For Mac devotees worldwide there has developed a significant appreciation of Skype for Mac 2.8 with it’s drawers, separate chat conversations windows, contact management algorithms and other features that present a “Mac-like” user interface. It provided both ease-of-use and flexibility across the spectrum of new to advanced users. However, there have also been cries for incorporating many features that are now available in Skype for Windows 5.x, especially Group Video calling. A tall task, to say the least. Recall Dan York’s rant on Skype’s fragmented product strategy, for instance.

Over the past couple of months Skype has released two versions of Skype for Mac 5.x (5.0 and 5.1) to some acclaim (yes, I have heard some complements) but also to much dismay. On the positive side it supports Group Video Calling (but now requiring a subscription). It took a couple of weeks after the Skype for Mac 5.1 release but last week the Internet erupted with an outbreak of Skype for Mac 5.x fever as several bloggers passionately displayed the rash by posting their concerns, apprehensions and aspirations. From my recent interviews with Skype personnel, their blogs and my own experience using both Skype for Windows 5.x and Skype for Mac 5.x I find the following:

• It appears that the goal for Skype for Mac 5.x is to have an interface similar to the revamped user interface first launched as Skype for Windows 4.x and now at its most recent version, Skype for Windows 5.2. At the same time the goal was to catch up to the feature set of Skype for Windows 5.x.
• From my CES interview with Neil Stevens, Skype’s VP Consumer Products, I learned that Neil wants to see new versions with incremental feature enhancements released every two to three months. Certainly the activity since the beginning of 2011 has lived up to that goal with two new releases of both Skype for Windows and Skype for Mac in that time frame.
• In the announcing the contest for “Styling” a theme the Skype for Mac 5.x conversation pane there is a concluding paragraph stating:
  • Finally, a note to those of you who have commented on the user interface as a whole. We’re in the process of developing some changes which will offer a lot more flexibility in the interface, and they’re on the roadmap for a (near) future version. Stay tuned.
• In response to last week’s deluge of blog posts Skype’s Rick Osterloh has posted “An Update on Skype for Mac” where he attempts to explain some of the challenges of building Skype for Mac 5. He states:
  • However, there’s still plenty of work for us to do and we know that not all of you prefer 5.X. To that end, we’ve taken a comprehensive look at the feedback from the last couple of months and identified two broad patterns. I’ve captured a distillation of some of the issues we have heard.
• In the meantime Skype has restored the ready availability of Skype for Mac 2.8 on their website as an option.

Skype for Mac 5 Fever – The Outbreak

• Lukas Mathis, Ignore the Code, in his post Skype 5 for Mac, finds an upgraded Skype Contact asking: “What the hell happened to Skype? Is this some kind of a joke?” He goes on to point out the simplicity in Skype for Mac 2.8 of the basic contact window, how chats were displayed and how he uses the Mac multi-desktop feature to manage multiple concurrent chat sessions. He continues by outlining his issues with Skype for Mac 5: complexity, rigidness and non-essential features. All valid points including a demonstration of how a more advanced user took advantage of the UI’s flexibility in 2.8.
• Jaanus Kase, a former Skype employee who has since acquired a degree in Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, in his post, Skype 5 for Mac: spatial arrangement and inconsistent single-window design, discusses the the “Floating and Disappearing Dial Pad” as an example. [My comment: here is one feature that needs to be addressed by looking at how the dial pad is handled in Skype for Windows 5 (I’ll have more to say later on this one.)]
• Hudson Barton, a Skype for Mac enthusiast who tracks Skype users online every 15 minutes, uncovers a previous Skype for Mac UI design proposal from an agency that Skype worked with (don’t know if they still do). He points out in his post, How To Fix Skype-for-Mac 5.x :
  • ….. the features of Skype-for-Windows work consistently and as one might anticipate, with lists of contacts,  conversations calls on the left and the content of those items on the right.  The Mac interface, by contrast, is all mixed up. {Editor’s bold} Things pop up in unexpected locations and in formats that are both strange and unusable.  Some of the features are too buggy to use.  Others are annoying, or meaningless, or simply dead, and several things that were admired in 2.8 have gone missing.

  and offers some suggestions for fixing Skype for Mac 5.

• Phil Wolff at Skype Journal, in Months pass, and fury over Skype 5 for Mac still boils, provides one perspective on “How did this happen” and points out that “Design Is Hard”:
  • How do you hold fast to your core Skypiness, to what made people love you, and support new features for new markets, new use cases, new business models? Your backlogs overflow. The pressure is intense. Heck, I add to my Skype wishlist daily so I can only imagine what your iceboxes look like.
• Andy Abramson at VoIP Watch speculates on how this all may have evolved in Skype Has Another Set of Outages Yesterday.

Skype for Mac 5 – The Anti-Biotic

From these posts and conversations in the general course of my work I get the feeling that I am one of the few users who has experienced both Skype for Windows 5 and Skype for Mac 5 on an almost daily basis. I am also involved with a network of business contacts who simply use Skype — they don’t care about the underlying technology –  and just want it to work but again I hear that “What the hell happened to Skype?” line from those who use a Mac.

Just over a year ago I acquired a MacBook Pro and quickly learned first hand about the features that made Skype for Mac 2.8 attractive to its user base. And then I realized that some of the basic precepts behind Skype for Windows 4 and 5 had some consistency with how Skype for Mac 2.8 worked, especially when it came to handling contacts and conversations. At that point I realized how some of these features were inherent to Skype for Windows 4.x and have become very comfortable with the Skype for Windows 4 and 5 overall format while benefiting from its new features:

• The two panes clearly separate Contact Management and Conversations
• There is a “Compact View” option to have a separate window for Contact management and multiple windows for individual conversations (with chat text, call detail notes and file transfer records) in addition to the “Default View” with one overall user interface window and two panes. (Note: don’t go running to Compact View in Skype for Mac 5 – that has totally different consequences)
• Skype for Windows 5.x has evolved with new UI features that make using Skype even easier (for example I have commented on two nifty new Skype for Window 5.2 here and here – the latter addresses one aspect of how the dial pad works).

Over the course of this week I will be putting up a series of additional posts outlining in more detail what I see as needed for Skype for Mac to come close to the convenience, feature set and ease-of-use found in Skype for Windows 5.2.

Bottom line: the Skype for Mac team has lots of work outstanding to address the challenge of not only having the feature set but also ease-of-use of Skype for Windows 5 while also taking advantage of some potential features that are unique to the Mac. Hopefully my comments can help point out key issues. With over 30 million online concurrently last week and 145+ million active users late last year, there is a significant portion of Skype’s users who count on a positive user experience (18% of this blog’s visitors in 2011 are on a Mac.)

Dan York has some additional comments:

• My 3 Main Issues With Skype 5.x For The Mac – And Jim Courtney Summarizes The Skype for Mac 5 Saga

Other posts in this series:

• Skype for Mac 5: Returning to Ecstasy – Step 1 – Consistency
• Skype for Mac 5: Returning to Ecstasy – Step 2 – The Conversation Pane

Other views on this issue:

• Ignore the Code: Skype 5 Ideas
• Balance Network: Skype 5 for Mac Redesign, “A little more than just a Chat Style”
• Attack of Design: Skype Beta for Mac’s Usability Failings
• Hudson Barton, Aaytch: How To Fix Skype-for-Mac 5.x
• Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch: Skype Has Another Set of Outages Yesterday
• Keith Lang: screen shot on how to organize Contacts
• Jaanus Kase: Skype 5 for Mac: spatial arrangement and inconsistent single-window design

And, for those design masters: enter the Mac chat style competition; competition announcement

Related articles

• Skype for Mac 5.0 Goes Gold: Incorporating Beta Feedback and More (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype for Mac 5 Beta 1: Catching Up to Skype for Windows 5 But With a Mac Touch (staging.dicx.com)
• This Is What Skype 5 For Mac Should Look Like (techcrunch.com)
• Download: Skype for Mac 5.1 (skypejournal.com)
• Skype 5 for Mac continues to frustrate — how’s it treating you? (engadget.com)

A few days after CES 2011 and its announcements re Skype on mobile devices and Skype on TV, the daily maximum of Skype users concurrently online has quickly risen from 25 million to just shy of 29 million. Hudson Barton’s meticulous tracking demonstrates the long term growth of this statistic.

Last summer, when Skype filed for an IPO, they announced that, during the April to June, 2010 quarter, over 125 million unique users had made at least one call on Skype during the quarter. Today, with via a press release announcing a major expansion of the Skype Access WiFi service, Skype announced that over 145 million users had made at least one Skype call during the quarter ending December 31, 2010.

The number came with one caveat: “excluding users connected via joint venture partners”. One would have to assume this number does not include calls made via the carrier-specific services that use Skype, namely, Skype mobile on Verizon (with over 80 million subscribers to whom Verizon’s Skype mobile client was “pushed” to all supported phones) and the nine 3 services in Europe, Hong Kong and Australia.

Two questions:

1. What is driving this growth acceleration? Is it simply an outcome of the announcements at CES 2011? or is it virally driven by more awareness of Skype’s services? Is Group Video Calling contributing to this increase? Or, with over 10 million downloads in the first two weeks of its release, is it the launch of video calling on Skype for iPhone?

2. How many of these new subscribers are buying Skype’s revenue generating services? This was a major concern that arose out of the IPO registration document, where only 8% of Skype users were actually buying services such as SkypeOut, Online numbers and Voice mail?

Bottom line is that two different measurements confirm that Skype usage is on an accelerated growth path, at least during the first quarter of 2011. And, finally, it appears that Skype is measuring its growth by a more realistic statistic of  “active” users rather than the total number of Skype accounts (now over 600 million) which appears to have resulted in about 80% of all Skype accounts created since 2003 having gone stale over time.

Related articles

• Skype for Mac 5, Skype for iPhone 3.0.1 – Upgrade Wednesday (voiceontheweb.biz)

When I interviewed Skype CEO Josh Silverman at CES 2010 in January, I had asked about the timing for a Skype IPO. Josh’s response:

“We’ll see. We don’t have a timeline for it. Our focus is to build a really great company. When we’re ready and the markets are ready, we’ll consider an IPO. At some point investors will want an exit, of course, but they’ re really taking  a long term point-of-view. This is not a quick flip; this is about building one of the great companies of technology.”

Today “long term” was defined as something between nine and fourteen months. Nine months after being taken private by an investment group lead by Silver Lake, Skype announced, through a blog post by Josh Silverman, they had filed a preliminary prospectus for an IPO. With a road show and other pre-IPO activities we’re probably three to five months from seeing the final transaction happen.

The prospectus makes for interesting read about both Skype’s business model and the communications infrastructure transition wrought by new technologies. Key Skype performance data includes:

• 2010 Jan-Jun revenues of $406.2MM vs same period 2009 of $324.8MM, an increase of 25.1%
• “Adjusted” EBITDA increase by 59.3% from $75.2MM to 115.8MM over the same periods
• $37MM in capital expenditures budgeted for 2010 vs $13.5MM spent in 2009

and some interesting user data:

One should really think of “Registered Users” as “Registered Accounts”. Especially with Skype for Business becoming more active, there will be a rise in accounts but lots of reasons for stagnant or dead accounts. (Personally I manage, via Skype Manager, over 25 accounts with about 15 users but really only use two of them for my own ongoing activities. The other users were created for one or more business activities and )

Most interesting are the “connected users” numbers, defined as “average monthly number for the three months ended [on] the date [shown on the x-axis]”. While Skype is showing a current number of 124 million“connected users” for the quarter ended Jun30, 2010  Hudson Barton’s “real users” number – which is more an indication of daily users on line is currently running at about 60 million.

The increase in paying users is the most significant number of interest. The prospectus confirms that SkypeOut represents Skype’s number one source of revenue and this number is the best indicator of how quickly these revenues can grow.

One other interesting metric relates to calling minutes, broken down as”

• Communications services billing minutes (SkypeOut minutes): from 5.0B in H1 2009 to 6.4B in H1 2010, a 28% increase somewhat consistent with the revenue increase, and
• Skype-to-Skype minutes: from 49.1 billion in H1 2009 to 88.4 billion in H1 2010, a 80% increase confirming that “free” really is the key marketing strategy for increasing Skype users and Skype usage.

Bottom line: Skype continues to grow at double digit rates but they are about to enter a phase where marketing activities and business communications services will become vital to sustaining its growth. Yet, regulatory and competitive issues will also become a significant factor and a real test of how willing governments are able to adapt to technological change as opposed to sustaining cost-inefficient legacy telecommunications operations whose fundamental business models are threatened. For the first time, we’ll be able to view quarterly the business success of Skype as an independent business operation.

There’s lots of other interesting marketing information and financial data in the prospectus but that leaves room for additional posts. And the statements re regulatory issues have the makings of several discussions.

Note that while $100MM has been put out as the amount to be raised, it was apparently only used as a metric to assist with determining SEC filing fees. The actual amount to be raised has yet to be announced.

Other posts:

• Dan York, Disruptive Communications: Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPO
• Business Insider SAI: Skype Spent $343.8 Million To Acquire Its P2P Software From Founders
• Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch: Skype To Go Public makes a couple of interesing points:

Now, going public brings with it a whole new set of responsibilities, not only SEC quarterly reporting.

For Skype’s lead investors, Silver Lake Partners, this is their opportunity to cash out. For many of the employees at Skype this is their chance for a nice reward for all the hard work they’ve put in over the past year.

• GigaOm: Skype Files for IPO

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skype Going Public With $100 Million IPO (thenextweb.com)
• Skype files for IPO (theglobeandmail.com)
• Skype Files For $100 Million IPO (techcrunch.com) (This one includes a block diagram of the various companies involved)
• Internet calling service Skype files for IPO (sfgate.com)
• GIPS, Google and All That Co-opetition Jazz! (voiceontheweb.biz)
• SkypeKit: “Naked” Skype Support Arrives for Hardware-Embedded Skype and PC Applications (voiceontheweb.biz)

“Fring is not a communications platform, but only a toy or at best a testbed for shiny objects.”

Comment by Hudson Barton on Andy Abramson’s post: Fring Fumbles on Cross Platform Video Chat

In observing the evolution of Skype and third party access to it over the past few years I have often wondered how far Skype would go in allowing third party services to deploy Skype as one communications mode in a multi-service communications offering. Fring and Truphone are two examples. Usually these offerings figure out a way to put up a temporary Skype client on a “gateway” server and then build their own interface to the Skype client on that gateway.

There are issues of scalability, service quality (especially voice and video quality) and the overall user calling experience that could potentially compromise the user’s experience in taking advantage of the resulting Skype connection. It’s one thing to show that technically one can make the relevant voice and video connections but the challenges rise to a significantly higher level when taking into account the overall user experience.

Personally I look for services that allow me to easily find and select a contact, select the calling destination (Skype, Home, Mobile, Office, for example) and then click on either a soft button or the hardware green button and make the connection within a reasonable time (say, less than 30 seconds). I find the multi-service communications offerings to be a bit overbearing and almost too overwhelming for a non-technical business and consumer user.

Today there’s lots of coverage about Fring and its use of Skype (or now lack thereof); Dan York has provided an excellent summary of the various viewpoints in his post: Skype vs. Fring: Is Fring not telling the whole truth?. Very significant is the speed with which Skype’s Vice-President, Legal responded to get their side of the story out; their legal personnel usually have stayed out of the public discussion on any of Skype’s market-related issues.

But getting back to basics, there are three considerations:

Skype is Fundamentally Communications Software: we have heard this many times from Skype CEO Josh Silverman; he repeated and emphasized this during our CES conversation last January. As a result they own the intellectual property rights to their software. But they have been successful largely because they make much of their intellectual property available free – they can afford to do this since the capital overhead for Skype-to-Skype calling is so low. We as users provide the key piece by using Skype on our PC’s or other Skype-embedded hardware devices. On the other hand they need the intellectual property protection not only to defend potential revenues but just as importantly to defend their brand.

Best examples of this include:

• Skype video calling – here’s the 1964 AT&T World Fair concept now going out thirty-five years later with no charge for one-to-one video calling and being used on ~35% of Skype calls.
• Skype has also made their SILK codec available royalty-free provided the licensee meets performance criteria. As demonstrated with Skype for iPhone over 3G, SILK has the potential to revolutionize voice quality on mobile calling (and I’ll pay one or two dollars per month just to have the superior voice quality after many years of mobile phone calls with somewhat challenging audio quality ). Blabbelon provides an excellent example of incorporating SILK.
• Skype mobile on Verizon: here is a software development and licensing agreement that generates sustainable revenue streams for both parties while delivering a significant benefit, namely free calling to Skype contacts worldwide, to Verizon customers when calling from the U.S.
• With the success of Skype as a commercial TV production platform, Skype has developed special licensing terms for users of this application.

The bottom line is that all these, including making basic Skype-to-Skype calls using the standard Skype clients, involve some form of license agreement that is being adhered to.

Skype is Ultimately About The User Experience: Skype’s brand focuses well beyond the enabling technology to incorporate the entire user experience. It was ease of installation and use that allowed Skype to be adopted so readily such that over 600 million user accounts have been created with around 100 million active users. Skype’s VP for Mobile, Russ Shaw, re-emphasized this during our conversation at CES. We witness this in the recent launches of Skype mobile on Verizon and Skype for iPhone over 3G. While I can only rely on third party reporting about the former (not being in the U.S.) which has largely been positive, for the latter I simply installed the software, looked up a contact, clicked on the Call button and made this excellent quality call to the U.K. using Skype for iPhone over 3G. Woops, did I mention the quality of the call again? Overall both applications set a higher standard for the user experience.

Skype is Opening Up to Developers: Yes, there has been a rough ride for developers over the past four years. PamConsult, Netralia, InnerPass and OnState have persisted with their offerings and have demonstrated the potential for Skype and third party applications. But the recent launch of SkypeKit beta – in a phased program to ensure control over quality and service level issues as the program evolves – opens up significant opportunities for third party developers. Suffice it to say that I know we can expect not only significant software partner offerings but also some innovative hardware offerings based on SkypeKit. Once again, however, there are licensing guidelines to ensure the integrity of Skype’s brand.

But the bottom line is this: sure Skype reserves the right to generate revenues where they see a significant value-add market opportunity but even with their free offerings they want and need to preserve their brand image. It would appear from Skype’s legal executive’s comments that they have been trying to work out a way to interact with Fring without success; Fring has certainly been around for over three years in one form or another, including attending Skype-sponsored events. As Andy Abramson says:

As we all know there are three sides to every story, but given Fring took the shot first, an old rule of thumb in a legal battle is get the word out first. And Fring did. Now Skype, whose legal minds are based on the West Coast, as well as their platform team and video folks for the most part have gotten in and replied.

We now are starting to get a better handle on how Skype will establish the playing field for third party applications, hardware and services. The evolution of the Fring relationship (or lack thereof) will provide a concrete example of how far Skype will go in allowing third party affiliations.

Full disclosure: yes, I tried Fring several times in the past (when it had Skype access). Simply put, I never found a way to use it comfortably and abandoned it. I have used iSkoot successfully in the past; however, they no longer support current BlackBerry platforms. But all this flurry does generate the background for a future post on what I would look for in a mobile smartphone calling experience.

Re Truphone: I mentioned Truphone at the beginning of this post as another example of a third party service that offers Skype as one communication mode. I’ll have more to say on my Truphone experiences – both favorable and unfavorable in a separate post. At least I find it a reliable backup when I have no other choice for calling.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skype and Fring Go to War Over VOiP Video Calls (mashable.com)
• Who Blocked Who in Skype and Fring Fight? (gigaom.com)
• Fring’s mis-use of Skype software was damaging to our brand and reputation (blogs.skype.com)
• Skype, Fring throw punches over iPhone hang up (reviews.cnet.com)
• Fring removes Skype functionality, then says Skype blocked it (downloadsquad.com)
• Update: Fring removes Skype video call support, what is best in the US now? (zdnet.com)
• Fring for iPhone now blocked from Skype. (thenextweb.com)
• SkypeKit: “Naked” Skype Support Arrives for Hardware-Embedded Skype and PC Applications (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype for iPhone 2.0 Released: 3G Skype-to-Skype Calling to Require a Fee (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype on Mobile over 3G: A Skype Video Calling First Experience (voiceontheweb.biz)

While, being a Canadian where I could not try out Skype for iPhone “legally”, I have followed the coverage and comments across the web. At this point I simply want to provide a summary and links to some of the feedback. In some sense, Hudson Barton’s tweet earlier today, shown above, sums it all up.

First, I should mention, however, that as of the end of its first day of availability, Skype for iPhone was the number one downloaded iPhone application in ten forty countries: U.S., U.K., Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Russia, Japan and Australia and thirty others; it was number 2 in China. According to one chat message I observed, there were over 600,000 downloads on Tuesday’s launch day.

The Reviews

Om Malik on GigaOm: Review: Skype for iPhone. Verdict: Awesome

My Verdict: For those of you that use Skype on a daily basis and own an iPhone, this could very quickly become the simplest way to make long-distance calls. And I’m predicting a big upsurge in Skype as an “IM client” with this release.

To Skype developers who worked on this product, I have two words: Great work! Of course, it would be even better if you got it launched on the BlackBerry so that I could use it on my Curve 8900.

Liane Cassvoy on PC World: First Look: Skype for the iPhone

You won’t find a whole lot in the way of iPhone-only features in this version of Skype. You can use your iPhone camera to take a picture to use as your profile photo, or you can upload a picture from your existing photo roll. But that’s about it. Still, if you’re looking for a solid mobile VoIP service for your iPhone, I can easily recommend Skype. Sure, rival services like Truphone have some features that Skype for iPhone lacks–such as the ability to chat via third-party IM services like AIM and Yahoo Messenger. But, to me, call quality is what matters. And Skype wins that battle easily.

Phil Glockner on ReadWriteWeb: Skype for iPhone: It’s Real and It’s Spectacular

Rest assured the interface is slick and the app works as promised. But, I think the real reason why we are all so excited about this release over other Skype-enabled iPhone apps like Fring or Truphone is simply how much it works like its desktop-bound big brother that we know and love. Instant messaging chats just work. Group chats just work. Getting at-a-glance status on your Skype friends just works. The bottom line is, other apps may get the job done, but due to bad interface design, a critical missing feature, or trying to do too much, are not a pleasure to use. This client actually is a pleasure.

James Kendall at jkontherun has done a video of his call to colleague Kevin Tofel attending CTIA; they certainly were impressed.

Dan York, Skype for iPhone – All I Want From It Is …, discusses the power of Skype’s persistent chat feature, especially when it comes to group chats:

MY ONE BIG WISH

While all this is true, I personally don’t really care. Sure, it will be great to be able to receive a Skype call and sure, it be great to be able to make a Skype call (all on WiFi of course). Sure, all that’s great.

But there is one single thing that I am looking for in this Skype for iPhone application that has been missing from Fring, IM+, TruPhone and every other iPhone app that has offered some type of Skype integration. In a word, it is simply this:

groupchats

Over the past several years I have become a huge user of Skype multi-user groupchats. Both for internal groupchats within organizations or companies and also for public groupchats where people have joined together to discuss common topics. They are an incredible communication tool – and no other iPhone app has delivered those for Skype.

On Dan’s point I have to agree strongly. Chat is 90% of my Skype activity. I have used iSkoot on the BlackBerry largely to follow my Skype chat sessions when out of my home office. The biggest issue has been battery drain; it is imperative to recharge at least daily when using iSkoot (and sometimes more often). iSkoot will follow Public Chats but not group chats.

If Skype cannot resolve the Canadian patent-licensing issue, at least offer a Canadian edition that follows chat sessions. One major advantage of iSkoot (or any Skype client, such as IM+ for Skype) on the BlackBerry is that chat activity can occur in background with message notification whereas following chat activity on the iPhone requires that the Skype application be open.

My own experience: Yesterday I did receive, on my Skype for Windows 4.0 client, a call from a Skype for iPhone user in the U.K.; it was a twenty minute call where call quality was fine for a call over the G729 codec. We could carry on a normal discussion. At the end the caller said that Skype for iPhone got the JB Seal of Approval.

Bottom line: I have seen several Tweets and chat messages along the lines of Hudson’s message above, it appears that, in spite of technology limitations, there will be a lot of Skype chat messaging over WiFi, 3G and 2G/EDGE and a lot of Skype calling from WiFi access points.

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• Skype Coming to iPhone Tuesday, BlackBerry in May [Skype] (i.gizmodo.com)
• Skype Debuts on the iPhone (technologyreview.com)

Guest Post by Hudson Barton, The Borderless Communicator

2008 is turning out to be a great year for Skype growth (real users), nearly matching the record year of 2006. In my view, the patterns of Skype growth are affected by:

1. The popularity (name recognition) of the software itself… in comparison to communications alternatives.
2. The capability of computers and mobile communication devices.
3. The quality and capability of the software for multi-modal communication… in comparison to communications alternatives.
4. The state of the world economy
5. The availability of broadband

So for 2009 here is how things are shaping up.

• Skype has no discernable marketing program. It never has. Skype relies almost entirely upon word-of-mouth. If Skype were to introduce a marketing program, the opportunity for growth could be significant. There seems to be zero prospect for such a marketing plan.
• The power of computers will grow marginally. The capability of mobile devices, especially smartphones, will grow hugely. The latter is a real opportunity for Skype if it can develop quality software for the most popular platforms such as the iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia N- and E-series. On the other hand, if the world economy sinks, then few people will be buying those new computers and mobile devices. Overall, this is not going to affect 2009 growth significantly.
• The overall quality and capability of Skype client software will improve marginally. Aside from bringing out client software for mobile platforms, upcoming improvements in the client (especially video and audio) will affect Skype growth only on the margins.
• Because Skype/Skype calling is free, and both SkypeIn and SkypeOut are very inexpensive, it is reasonable to assume that a poor economy is good for Skype in terms of its market share of communications. However, the overall market for communications may well decline in a bad economy. So while a declining economy is not good for Skype, it is less bad than for Skype’s competitors.
• The availability of broadband is a very important factor in the growth of Skype’s “real users”.

Summary: Skype growth (as measured by “real users”) will continue on its current trajectory (averaging around 830,000 new “real users” per month). That is a huge number by anyone’s standard. As in prior years, growth will be strong in the first quarter, slack in the second and third quarters, and strong in the fourth quarter.

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The Motley Fool has become a popular and widely respected  investment community site since the origins of the commercial Internet in the mid-90′s with the objective of helping people take control of their financial lives. It has evolved into a multi-media financial services operation; they have free and premium services; suggest portfolios and try to pick recommendations, host discussion forums amongst other activities. “The company’s name was taken from Shakespeare, whose wise fools both instructed, amused, and could speak the truth to the king — without getting their head cut off.”

In a post yesterday about “5 Free Internet Winners” they discuss the five biggest winners if free WiFi comes to pass as a result of anticipated rules for forthcoming spectrum auctions in the U.S. Google, Logitech, Amazon, Nintendo and “eBay | SkypePal” are the selections. Why SkypePal?

Forget eBay.com itself. By the time free access hits the masses, PayPal and perhaps even Skype will be bigger parts of this portfolio of verbs. Heck, even the name eBay may be toast as you crack open the 2012 annual report of SkypePal Incorporated.

Skype and PayPal will be the biggest winners of blanketed coverage. Skype remains the global voice chat leader with 370 million users worldwide. If you don’t think that Skype will replace a few landline telephone accounts once connectivity is pervasive, you may as well Skype me to tell me otherwise.

PayPal is already the leader in micro-payments. It will become an even bigger force in real world transactions under Martin’s scenario of access for all.

Certainly an opinion contary to all those thinking that eBay is about to run out and sell Skype. And it reinforces my long held opinion that the new executive team has one primary goal – to drive up the value of Skype to the point where eBay can not only fully recover its over $3B total acquisition cost of Skype but also provide a reasonable return, whether as an ongoing operation or through an exit involving a sale or IPO. Motley Fool goes further and feels that Skype will become one of the primary value drivers of eBay shares going forward, given that eBay’s online operation is struggling to find new ways to grow.

As for more reliable indicators of Skype’s current growth than Skype’s published number of accounts (not subscribers, not users), check out the peak number of users daily shown in the Skype client, Jean Mercier’s note on the tripling of Skype downloads and Hudson Barton’s “Real” User tracking showing that Skype is has returned to a growth rate comparable to its 2006 rate.

But in the background the new executive team has been working on the restructuring discussed in Skype Journal’s interview with Skype President Josh Silverman. In a recent “Home Improvement” post, Josh gave an update on the the efforts required to “right the ship”:

Excited as we are about bringing new colleagues aboard, there’s more to reorganizing our structure for continued growth. Back in the summer, we set out to be smart about it. And transparent. And fair.

Which is why we held numerous workshops to gain input from the team on how our structure and ways of working need to change. Change that we hope will lead to sustained growth, better products and an even more empowering work life at Skype. One of the things we’re doing is to create smaller “companies” within the company: consumer-, business-, mobility-, and developer-focused business units vaccinated against shackles that curb innovation and risk-taking. Each new business unit is designed to emulate the feel of a start-up and to cultivate a deeper sense of ownership.

This is just a low-resolution snapshot from what’s a continual journey of change. There’s much more to it, of course. Replotting our roles, responsibilities and accountability takes time. While we think that we’ve done most things right, some won’t come through as intended. Tweaking them for a few months should make life at Skype work well for everybody.

And he concludes with:

Our structural rethink isn’t about change for change’s sake. From day one, everything at Skype has boiled down to delighting the customer. With a bit of home improvement to support further growth and innovation, we’re just making sure it stays that way.

At least Motley Fool and the Skype executive team are in sync with respect to the primary goal at Skype. The next few months and the subtle indications of forthcoming new product and service announcements will tell if the foundation is being built to achieve these goals. From restructuring will now come the challenge of execution.

Tags: Motley Fool, eBay, Skype, PayPal, Josh Silverman

Borderless Communicator Hudson Barton has spent the last few years as the “keeper of the ‘real users’ statistic”, a measure of Skype usage that attempts to understand the demographics of Skype’s user base and put it into some sort of perspective so that it can be compared with other communication services.

There are only five public statistics provided by Skype in their reporting. First is the number of users online in the lower right corner of the Skype client. With each eBay quarterly report we get to see gross revenue generated by Skype, the cumulative number of Skype accounts opened as well as minutes of Skype-to-Skype calls and minutes of SkypeOut calls.

I have posted a couple of times about the fallacy of the cumulative number of Skype accounts as it gives no indication of “active” Skype usage over, say, the last quarter or, expressed more succinctly, how many accounts were really used for a Skype call of any type in the previous quarter? It’s based on stale data; this particular number ranks right up there with “how many hamburgers sold”.

However, by tracking the number of users online several times per day over the past few years, Hudson feels he has gained some perspective on Skype’s growth.

Sources of Skype Growth
by Hudson Barton

A question was raised the other day that the raw “real user” statistic could not adequately answer. That question was “Is Skype growth coming from new users or from changes in the pattern of Skype use?” So here is a deeper analysis that answers what the raw “real users” statistic fails to fully capture.

In 2005 and 2006, the amplitude of the daily usage wave was growing.   That is to say, the daily highs were growing relative to the lows (after discounting regional distortions)… 10% per annum faster in fact.  Skype usage was increasing in the middle of the workday relative to off-peak hours.  People were not using Skype as a general communication utility for inbound and outbound calling and presence.  Rather, they appear to have been using Skype for special work-related purposes like outbound long distance calling to save money.

In 2007 and 2008, the trend reversed.   The amplitude of the daily usage wave started shrinking.  The lows have been growing relative to the highs … 20% per annum faster.  It appears that people began using Skype for normal, essential and basic communication, staying online for longer stretches of time or even around the clock in order to receive inbound calls and to mark their presence.   Although we don’t know the precise motivation for this change in behavior, it could be related to the expanding availability of unmetered broadband.  Electricity is the only variable cost associated with keeping your Skype device running 24/7. So the trend is mostly due to a broadening of American and European usage…. folks in industrialized countries are staying in the Skype cloud around the clock with either computers, mobile devices or proxies such as iSkoot.

Today, the peak of the Skype usage wave is at about 14.5 million and the trough is about 7.2 million (out of 36 million total “real users”).  The comparable graph for a “phone” company (or a VOIP operator like Vonage) would show a usage wave with an amplitude of zero; all users are by definition online all the time.   If Skype’s usage trends continue, it will begin to look more and more like an indispensable communications utility and less like a mere disruption to the communications status quo.

Borderless Communicator Hudson Barton and I both follow our Twitter friends using a nifty third party Skype utility called Twitter4Skype. Basically you set up Twitter4Skype as a Skype Contact and enter your account information. Going forward, whenever you are logged onto Skype and a Tweet arrives from one of those whom you are “Following”, it will pop up in a Twitter4Skype chat window. And, of course, your messages placed into a Twitter4Skype chat window become “Tweets” seen all your Twitter Followers.

We both have had many requests for instruction on how to set up Twitter4Skkype. Hudson has authored for Skype Journal a review of Twitter4Skype with all the details:

Twitter4Skype: A Review
by Hudson Barton

One of my favorite online tools is “Twitter4Skype”. Not very many people know about “T4S”, but if you are a fan of both Skype and Twitter, your life will be made much happier and more productive if you use this little robot. It does not require you to download any software. There are no additional processes to clog up your computer. There are no additional windows for you to deal with. Everything runs within Skype as a normal Skype chat session. It could not be simpler.

• First, the robot posts your tweets directly into your twitter account from Skype. When you IM into your Twitter4Skype chat session, the message appears automatically in your Twitter feed.
• Second, the robot gathers tweets of everyone whom you are following and posts them to you in the same Skype chat session.

Installing twitter4skype:

1. Using “Add a Contact”, search for and add “twitter4skype” as a Skype contact.
2. Open a chat session with “twitter4skype”
3. Type the following into the chat window (to tell the robot about your your Twitter account and give the robot permission to access it):
   1. /account (shift+return)
   2. twitteraccountname (shift+return)
   3. twitteraccountpassword (return)
4. The robot should return: “twitter4skype Registration complete!”

Running Twitter4Skype:

1. The next time you write a chat message to “twitter4skype”, the entry will appear on your Twitter account and a confirmation of your posting will appear in the chat. Note that only the first 140 characters of your posting will be received by Twitter, so keep it short and sweet.
2. You will begin to receive your friends’ twitters in the one-to-one Skype chat session with T4S.
3. Try adding another Skype contact to the chat you are having with T4S. You have now established a one-way group Twitter feed. What you (and only you) post into that chat will be distributed to Twitter and to the other members of the chat. Incoming tweets will be distributed to all chat participants.
4. Try adding the T4S contact to another group chat: You have just established a special relationship between Twitter and yourself that distributes your posts (and only your posts) from that chat into your Twitter stream. Incoming tweets are not posted into this extra chat, but go to your main T4S chat only.

Tricks for keeping twitter4skype healthy and happy:

Twitter4skype is running on a server in Tokyo Japan. Its reliability and the stability of the server have been improving, but like everything in our technological world (especially free services), it sometimes disappoints. Although you might glean the following tips from the Twitter4Skype help screen (accessed by typing “#help” in the chat), here is how to avoid some common problems:

• Situation: T4S appears to be offline. Occasionally T4S will appear to be offline when it is actually online. You will not be able to receive your Twitter feed in this state and you will not be able to post your own twitter either. You can “wake up” T4S” by calling it. When you do, your queued incoming tweets will be posted to you immediately, and afterwards you will be able to post your own tweets. If this does not work, then T4S is actually offline rather than only appearing so.
• Situation: T4S appears to be online but is unresponsive. Occasionally T4S will “forget” its relationship with you. Although it is online, you are not receiving incoming tweets and it will not post your outgoing tweets. You can force T4S to reset your relationship by typing “#on” into the T4S chat window. T4S will respond with a “welcome back” message.

What the Robot can’t do:

Twitter4Skype is a simple robot. It knows only the tricks outlined above. Here are some tricks I wish it could do additionally:

• My Twitter use is evolving toward two separate accounts; one for personal and one for business to reflect my multiple personalities. But I really want to run only one Skype account and have both twitter accounts feed into it. So, with my second twitter account I would like to create a second T4S account and run it inside the same Skype name with separate T4S chats. Unfortunately, that is impossible. One T4S account per Skype name is the limit.
• Twitter4Skype is all about following and being followed by Twitter users. Now imagine you could follow and be followed by Skype users in the same way (without sharing contact information). Skype users are already connected to a universe of some 36 million other active Skype users worldwide. So why can’t Skype establish a network of followers within its own system. A percentage of those contacts will lead to shared Skype contact information, and those relationships will lead to increased Skype calling. A pseudo Skype chat established for this purpose would be one way to implement the concept.

Thanks, Hudson.

One additional point: If you have set up your Twitter feed to send tweets into your Facebook status message, then entering a message into a Twitter4Skype session will also pass it along to become your “current” Facebook status message. Same applies if you have linked Friend feed to your Twitter messages. (Unfortunately nobody has offered a means to pass your tweets along to your Skype Mood Message.)

And, when I am away from my office, I am able to follow my Twitter activity as a “twitter4skype” chat session in iSkoot on my BlackBerry.

Tags: Hudson Barton, Borderless Communicator, twitter4skype, Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry, iSkoot

Earlier this week the GMail weblog announced GMail voice and video chat; basically they are designed to add voice and video modes to an email thread; from the GMail blog post:

… today we’re launching voice and video chat — right inside Gmail. We’ve tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video — all for free. All you have to do is download and install the voice and video plugin and we take care of the rest. And in the spirit of open communications, we designed this feature using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat.

This afternoon I had an opportunity to try it out with Hudson Barton; publisher of the Borderless Communicator weblog and tracker of “Real Skype Users”. We had a 20 minute conversation using my Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks on a Wiindows laptop and the webcam on Hudson’s MacBook. There are two viewing sizes available: a 225 x 140 window inside the GMail tab of a Firefox (or other browser) session and an optional pop-up window that goes to 430 x 270. We were only able to determine that it provides a “letterbox” 1.6 width-to-height ratio (as opposed to the 1.33 ratio of “standard” video), but not the frame size or frame rate actually being transmitted over the Internet. As for CPU usage, the “googletalkplugi.exe” was using between 10% and 17% of my CPU. With no accessible statistics along the line of Skype’s option to display call statistics, it was not possible to drill down further. Both audio and video quality were clear and crisp – quite acceptable for a basic one-to-one conversation. Echo cancellation was apparent; Hudson was using the native speakers and mic of his MacBook with no perceivable echo..

It’s definitely not up to the feature set of Skype but here’s where it fits in:

• GMail certainly has a large user base, same order of magnitude as Skype.
• It’s easy to forward your standard POP/IMAP email account to GMail; I use this feature both for the resulting search capability and the available access to GMail on multiple devices, including smartphones.
• It provides real time conversation mode options for GMail threads being read on a PC. While reading an email and running the cursor over the sender’s name, an option pops up to respond to the email message by email, Chat or Voice/Video based on the sender information as shown in the graphic above.

I would classify GMail Voice and Video Chat as a very mild competitor to Skype, suitable for basic “free” voice and video as a conversation enhancer. There’s no way to establish or check audio and video settings; there’s no access to the PSTN. While the video is quite good, it certainly does not meet Skype’s High Quality Video standards. It’s a perfect example of embedding voice and video into an application as a feature but it’s not a standalone real time conversation software application. When I consider the rejuvenation of Global IP Solutions and look at its customer base, I can foresee many other forthcoming instances of embedded voice and video as a feature within an application.

Note: as for the installation issues that Aliza encountered, I simply went to the URL suggested in the GMail weblog post and installed the plug-in (with the browser open). But then you have to restart your browser (in my case Firefox); initially the “video availability indicators” (as represented in the graphic above) were not present but I had to head out at that point. When I came back to my PC four hours later, they had appeared. Chat pixel dust from the (Google) cloud in the interim is my only explanation. At the time of writing this post, its availability should have spread to many GMail accounts by the usual Google osmosis process.

Full disclosure; the author has had previous first hand experience with what was thought to be an application but turned out to be a feature. Quarterdeck’s mid-90′s effort at building a web browser as an application was thwarted when Microsoft decided to make its web browser (aka MS Internet Explorer) a feature within the Windows operating system.

Over the past few months I have had reason to host, or participate in, voice calls involving more than two parties. Product demonstrations, daily Squawk Box sessions and weekly “broadcast” calls involving 200 or more participants have become part of my routine. But each is a different type of multi-party call.

Yesterday, along with several of my Contacts, I was involved in a test, initiated by Borderless Communicator’s Hudson Barton, of several of these services:

• Skype’s “Conference Call”: hosted through the Skype Windows/Mac/Linux client where a Skype user can host a Multi-Party call but use of the term “Conference” call is a misnomer. Free for Skype participants; SkypeOut charges apply to participants on the PSTN. Up to 25 participants
• HiDef Conferencing: hosting business grade conference calls with a user management interface operated by the call’s “moderator” or “host”. Monthly subscription required to host; unlimited free access for Skype participants; toll charges may apply for participants calling in via the PSTN. Up to 500 participants
• iotum Calliflower: again hosting a multi-party calls that can be managed by a “moderator” or “host” party. “Free” participation; however, participant responsible for any toll charges to reach Free Conference Call server, and
• Skypecast: a Skype service for hosting public “voice chat” rooms where participants can discuss a topic of interest. Public access; free but only accessed as a Skype user; no PSTN participation. Up to 100 participants. Popular use: learning English at Kantalk.

I can see four types of multi-party.calls:

• Ad hoc multi-party calls, such as what is misnamed Skype Conference Call. Informal, host can easily add/remove participants, but no other participant management features. All participants are active; no agenda (think the “UNconference” call)
• Conference calls which are often scheduled, usually have an agenda and where participants are all active but can be managed by the host (and/or other designated participants).
• Broadcast calls, such as training presentations, news and analyst conferences, large audience sales presentations, etc. where there is a call administrator and usually one or two active participants who will make a presentation to an audience of several hundred or even a thousand passive participants.
• Public voice chats, such as Skypecasts where any Skype user can join provided they find the link (either by email or text chat invitation or from a directory of Skypecasts).

While all these types of calls use technology that merges the various voice streams to be heard by all participants, the user interface and degree of active participation are the key differentiators:

• Ad hoc multi-party calls: you can host a multi-party call simply by selecting multiple Skype and/or SkypeOut contacts and starting what is labeled as a Skype Conference call. If you see a need to add another participant, either add a Skype/SkypeOut Contact or call up an additional SkypeOut number. The host can also remove participants from the call at will. In yesterday’s call we had excellent HD Voice quality, we could see who was speaking (see halos around Dan and Hudson, only is Skype for Windows) but individual participants manage features such as muting their own microphone. You can definitely detect who is on a SkypeOut connection due to the more limited audio bandwidth of a SkypeOut connection. Since the host is operating the call through his/her local PC, these quality of these calls can also be subject to variables such as the host’s CPU power and Internet connection (especially the upload speed). Good enough for consumers and internal business calls but definitely not business grade. In a different graphic format, .Skype for Mac lets you see who is talking, including individual volume levels. Requires third party product, such as Pamela or Skylook, to record a call.

Free Conference Call Participant View (pre-Calliflower)

• A true Conference Call is one where an administrator or host effectively “chairs” the call, has the option to schedule the call and provide an agenda, can manage each user’s level of active participation (mute/unmute, hand raising) and provide a hosted recording capability. Also these business grade calls are server-hosted to provide a consistent and manageable level of robustness and reliability as well as overall voice quality. Both HiDef Conferencing and iotum’s Free Conference Call have these capabilities.
  • While HiDef Conferencing provides excellent HD Voice quality for all participants connected via Skype and has a Host user interface to manage the call, it could use a web-based interface for participants to see who is on a call, who is speaking and provide a common chat “wall”. At one point during the test call, one participant went over to a PSTN connection and there was a very noticeable deterioration in his voice quality while on that connection.
  • iotum’s Free Conference call has the above-noted participant user interface features but is difficult to enter (while not a requirement, having a Facebook account makes it easier to access). Limited by its architecture to the legacy PSTN audio bandwidth, call quality is acceptable but not HD Voice. It had a significant call quality issue for one participant and needs a “Leave Call” button on the participant user interface. On the other hand iotum’s Free Conference Call has been shown to be robust and reliable enough to handle their daily Squawk Box conference call with relative ease; the ability to see who is participating and a chat “wall” are major benefits.
• In a Broadcast Call there are usually one or a few presenters while an audience passively listens unless they “raise a hand” to ask questions or make a point. When HiDef Conferencing calls get to the 100 participant level, it has usually become a Broadcast call. (In fact, VAPPS hosts the voice component of several other conferencing and meeting services, such as InstantTeleseminar)
• Our experience with the Skypecast trial today was one where there were significant difficulties joining the Skypecast (only four of our seven participants successfully got in) but where there was excellent voice quality. Limited participant management by host who can mute/unmite and eject a participant. Requires third party product, such as Pamela or Skylook, to record a call.

Some conclusions:

• Skype should rename their basic “Conference Call” to “Multi-Party Call”. Its service is effectively a multi-party scaling of my former Bell Canada “3-party call” service. The initiator of the call hosts the call on his/her PC and does not always have complete control over call quality and robustness of the call.
• Conference calls are hosted calls with “moderated” participant management. The key differentiator here is the user interface for both the host and the participants as well as the ease of call access by the participants. While the ability to link the voice streams of all the participants is common to all these services, overall call quality itself can be another differentiator.
• Hudson measured some call parameters during each call. Basically all services were in the same ball park for jitter and packet loss (none to <1%) – most participants connected to the calls via either Skype or SkypeOut; on the Skype Conference Multi-Party Call latencies were definitely related to the distance of the participant from my hosting connection.

Tags: Skype, Conference Call, Skype Conference Call, HiDef Conferencing, iotum, Free Conference Call, Skypecast, Borderless Communicator, Hudson Barton, VAPPS Inc., Instant Teleseminar

At noon EST (GMT-5) today Skype had almost 11.2 million users online. This has been a relatively fast ramp up, given that the 10 million users online level was crossed just under four weeks ago at the beginning of CES 2008. Have to wonder if it’s partly the impact of the MySpace implementation. Of note is that Hudson Barton figures that the number of “real users” has increased by 2.4 million in January.

Following up on a CES 2008 announcement, on Tuesday, Sony released a system software update for its PlayStation Portable PSP-2000 (version 3.90) that includes a Skype client. I had a Skype conversation with someone using this new offering and found it to have excellent quality voice. It does require that you be in a WiFi zone along with a PSP headse, the Remote Control and a Memory Stick Duo. This edition of Skype provides voice only that also allows SkypeOut calls. See the video at the link above for a demonstration. No keyboard, no chat.

Tags: Skype, Hudson Barton, Sony PSP-2000, PlayStation®Portable

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Guest Post: Hudson Barton is a communicatons consultant whose Borderless Communicator blog not only talks about Skype and related IP communications activity but also attempts to track Skype’s “real usage”. According to his analysis, Skype has just cracked the 30 million real or” currenlty active” user number (based on tracking Users Online vs time-of-day). What follows is his post earlier this week summarizing some issues that were raised and discussed on the Skype 3.x discussion Public Chat forum following Dan York’s recent guest post on SIP/Skype interconnectivity.

Skype’s competitors and critics continually point out that Skype’s VOIP architecture is closed and that its API is not adequate for creating a direct connection between the Skype “cloud” and the SIP “cloud”. This of course is true, but there are good reasons for it.

1. The security and reliability of the Skype cloud would be seriously compromised if SIP hackers were given the tools to create direct VOIP connections between Skype and the outside world.
2. A SIP gateway to Skype might work if it were handled like SkypeIn/Out. However, I don’t think there’s a large enough population of SIP users out there to justify the cost of SIPIn/Out. Skype is growing at a rate of 500k-1000k “real users” per month, which is probably 10x faster than the rest of the VOIP world combined. A third party could build these gateways with the presently available API, but nobody is trying it to my knowledge… presumably because there is no demand for it. In any case, the developer (even if it were Skype) would have to justify the cost of such a gateway.
3. An IM (text-only) gateway is very possible and would not compromise Skype’s security or strategic position. Look for future interconnections with major players like AIM, gTalk, Yahoo, and MSN.
4. The Skype cloud is far more complex and has far more features than the clouds of any of its competitors. It is not rational to expect any of them to create a feature-for-feature mirror of Skype even if this were something that would be good for Skype (which it is NOT). A partial list of these features: video, SMS, encryption, and file transfer.
5. Relationships between Skype and social networks like MySpace are already possible if there is a partnership agreement. It does not require a change to the Skype API. Note that MySpace is a social network… not a VOIP carrier.
6. Skype may double its revenues this year and it’s already profitable. No other VOIP carrier is profitable (unless you want to count a few of the hosted VOIP services from the Telecoms and cable companies). A gateway to Skype will help Skype’s competitors far more than it will help Skype, so from a strategic perspective it makes no sense to help the competitors survive. Without Skype’s help, they (SunRocket and Vonage for example) are failing at a rapid rate. Meanwhile, “successful” competitors like Packet8 are monetizing themselves by selling off intellectual property. Obviously they “see the writing on the wall.”

Tags: Skype, SIP Gateway, Hudson Barton, Borderless Communicator, Packet8, Dan York