Today marks Oprah’s last show. Over the past two days her “finale” show at the United Center in Chicago became a tribute to how she was regarded as a mentor to many and her ability to change lives in a very meaningful way. And after 25 years it’s down to one final show broadcast today.

While she was not quite a pioneer in using Skype for broadcast television production, she was a pioneer in building awareness of Skype and its ability to build relationships and short-circuit technology barriers through her frequent use of Skype for remote interviews and conversations. She became so enamoured of Skype that she dedicated an entire show to demonstrating how Skype could be used.

Today, Skype’s Melanie Salvatierra writes A Salute to Oprah from Skype and her once-in-a-lifetime experience of working with the Harpo team. She was one of the lucky ones who was able to attend the United Center event last week.

The honor has been ours to not only become a powerful tool for The Oprah Winfrey Show, helping her share important life lessons and entertaining moments; the honor has been ours having Oprah call Skype, “The coolest thing ever.” We will miss The Oprah Winfrey Show and we wish Oprah the best luck in her new endeavor at OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).

Go over to Melanie’s post for links to some video clips from a segment of her show “Where The Skype Are You?”.

Bottom Line: Thanks, Oprah, for giving many people hope through your love. You provided a positive environment and encouragement for people to succeed and, especially over the past weekend, demonstrated that the world is not coming to an end but rather, a little self-initiative, courtesy, sense of humor and positive thinking can go a long way towards alleviating life’s challenges. You changed many lives.

Click here for all posts covering Oprah and her association with Skype.

Related articles

• Final episode of Oprah show to air after 25-year run (ctv.ca)

Tuesday’s announcement of the pending Microsoft acquisition of Skype has certainly drawn a complete spectrum of comments, feedback and posts. They range from Microsoft’s perception as doomsday venom for an acquisition’s products and services to praise for the potential to merge two complementary software companies that allow not only the continuation of the current service but also leveraging real time conversation features and technology into Microsoft’s existing platforms and products.

But the bottom line is that over 170 million people have actively been using Skype this year. As reinforced at the acquisition press conference, any move that would threaten or inhibit those users’ ability to continue using Skype would not help Microsoft’s bottom line. Thus, for instance, the ongoing support of Skype clients for Mac OS/X, iOS4 handheld devices, Android devices and even Linux. Yet we can now certainly see that a Skype for Windows Mobile can be expected to surface by year end.

But it’s really the user experiences that will both win new users and drive continued use by existing users. Technology journalist, technology TV program host/producer and social networking strategist Amber MacArthur has summed up the desires of most Skype users in her Tending Tech blog on the Globe and Mail website in a post: Dear Microsoft, don’t mess up Skype.

Amber outlines the history of her experience using Skype video. She was a pioneer in using Skype video for TV broadcast feeds – even when the best Skype video call resolution was 320 x 240 – long before Oprah. She regularly uses Skype for her current productions and business activity. But she also has more importantly found the value in Skype for reinforcing family relationships through calls to relatives, especially to her parents for the weekly grandparent call – regardless of where either she, in her travels, and her parents are geographically.

Amber speaks for all Skype users in her conclusion:

In my world, it’s fair to say that Skype is a necessity. Aside from Gmail, it’s the one piece of technology that I’d hate to live without. With more than 170 million active users around the world, I’m not alone. Sure, Facebook has more subscribers, but I’d ditch that social network any day of the week if I had to choose between it and Skype. I can’t say I remember any memorable Facebook messages, but there are Skype video calls I can’t forget.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the Microsoft news means to the tech world. After all, $8.5-billion is a lot of money. However, the truth is that I don’t care. I don’t really care how much the giant software company paid. I don’t care if it gives them a stronger foothold in the web world. All I care about is that I can still make free video calls to Mom and Dad on my son’s birthday and invite them to share in a little virtual cake and a singalong. [Editor’s bold]

So, Microsoft, don’t screw up Skype. There are 170-million people and growing who won’t be very happy if you do.

Bottom line: I would ask that every Skype employee and all Microsoft employees who may become involved with embedding Skype technology into Microsoft products print  Amber’s post and put it up in their cubicle or office and, when making decisions related to the deployment and use of Skype, ask if each individual business decision passes the “Amber Mac Test” outlined in the excerpt above. It provides one significant benchmark against which the evolution of Skype and its technology can be measured.

Note: the number of users in the quote has been adjusted to reflect the 170 million active users reported at the Microsoft-Skype press conference. Based on previous reporting, this is based on the number of users who actually made at least one Skype call or conversation during the Jan-March 2011 quarter. A much more realistic measure of Skype usage than simply the total number of Skype accounts that are increasing by over 500,000 per day.

Update: Check out Alec Saunders Microsoft-Skype: emerging themes for the perspective of a former Microsoft product manager.

Related articles

• Microsoft Acquires Skype – An Investor’s Perspective (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Microsoft-Skype: emerging themes (saunderslog.com)
• Microsoft And Skype Like A Horse And Carriage (informationweek.com)
• Microsoft-Skype Deal: Three Ways It Benefits Enterprises (lirax.wordpress.com)
• The End of the “Skype as Bandit” Era (disruptivetelephony.com)

At last month’s CES I had the opportunity to meet with Skype CEO Josh Silverman and discuss various Skype issues that have arisen over the past year as well as where Skype is headed as a privately owned company. At the time I thought this would result in a normal text-based blog post outlining some of our discussion.

However, when I arrived for the interview I realized it would also be a good occasion to try out the HD video recording feature of a relatively new Canon SD980 camera. Over the past week I have been using a new MacBook’s iMovie and found I could edit it down to a fairly succinct outcome, having eliminated much of my own nervous glitches, personal comments and humming and hawing. Most importantly, Josh makes a much better presenter of Skype’s case than I could ever hope to do in reporting on the interview. The result follows.

In this first portion we talk about

• Skype operating as an independent, private company and the role the new board members can play,
• the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s participation as an investor (full disclosure – about 17 million employed or formerly employed Canadians have an interest in CPPIB investments),
• what performance numbers can we expect to see going forward
• the prospects for an IPO
• what’s on the CEO’s radar as priorities for Skype
• what’s going to be available for developer partners

(My apologies to fellow Canadians for not asking about Skype Online numbers in Canada but, given there are regulatory issues involved, I’d probably get the standard “we’d love to do it but…” response. For mention of a Skype service that is being expanded into Canada, see the second portion of the interview with Skype for Mobile VP & GM Russ Shaw.)

In the second portion of the conversation we covered issues such as

• the growth of the Skype developer team
• Skype’s evolving mobile presence, including Skype for BlackBerry and video calling on mobile devices
• the launch of a formal Skype for Business program
• Skype’s video calling as a new pop culture
• Skype and the broadcast television market

Complementary to the “pop culture” discussion here, at Josh’s keynote presentation to the CES Innovation Leaders dinner, he spoke about how Skype video calling has brought to consumers the most effective realization of AT&T’s 1964 World’s Fair video calling vision where they introduced a very primitive video calling setup.

Bottom line: what can we expect to see from Skype in 2010?

• a revitalized developer program built around a more comprehensive platform from which developers can, amongst other features, embed Skype into their applications
• Skype access on many more mobile platforms as well as taking advantage of wireless carriers’ recognition of Skype as a mainstream telecommunications environment
• expansion of video calling services, including a strong role in the introduction of Internet services as a feature on a new generation of television sets;
• launch of a formal comprehensive Skype for Business program targeted at small-to-medium businesses
• many more Skype video interviews on broadcast media – for example, Skype video (and voice) calling has been used quite extensively by several networks to facilitate communications with Haiti following the earthquake

This is the third of three Skype executive interviews that took place at CES 2010; the others:

• Skype for Mobile: An Interview with Skype’s Russ Shaw
• Skype for Business: An Interview with Skype’s Matt Jordan

Other relevant posts:

• FREETALK Connect: Liberating Small Business from the Telco Oligopoly
• FREETALK’s New Webcam Product Line: Delivering 720p HD to Skype Video Calling
• Skype Video Calling on Your TV? Maybe, Maybe Not: It’s Your Call

Full disclosure: In Store Solutions, producer of the FREETALK line of hardware for Skype, has become a client of Denali InterConneXions, publisher of Voice On The Web, building on the author’s previous business development experience with establishing partnerships that can assist with the promotion of a primary vendor’s offerings. A more complete statement will follow shortly.

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• Business Long Distance: Death By a Million PBX’s, Part II (voiceontheweb.biz)
• iotum’s Calliflower Conference Call Service Adds Skype Access (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype: the “Unofficial” Personal Communications Software for the 2010 Winter Olympics? (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Reprise: Is WiFi Becoming the Unregulated Stealth Carrier of the Future? (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Demythifying the Skype Developer Story (voiceontheweb.biz)
• History Making Smartphone Skype Call During LeWeb Closing Session (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Coming Real Soon Now: Skype for iPhone over 3G (voiceontheweb.biz)
• IM+ for Skype Brings Free VoIP Calling to BlackBerry (geardiary.com)
• Skype Starting To Support 720p HD Video Calls (ghacks.net)

“I thought you were on at 4 in the afternoon”, says a confused Manhattan Best Buy visitor. “No, we tape at 9 in the morning”, replies Oprah. “Oh, then Hi Oprah!”. Placing a Skype webcam setup in a Best Buy store found an adolescent customer who was looking for a Mother’s Day gift and waiting for the neighboring Pottery Barn store to open.

Oprah: “So, do we have permission put this on TV?”

Ashra (Sp?): “On Oprah! Hell, yes!”

With this introductory clip of Skype video-induced spontaneity, Oprah’s “Where the Skype Are You” show yesterday became the world’s longest duration, most viewed Skype promotion. During the sixty minutes the show went to downtown Grise Fiord, Nunavut, Canada’s northernmost community on the southern tip of Ellesmere Island in the Arctic Ocean, the Palmer Station Antarctica research site about 200 miles from the South Pole, to 37,000 feet on a Virgin America flight 780 from Seattle to Los Angeles and 60 feet under the ocean to the USS Louisville submarine. Other highlights:

• Three setups were at locations where such happenstance as shown above could occur: a Manhattan Best Buy Store, Harrod’s in London and at the Oprah sign outside the studio in Chicago.
• The Oprah sign initially was missing the usual crowd of tourists taking pictures but a later return found five young ladies who were eventually invited into the taping.
• The Palmer Station Antarctica research team was going to use their Skype video equipment to do live presentations about their research activities to students at schools across the U.S. while it was still there.
• Oprah interviewed Skype President Josh Silverman from Skype’s London Corporate Office who gave a brief demonstration of setting up Skype.
• Obviously Harpo has figured out how to mix Skype video calls to come up with a video conferencing solution that allowed a ”virtual” wine tasting session to happen between a vintner at Bonny Doon Vinyard in Santa Cruz, CA, two Virgin Flight 780 passengers and Josh Silverman in London. Now if we could just get the Skype bit-to-atom converter working to virtually share the wine!
• The Virgin America flight connection was via Aircell’s recently launched  GoGoInFlight WiFi service, which as of yesterday, is now available on all Virgin America flights. However, only for this flight was Skype video calling allowed; from Wednesday’s press release:
  

  Although Virgin America does not typically allow Voice-Over-IP (VoIP) products like Skype video call in-flight due to concerns about maintaining a quiet, restful cabin environment, guests can currently use Gogo® to Skype via the instant message feature, in addition to e-mailing, tweeting, updating their Facebook pages and any of the myriad other ways the web is keeping people connected. The early roll out of the Gogo® service across the airline’s network makes Virgin America the first and only airline to offer consumers in-flight WiFi on every flight – regardless of route, aircraft type, or flight time.

• Local Toronto sketch artist Barbara Muir has taken a liking to doing sketches from Skype Video calls (that’s Barbara’s sketch on my Voice On The Web bio page). Barbara appeared on the show and drew a sketch of Oprah from her Skype video connection. I spoke with Barbara after the show; the interview experience with Oprah had overwhelmed her. She was impressed with how Oprah was up at 4:30 a.m. to prepare for the show; Harpo personnel were contacting her in preparation at 6:00 a.m. Chicago time. As mentioned above the show was taped at 9:00 a.m. Chicago time; and apparently there were two more Oprah shows to be taped that day. Barbara’s biggest issue was having to look at the webcam while Oprah appeared on the her display screen below – a protocol for doing any interview is to be looking the camera “in-the-eye”.

Overall an amazingly interesting production. What would be really interesting is to see if there was any significant post-show jump in Skype downloads and account registrations. But we’ll probably never know.

• Toronto Globe and Mail: Skype connects Toronto artist to Oprah
• Check out the Oprah.com user comments related to this show; read about the request for a “modem in the sand” (#12)
• A historical note from April 2007: Skype Video for “Live On Location” Television Amber MacArthur was the original reporter using Skype video for her reports to Toronto’s CITY-TV.

Next: what I have learned from this about how Harpo produces Skype video calls.

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Since first using Skype’s High Quality Video for remote interviews during her weekly “A New Earth” seminars in the spring of 2008, interviews via Skype have become almost a daily occurrence on the Oprah show. A recent one of significance was her launch of her own Twitter feed where she interviewed Ashton Kutcher who now has over 1.8 million Followers. Oprah herself has passed the 1 million Followers mark although she seems to post Tweets infrequently.

Well, it seems that her Harpo Productions team have been busy taking Skype to some “extreme” new end points. According to Skype’s Jennifer Caulkins:

This week, we’re expecting to see Oprah push the limits with Skype even further. Watch Josh Silverman, President of Skype, make an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Thursday, May 21st as part of the “Where the Skype are You?” episode. It’s going to be a fascinating Skype adventure not to be missed as Oprah takes viewers to some surprising places over Skype video.

But here’s where it gets real interesting: if you watch the teaser you start to get a perspective on where Skype has gone to new heights and new depths in this “extreme Oprah Show adventure”.

Thursday, May 21 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) is blocked out on my Tungle calendars. My only remaining decision is whether to watch an our TV set, via SlingPlayer on my PC or SlingPlayer for Mobile on BlackBerry.

Voice On The Web posts about Oprah’s use of Skype

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How do you drive awareness for Skype? Have the two daytime talk shows with the largest audiences connect via a Skype (High Quality) video call.

Yesterday afternoon, during the Ellen de Generes show, Ellen was surprised to see Oprah appear, unannounced via a Skype video call, behind her on the large screen monitors used to support the show. Apparently Ellen had been campaigning, not too subtly, to appear with Oprah on the cover of a future issue of “O” magazine.

Oprah had “returned” Ellen’s previous call to discuss the issue.

I just watched Oprah’s showing of the call this afternoon (thanks to a heads up from Skype PR).

Needless to say, this will certainly drive sales of the O magazine issue when it appears. Will Skype collect some form of royalty? Nah, Skype’s into royalty-free these days.

Huffington Post: Oprah Invites Ellen To Share O Magazine Cover provides more background. (via E!)

Dan York suggests that Oprah and Ellen are promoting “Skyp-ing” as a verb.

This afternoon I came across this article by reporter Chris O’Brien in today’s San Jose Mercury News: “Video Chat has entered the mainstream“. It appears that the worlds of Oprah viewers and Silicon Valley geeks and reporters have more than six degrees of separation. The story starts out by talking about an email he received from his mother:

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

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

Chris goes on to report on a brief interview with Skype President Josh Silverman whom he quotes with:

And Skype has a new version in beta that will make video calling much more central to the service, according to Skype President Josh Silverman.

…. And in its new release, Skype users will be able to enlarge the video to fill the entire screen without degrading the picture quality.

Well we now know what Chris is giving his mother for Christmas. For his benefit, listed below are previous Skype Journal posts on both Skype High Quality Video and our reporting last March on Oprah’s use of Skype Video.

• Skype Sponsors Oprah’s “A New Earth” Web Event
• Three Big Milestones in Skype’s Fifth Year
• High Quality Video: What’s the Benchmark?
• High Quality Video: Definitely a Winner for Skype
• Expanding the High Quality Video Experience and Observations
• To Be Restored: Camera Flexibility for Video Hackers
• Installing a Logitech High Quality Video Camera: The Experience.

Chris, keep up with Skype Journal and you won’t be learning about how Skype is used from your mother.

By the way, how did I know to follow up on Chris’s interview with Skype President Josh Silverman last Wednesday? He set it up via Twitter messages with Skype PR. At the time Twitter was their sole available source of contact information.

A final question: will we be seeing a new version of Skype High Quality Video (or better) introduced at CES in January?

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This is the fourth in a series of posts resulting from an interview a week ago Friday with Josh Silverman, Skype’s recently appointed President. In this post we talk about addressing the small-to-medium business market as well as various geographical markets.

Over its five years, Skype has built up, almost totally virally, a significant base of users who take advantage of Skype to not only reduce their business communications costs but also to communicate more effectively with colleagues and customers around the world. At the same time various Skype software partners have built offerings, such as Pamela, PamFax and Skylook, that either focus on Skype as a business communications tool or include Skype amongst their options for calling. Within Skype’s own offerings, the Business Control Panel provides the tools for a system administrator to handle both the deployment of Skype and the administration of Skype accounts within a business’s operations.OnState is a primary example of the latter. They have built up a call center offering that takes full advantage of both instant messaging chat and voice in dealing with both inbound and outbound calls; they also take advantage of the three founders’ combined over sixty years’ experience participating in the call center market. Yet, they encountered many opportunities where they had to go back to Skype for assistance since, for one reason or another, Skype’s program were insufficient to address business users’ requirement. The result is that today OnState offers their customers “one stop shopping” whereby, on acquiring a customer, OnState takes on responsibility for addressing Skype subscription needs, hardware requirements (headsets and handsets, implementation issues and first level technical support.

The Business Control Panel has had its limitations also; the main fear has been to mitigate potential for fraudulent or unauthorized activity through purchasing and licensing limits.

As for geographical markets, Skype met a much larger need for communications cost reductions in Europe and Asia than in North America. As a result over 80% of Skype’s revenues continue to come from outside the U.S. The two primary needs met in North America are for “Friends and Family” calling outside North America and small businesses who are working to grow internationally – both internally and with their suppliers and customers.

In growing internationally, there has been the challenge of building user bases in widely diverse markets; “free”, “easy-to-install” and a whole lot of viral marketing action have introduced significant adoption around the world. But this success has led to more business-oriented challenges in working out termination agreements, establishing effective multi-currency transaction systems (although being an eBay co-unit of PayPal certainly helps), multiple language versions of software (27 at last count) and providing multi-lingual, internationally available technical support. (We’ll talk about marketing and more about technical support in future posts in this series.)

We asked Josh about the Skype’s approach to the business market:

JS: Skype in the business market. There’s more that needs to be done. (you guys are smart, you’re asking all the right questions). Platform is a huge opportunity for us; business is another big opportunity for us. About half of the communications market is business; we have a great solution, especially for small-to-medium size businesses. We haven’t tailored that solution to businesses very much; we haven’t communicated to businesses that we have that solution. In the new organizational design one of the pieces of that will be to build out a business unit focused on small-to-medium size businesses where we’ll have some resources available to tailor our product and some sales and marketing resources to work … I don’t think that we’ll be directly selling to small-to-medium size businesses but we can work with VAR’s to help support them in bringing Skype to businesses.

(Note this interview occurred two weeks prior to last week’s announcement of Skype for Asterisk, a program that leverages Digium’s Asterisk reseller channel for sales, implementation and ongoing support requirements.)

We then moved on to ask about various geographical markets:

SJ: North America. (Thank God for Oprah!) Skype has become much more a household name this past year (with an acknowledgement to Don Albert, GM North America). What does it take to keep that business going forward in U.S. and Canada and what are the strategies for U.S. and Canada?

JS: We’re very aware that the number one way to grow Skype is to build products the users love. That is our first mandate always. Once you have a product users love, we can accelerate it by some smart marketing programs. (By the way if you don’t have a product that users love no amount of marketing on earth will save you, right?) So we do have a product that users love and I don’t think we have done as much as we could to communicate that.

Oprah is a great example. It is not our intention and people should not expect massive multi-million dollar marketing budgets from Skype. But there are some smart tactical things we can do working together with evangelists like Oprah to build awareness. It’s our belief that once you’ve grown awareness, people will try it; once they try it they’ll love it. and the rest takes care of itself. At the Democratic national convention we were quite happy to see many of the national broadcasters using Skype as a way to expand their coverage and you should be looking for more programs like that in the United States in the year to come.

SJ: China is your biggest market?

JS: In terms of total users it’s one of our top markets; the answer is yes.

SJ: QQ is still kicking butt in China? What strategy do you have in your existing partnership with Tom?

JS: We have a great partnership with Tom who knows the local market very well. Tom is also a very entrepreneurial, innovative, fast moving company. We’re very pleased to be partnering with them; they’re the right partner to continue building our presence in China.

SJ: Do you have your own people in Asia?

JS: A couple of people in Asia who work with our partners to make sure they’re getting the support they need and also giving us real feedback from the market on what we need to be doing on [our] core platform to be able to support Asia better.

SJ: How about India?

JS: We don’t have anyone working in India. We don’t have a partnership in India to announce but we are seeing good growth in India but we think it’s a terrific market and we are expecting to have more focus on that in 2009

My observation, five months in, [is that] markets where Skype has the most power are markets where you have high broadband connectivity, you have a large ex-pat population, and where the local telephony system is not as efficient as it could be. Many of the developing markets meet that profile so we think we have a huge opportunity in developing markets such as India and it’s our intention to focus more on that in the coming year.

SJ: To succeed in the mobile market place, mobile device manufacturers have had to build carrier relationships. What does Skype need to do with either handset manufacturers and/ or carriers to succeed in the mobile market?

JS: I don’t think the carriers should be able to dictate what software the users get to use. any company,. the smallest startup in the world, if it has really outstanding software ought to be able to take on the whole world and not have to hire 50 people to develop relationships with 300 carriers.

Earlier this week Skype Journal reported on Skype’s sponsorship of Oprah.com’s Web Events involving “classes” discussing Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth. A unique aspect of this presentation involved “full duplex” video dialogues as viewers posed questions. In some cases the viewers were supplied with the appropriate webcam and dual processor PC so that they could use Skype’s High Quality Video to support the dialogue with Oprah and Eckhart. Unfortunately last Monday’s initial session was fraught with network congestion issues as Harpo Productions attempted to support viewing by over 500,000 participants. However, I was finally able to watch the entire presentation once the video download or streaming was made available Tuesday.

My one key observation about the impact of the video technology is being able to watch the viewer’s facial expressions change as her/his question is answered. It provides an additional perspective to the discussion through watching the viewer’s emotional response as a complement to the verbal dialogue between the viewer and either Oprah or Eckhart. Using High Quality Video allows the viewer to be seen at the same level of video quality as the primary video feed from the main studio. Even when the viewer was shown full screen there was minimal pixelation; it allows the technology to take a back seat to the primary presentation and discussion as opposed to being a distraction. Bottom line: a viewing experience that focuses on the subject matter under review. And [switching to Skype cheerleader mode] you had to love Oprah’s comment during one dialogue: “Thank God for Skype!”. Whereas a year ago I was a skeptic about the value of video in conversations, watching this show, following my Skype High Quality Video experiences of the past few months, changed my viewpoint.

This weekend Oprah distributed an email to her book club registrants:

To Students of A New Earth,

Like you, I was deeply disappointed that so many dedicated webcast participants around the world were unable to view our first live webcast.

Experts from both Limelight Networks and Move Networks, our partners in bringing this groundbreaking experience to the Internet, believe they have identified and addressed the programming problem that was unmasked by a historic number of simultaneous users. While we were certainly prepared for the more than 700,000 people registered and continue to be assured that capacity was not the issue…it is clear that pioneering this new platform will always come with risks. So, that said…the team believes we are good to go for another try.

Since Monday night, over 1.5 million people have streamed or downloaded the webcast, and that option will be available on Tuesday of each week after all of the next nine classes.

I have been encouraged by the thousands of message board posts cheering us on to continue the live classes on Monday nights, and so we will keep moving forward, attempting to break new ground.

If you are willing to partner with me in exploring this new frontier — I’ll see you in class live on Monday. Otherwise, you can stream or download the class on Tuesday or whenever it’s convenient. I understand the frustration and leave it to you to experience the class in whatever way works best.

— Oprah

For those who always asked about Skype promotion, does 1.5 million viewings over a one week period answer their concerns about Skype’s awareness generation in North America? I would probably expect around 1 million real exposures as there were four options for downloading and I’m sure, as I experienced, lots of visitors made a couple of attempts to determine a suitable format for viewing or listening.

[In case you had any doubt about the power of an Oprah endorsement: Earlier today, while visiting a Staples, I asked where I could find a Post-It Flag Highlighter -- a co-sponsor with Skype and GM Chevrolet division of this event. In an unsolicited response the Staples associate told me the store had been inundated with requests for this new book reading tool as a result of Oprah's using it on one of her shows. Also worth noting - While Skype's only appearance during Oprah's class is the actual use of Skype High Quality Video with the Skype logo in the name bar as shown above, the other two co-sponsors only had ads that were inserted every 20 minutes or so during the event.]

There was a caveat with respect to tomorrow’s second class (of ten):

We are asking you to arrive early to take your seat. On Sunday, you will receive an e-mail that contains your special link and specific time to enter class. If you arrive after 8:55/7:55c, there is a chance you will be unable to participate in the live Web event. Our goal is to provide as many of you as possible with a positive experience. If we should see a significant decline in video quality, we may limit the size of the class that evening.

Today I received that email with a link; I’ll report on the outcome.

• Dan York: The Oprah-tization of VoiP via Skype
• Harold Wolinsky: Oprah Goes Skype
• Skype Ad Page on Oprah.com

Tags: Skype, Skype High Quality Video, Oprah, Oprah.com, Oprah Book Club Web Event, Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, Post-It Flag Highlighter, GM Chevrolet Division

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Getting an interactive Internet program broadcast out to 500,000 proves to be a true pioneering effort; Oprah.com and Harpo Productions demonstrate the value of transparent communication to your audience as a result of a communication technology breakdown. From the Web Event web site at about 10:00 p.m. EST:

Congestive heart failure is a disease where functioning of your heart continues but in a somewhat weakened state. Last night 500,000 logins was too much for Oprah.com. In spite of moving information over the Internet at 242 Gbps, Oprah’s Web Event¹ suffered congestive Internet failure. Some got a steady stream apparently during the first 15 to 20 minutes after a 9:00 p.m. start, whereas others (myself included) received intermittent coverage that eventually just froze. Harpo Productions, however, was quick to put out an apology and explanations, via both the Oprah.com website and emails to all who registered:

Harpo Productions, Inc., Move Networks and Limelight Networks recognize that interactive Internet broadcasting to a mass audience is still an emerging medium, and we’re proud to have been pioneers in pushing the industry forward. We deeply regret that some of our audience did not have an optimal viewing experience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. The first session of the webinar will be available in its entirety for viewing on Oprah.com or for downloading as a podcast on Oprah.com or iTunes on Tuesday, March 4.

In the public relations space, it’s called quickly and transparently acknowledging your issues and getting a message (any message) out to your target audience.

As for Skype’s involvement, during the snippets I could watch in 15-20 second intervals, Oprah took two questions over Skype High Quality Video from Illinois, one an individual and one a group watching at a Borders store in Chicago. A couple of comments:

• The bar with the Skype logo remained on screen during the entire dialogue with each questioner. No brief ten second impressions here; this was an ongoing continuous five minute impression! And repeated for each questioner.
• At one point I heard Oprah say something along the lines of “Let’s go back to Kelly via Skype. This Skype is ‘wonderful’: I didn’t even know about Skype until a couple of weeks ago.”
• The Skype High Quality Video logo appeared continuously in the upper left hand corner of both the video calls I was able to view.

When the webcast is available later today, I’ll go back and listen for more details on what is hopefully an uninterrupted stream. Being available as a webcast and a downloadable podcast, there will be lots of residual impressions for Skype. As one of my fellow bloggers commented to me in a chat session: “OMG, the Oprahfication of Skype!”

With nine more Monday night “classes” scheduled, this will be as interesting for the communications technology story and associated public relations activity as for the book’s content.

¹ Due to the dynamic nature of this landing page, the content may change with time. As of 8:00 a.m. EST Tuesday, March 4 it started out: “Monday night’s webcast was one of the largest single online events in the history of the Internet. More than 500,000 people simultaneously logged on to watch Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle live, resulting in 242 Gbps of information moving through the Internet. Unfortunately, some of our users experienced delays in viewing the webcast. We are working to identify the specific causes for the problems experienced and will work diligently to rectify them.”

Skype High Quality Video to be used in the world’s largest classroom.

For all those who have complained that Skype has not generated enough awareness in North America, an event this evening (9 p.m. EST – GMT-5) should change all that. Skype, along with GM’s Chevrolet division and Post-It Notes, is sponsoring all ten weekly segments of Oprah.com’s “A New Earth” Web Event discussing Eckhart Tolle’s book: “A New Earth: Get Ready To Be Awakened“. With over 750,000 registrants, this could be, to quote Oprah from the video, the world’s largest classroom. Click on the image to hear Oprah’s message to Skype users.

Towards the end of each segment, Oprah and Eckhart will be taking video questions using Skype’s High Quality Video. From all the questions submitted, Harpo, the producer, has selected several for a response during the seminar. Those asking the questions have been equipped with the requisite Logitech cameras and dual core PC’s such that they can use Skype’s High Quality Video. Obviously a significant logistics operation here; it will be interesting to watch and see what level of spontaneity is afforded by this arrangement.

To follow the “class”, you need to join Oprah’s Book Club and an opportunity will be presented to attend the event. Note that you also need to install the special movie player required to watch. One has to assume this player has been developed for large audience broadcast events.

I’ll watch and report back tomorrow.

Skype Journal on Skype’s High Quality Video:

• High Quality Video: What’s the Benchmark?
• High Quality Video: Definitely a Winner for Skype
• Expanding the High Quality Video Experience and Observations
• Installing a Logitech High Quality Video Camera: The Experience.

Tags: Skype, Skype High Quality Video, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Book Club, Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

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