Skype announces new names for its developer offerings, new video API’s for SkypeKit for Desktop and “plugged into Skype” designation for Skype Desktop API programs.

Since 2004 Skype has evolved an API kit that allows third party developers to offer Skype-enabled applications that require access to the primary Skype client on Windows, Mac and Linux. Basically it allows developers to extend the functionality of Skype while using the Skype client application. Examples have included call recording applications such as Pamela and VodBurner and hosted desktop sharing applications such as InnerPass (now transitioning to GroupMix).

This past June Skype announced the public beta for SkypeKit, which is intended to add native Skype functionality directly into partner applications. From the developer website:

SkypeKit enables developers to create innovative products and applications that deliver virtually the entire range of Skype’s functionality—including calling, chat, account creation, and contact management—without the need for your users to separately download Skype.

Whereas SkypeKit had largely focused on embedding Skype in consumer electronics hardware, feedback from that announcement demonstrated a demand for more support of desktop applications with integrated Skype functionality.

Today Skype announced changes to the names of their developer offerings:

• SkypeKit for Desktop, which is intended to add native Skype functionality directly into partner applications
• Skype Desktop API, previously known as the Skype API or Public API, which allows developers to extend the functionality of Skype for Windows, Skype for Mac and Skype for Linux.

Basically the previous Skype developer programs continue to exist; however, their branding is changing. It also means that applications developed using the Skype Desktop API can now use the “plugged into Skype” designation shown above.

In addition Skype announced the SkypeKit for Desktop now includes Video API’s which “will allow developers to bring their desktop applications to life using video calling, with the goal of making their applications feel less isolated and more human.” Previously developers could access the the video stream via Skype’s proprietary RTP interface; however, the new API’s relieve developers of a lot of time consuming and complex “wrap around” work that would have been required to provide video in an application. At this point support is for one-to-one video calling; however, group video chat and screen sharing are on the roadmap.

While the announcement post references three case studies, where one is VodBurner that has been using the Skype Desktop API since VodBurner’s launch two years ago. The other two are planning to use SkypeKit for Desktop:

• Tely Labs is still taking beta testers and expects to launch early in 2012;
• Trillian’s Instant Messaging aggregator product has a beta version of Trillian where they are demonstrating Skype integration using SkypeKit.

The announcement also references the new Skype Apps Directory which was discussed here about two months ago.

Bottom line: SkypeKit was first announced mid-2010; it went public in June 2011. If Skype wants to have an viable developer program we need to see results soon that can bring revenue to the developers. Maybe the incentive to recover a $8.5B acquisition investment will provide the focus required to demonstrate that it’s worthwhile to become a Skype developer partner.

Dan York also comments: Is Skype Soon To Release New APIs? Skype Renames Public API And Extends “Plugged into Skype” Partner Program

Two weeks ago in the post, Whither Skype Extras Today? Withered?, I asked for a clarification about the status of Skype Extras.

Today Skype announced a HotFix that effectively removes access to Skype Extras although it shows up, greyed out, in the Tools Menu. Go to Help | Check for Upgrades. In Windows Task Manager you’ll find that SkypePM.exe is no longer seen in the Processes tab.

As PamConsult’s Dick Schiferli points out in the comments below the Skype Extras do remain available in the Skype Store and are also available from the various publishers’ websites. However, the good news is that several publishers of Skype Extras have not withered away but rather have upgraded their products to remove their dependence on the Skype Extras program while introducing new features.

The Skype Extras Survivors

PamFax – winner of the 2007 Skype mashup competition, continues to grow; their recent infrastructure upgrade means that faxes are delivered within a minute of clicking on the Send Fax button. No ongoing obligations yet there are subscription programs that include a fax number in 27 countries. Send and received faxes to/from PC’s, iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch and Android. Fax Dropbox documents; receive faxes in DropBox. Click here for a complete update on PamFax,

InnerPass is releasing a new team collaboration product, Group Mix, that aggregates all their document management, persistent “rooms” and desktop sharing expertise into a web-based product with a great user interface that is easily accessed in any browser from, say, a bookmark. The first release includes voice connections in several countries via the PSTN; they will bring Skype back in shortly. More details will be forthcoming in a post early next week.

Pamela continues to upgrade and add more features to the longest running Skype Extra. Call recording, conversation archiving and many other nifty features that enhance the Skype user experience.

Netralia continues to offer its Skylook Outlook plugin that has done very well in the customer relationship management space. More recently they launched and have upgraded VodBurner, capable not only of recording Skype Video calls but also performing editing of the recording and direct upload to YouTube.

Evoca has been building their online audio recording and hosting business where you can call in from any phone, Skype or PC mic, record interviews and conference calls. From their website:

Dial any of our U.S. and international phone numbers or use the Evoca Skype Call Recorder — available for registered subscribers. Our 100% web service securely saves and stores your audio file in digital MP3 format in your online Evoca account. You can keep it private, share it with colleagues, or publish it online for the world to listen.

OnState continues to provide and grow its web-based, pay-as-you-go call center/PBX offering. In fact, in addition to its Skype integration, it now supports Google Talk and Salesforce.com amongst other features.

There may be others; I’ll be glad to add them. But these are the publishers who have managed to build on their user feedback and market acceptance. They have continued development to enhance their products which incorporate Skype integration but can operate independently of the Skype Extras infrastructure.

Over the past couple of days I have had the opportunity to complete calls using Skype for iPhone 2.0 over 3G to contacts in the U.K., the U.S. and Spain, not only while staying in one location but also at 100 km/hr crossing through several mobile phone cells along Canada’s busiest freeway that recently was equipped with a 3G/HSPA+ service by Rogers. Some of the outcomes:

Launching the application

First, we are still dealing with an iPhone that does not allow multi-tasking but Skype for iPhone only serves to build the anticipation of iPhone OS 4.0 and its multi-tasking feature. As a result you currently must be logged into the application to receive a call; not only that, each time you log in, it can take 30 – 45 seconds for your Contacts’ current “presence” status to appear. (And you need to ensure your own status is set to “Online”.)

“Near CD-quality voice”

Once the presence information is current, however, select a contact, make a call, get an answer and start the conversation. What follows is a recording of one of my first calls where Voxygen’s Dean Elwood set up a three party conference call via Skype for Windows on a PC. (Skype for iPhone itself cannot set up a multi=party conference call.) Pamela’s Call Recorder was used to make the recording. Listen for yourself.

Dean makes an important point during the call about how Skype’s SILK-based superwideband audio makes it much easier for him to understand all the various and several English accents he needs to deal with in the normal course of his business activity.

Note that, in order to maintain the audio integrity of the recording, no audio editors were used to filter out “ah’s” and “eh’s”, etc.

Moving Along the Freeway with Skype

First, for all those concerned safety advocates, I was not driving my car during these calls.

From Ontario’s 401 freeway (the main route between Toronto and Ottawa/Montreal) between Trenton and Cobourg, Ontario I made a 25 minute call to Andy Abramson who was on the I-5 in and around San Diego, California. At one point both sides had speakerphones going such that we had a four-party car-to-car conversation.

While providing the same crystal clear voice quality reported yesterday, the call also was sustained as we both passed through several cells of our respective networks (I could see the cell towers alongside the freeway). Let’s just say we were both traveling at or near the legal limit and there was no degradation of voice quality.

There was one point where we noticed a bit of fuzziness (along with an appropriate warning on the call quality indicator) but it recovered very quickly and the call connection was not lost. The other issue was not really a Skype issue but the volume had to be turned up a bit to overcome the automobile’s inherent background noise.

Battery Life

It’s still an issue. I found that leaving Skype for iPhone open continuously for over three to four hours would drain the battery. A significant challenge for iPhone OS 4.0 will continue to be battery life. It’s the one significant shortcoming I find with respect to overall iPhone performance.

Data Use

From initial observation, it would appear that about 2 minutes of a voice call will take up 1MB of data transfer. Simply a guideline but it can start to get a handle on what your data costs will be. I still would only recommend using Skype for iPhone over WiFi when roaming outside your home network.

Bluetooth

Andy Abramson reports that his attempts to use a Bluetooth adapter while making a Skype for iPhone call have failed. More investigation and feedback required.

Bottom line: Skype for iPhone 2.0 has brings new performance benchmarks to the mobile voice calling experience, especially when it comes to voice quality. However, lack of background processing and improved battery life management still make it questionable as to whether one would rely totally on Skype for iPhone for all one’s mobile calling.

But it’s impeccable for making outbound calls to all your Skype contacts where you as the user have total control of the calling activity. And, of course, the call cost is also right.

It’s an Always-On Life

But the most difficult aspect to become accustomed to, especially as I was driving along the freeway today, was to be aware that one could always be connected to Skype whether via a WiFi access point or a wireless carrier, provided the battery had not been drained. I could follow Skype chat conversations, see others’ presence information and mood messages and, if appropriate, make a (currently free) voice call. There’s a psychological shift in thinking that has to be made.

Note:: Ontario has recently introduced laws that prohibit texting while driving as well as making voice calls other than handsfree calls. And the stats showed that texting while driving can be as dangerous as impaired driving. Pull over to the side of the road or turn over the driving to another party if you absolutely have to engage in or continue “that conversation”.

What have been your experiences with Skype for iPhone 2.0? Put them in the Comments and join the discussion.

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There  was lots of lament and thrashing when Skype announced the forthcoming end to the Skype Extras program for distributing Skype software partners offerings. By the end of August, 2010 the Skype Extras item in the Skype for Windows client will go away. But does that mean the end for developing products and services that use the Skype API’s? Certainly three of Skype’s software partners do not think so; they each have recently launched either an upgrade or a new offering:

Scendix has released Pamela version 4.6, continuing the enhancement of its popular utility for managing, archiving and recording Skype calls. Pamela also lets you have some fun with its Rich Mood Message editor and Emotions player. But most importantly Version 4.6 provides the long sought recording of Skype video calls.

InnerPass last week launched version 2.0 of its Skype-enhanced document management offering. A new client, which, in addition to incorporating traditional document management features such as version management, also allows you to manage all your Skype activities – web collaboration with conference calling that also includes multi-party desktop sharing.

And yesterday, Netralia, whose Skylook and Call Burner offerings have built significant user bases since their 2005 and 2007 launches respectively, have just announced the forthcoming launch of Vodburner, “the first product on the market to create video podcasts”.

Netralia CEO Jeremy Hague, in the press release linked above, has nicely summarized the reality behind what is currently available to support development of applications that incorporate Skype:

“We are proud to announce the upcoming launch of VodBurner today, which comes at an interesting time for the Skype Developer community, given the recent announcement regarding the Extras programme.”

“I think Skype’s announcement has caught a lot of people off guard, and there may have been some overreaction in some of the media comments.   It is important to remember that the programme is only being closed in its current form.  This does not mean Skype is removing support for developer apps.”

“Skype has supported developers since 2004, with the release of the Skype Public API.  This support is continuing.”

“Extras Manager, a separate initiative, was introduced in early 2007.  The idea was great – provide new and existing apps with an advertising platform inside the Skype client, and a payment platform integrated with Skype Credits.”

“However, the implementation was lacking.  As you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, we believe Skype has made the right choice to curtail this programme.  We are hopeful that Skype will find another way to execute on the promise of some of the great ideas of the Extras Manager dept, but providers of Skype apps do not need to rely on this.”

“What we are about is providing great applications that make use of Skype’s technology to benefit people, who will hopefully go on to be our customers.  This was our approach before Extras Manager was first thought of, and will continue to be our approach regardless of the approach Skype takes in the future.”

The important point at this time is to emphasize that developers, who make the effort to use the API’s, can be successful and continue to dedicate resources to the development of new or upgraded products.

• They have all built significant user bases; InnerPass has has over 1.5 million downloads since its version 1.0 launch in January 2009.
• They have found new ways to work with Skype as a conversation tool.
• They have all developed products which contribute to making Skype disruptive about business.

Two previous posts on this subject:

• “Skype Extras” Is Dead; Long Live the Skype API’s!
• Demythifying the Skype Developer Story

And Scendix comments on the end of Skype Extras in their PamNews blog:

• No Skype Extras System anymore

Summaries and reviews of these new offerings will follow over the next two weeks.

Question: will we learn any more about Skype’s developer and/or business programs at next week’s eComm Europe? Nobody’s saying but … there is a keynote speaker from Skype, eComm Europe’s headline sponsor.

On Friday the Skype Developer Blog posted a blog announcing the end of the Skype Extras program in what amounts to two stages:

1. Immediately: No new partner programs or upgrades will be placed into the Skype Extras
2. Going forward: Skype Extras will remain available via the Skype for Windows client until their certification expires (which may be up to a year).

Effectively, Skype has admitted that the Skype Extras program has not been a great success as a marketing tool. “Despite the incredible breadth of Extras developed for Skype, simply not enough people were using them to justify our continued support of the Extras programme.”

However, as indicated by a Skype Software Partner’s tweet above, Skype’s developer support will be continuing. Why?

In the same announcement, it was stated that the Skype Public API’s and their documentation remain available; more importantly, it was stated that “Skype will continue to support accessories via the Public API.”

But the uniformed media fallout has been attempting to put “doom and gloom” for Skype developer activities going forward. However, had Skype personnel worked with their PR agency who has been very adept at educating both mainstream media and bloggers with the background on Skype announcements, this “doom and gloom” cloud could have been avoided. (No press release was issued; so we have to assume Skype’s PR agency was not consulted.) Some of this “missing” information is in my recent post: “Skype Extras” Is Dead; Long Live the Skype API’s!.

Here are some of the myths that have resulted along with some of the facts that dispel them:

Myth: GigaOm: Skype kills its developer ecosystem: While it is true that “if you put your lot with Skype then you are on your own” for the marketing aspect of a software partner’s offering, the Skype API’s are not going away. And Skype is finally reviewing how it can work best with developers. Some considerations:

• Last fall, Skype announced the appointment of Daniel Berg as Chief Technology Officer. In the spring they announced the appointment of former Counterpath CTO Jason Fischl as Director of Developer Relations heading up the Skype Developer Program. Maybe their silence to date says something about their evaluation of the previous Skype developer activity and their need to take time to articulate an overall Skype platform within which the Skype SDK and Skype API’s will be playing a role. Most importantly, my network’s jungle drums say they are still very active within Skype.
• Check out this job opening for a Platform Release Manager that starts out with “You will be responsible for planning and releasing each new version of the Skype SDK used as part of the upcoming Platform strategy.”
• The Skype post itself ended with: “we still believe there are opportunities for third-party developers to enhance the Skype experience”.

As implied in the OnState tweet above, and confirmed by my own conversations with other Skype partners, we should be looking forward to new enhancements to the Skype Developer Program and the Skype SDK. But maybe Skype should have filled in media and bloggers with this information via their PR network instead of bluntly announcing the end of a support program with no offsetting information.

Myth: Skype is eating its software partners. Andy Abramson, VoIP Watch, Skype Shutting Down Extras Program: “Skype will begin offering more services that are labelled as Skype vs from third parties”. What this really should read  is:

Skype will begin offering more services expanding on its core “conversation” technology expertise and will be looking to third parties to complement their core services by incorporating Skype into offerings that leverage the individual partners’ unique expertise.

For instance:

• Skype for Asterisk (developed by Skype partner Digium) and Skype for SIP will be integrating Skype’s calling and presence functionality into “legacy” platforms as they evolve the Skype for Business program. Expect to hear more at Christopher Dean’s talk at Fall VON next week in Miami.
• As initially indentified by Phil, the Skype Jobs listings include some for a new “Skype Labs” location:
  

  Skype Labs is a new R&D center located in the Bay Area focused on next generation technologies for Skype which will be applicable over the next one to five years. The initial areas of work will include security, signaling and call control for audio, video and presence, p2p and collaboration.

• However, OnState brings decades of call center experience into their Call Center – an application for which Skype has neither the experience nor bandwidth to develop. (Full disclosure: the author is involved with a new small business that will be using OnState’s Call Center as a paying customer.)
• PamFax brings a simple five or six step process for sending faxes worldwide from any PC. Having followed the development of this service over the past two years, they have built a system that solves the basic faxing problem in a user friendly, yet highly secure, manner. Once again Skype has neither the expertise nor bandwidth to address this issue. (And Scendix, PamFax’s developer who was the only third party using Skype Credits to any extent, has already made plans for other payment services when they launched version 2.0 last spring).
• Looking at Skype Jobs, one finds the engineering jobs are focused on evolving Skype’s core functionality: video codecs, video QA engineer, audio components, director of mobile engineering, etc.
• The Product Manager – Applications job description includes responsibility for:
  • Extras like call recording and faxing. (Is Skype going to make an offer for veteran Skype software partner Scendix?)
  • Partner integrations with CRM, Security, Collaboration and similar applications (insert Call Center here).

Bottom line:

• Recent Skype successes include their High Quality Video (nobody has duplicated their ability to do VGA-standard video calling over standard broadband connections) and the SILK codec for higher quality Skype-to-Skype voice calling.
• Expect a multi-party video conferencing service, improved audio and video services and hardware (for instance, finding partners such as client In Store Solutions whose FREETALK Everyman headset addresses an identified end user issue with respect to call quality in a user-friendly way).
• Skype will continue to seek out partners, such as Scendix (Pamela and PamFax), Digium, Skylook (CRM), OnState and InnerPass (document management), who incorporate Skype into a range of business services where the partner has significant expertise that can complement Skype’s core conversation technologies via their API’s (both existing and future).
• Skype’s current Partners are seeing business success:
  • Unyte and VAPPS have been acquired by IBM’s Lotus Sametime Division and Citrix Online respectively
  • OnState is finding its Call Center offering stealthing into larger enterprises due to not only its feature set but also its cost saving
  • PamFax 2.0 has been a most successful launch; Pamela 4.6 was recently launched with video recording.
  • InnerPass has had over 1 million version 1.0 downloads since January. Watch this space for future announcements.
• Statements to the effect that “Skype is abandoning/axing its developer partners” are a myth; once more it’s a case of Skype’s managing their communications onto the blogger space. Memo to Skype: Work with your PR agency (who has done an excellent job over the past two years) and the complete message can get out.

Question: What should Skype really be doing for developer support programs going forward? A recent TechCrunch post by Michael Arrington, some of Andy’s other comments and some comments in Skype Journal’s Skype 5.x Public Chat (Phil’s rushing it – this was the Skype 4.x Public Chat until a week ago) provide some hints. A post will follow.

P.S. – Do you have communications technology and/or marketing experience? It seems like Skype is doing its part to stimulate the economy. Check out the Skype Job Vacancies page where, today, over 60 job openings are listed (some listings are actually for multiple hires).

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A Skype Developer blog post today, The future of Skype Extras, has created confusion and havoc amongst the blogging community that follows Skype (see, for example, the Zemanta links below). Having followed the Skype Developer Program over the past three years (and currently being a commercial user of some of the developers’ offerings) let me put this in some perspective:

1. Over the past four years Skype has developed a set of API’s that allow third party developers to create their own offerings that make use of, or incorporate as a conversation tool, Skype.
2. One of the first utilities was Pamela, which provides call recording (now audio and video), call archiving, call management and other features that enhance the Skype user experience. Others that came along include Skylook, OnState Call Center, HiDef Conferencing and Evoca.
3. Late in 2006 Skype developed a marketing engine for these partner offerings and called the resulting marketing program “Skype Extras”. It was an attempt at an App Store that became part of the standard Skype for Windows client download. In the Skype for Windows 4.1, a user can go to “Tools | Skype Extras” and see a menu of these software partners’ programs.
4. The Skype Extras backend, called Skype Publishing Studio, included an engine where developers could establish licensing terms (including allowing trials and periodic subscription renewals) and incorporate a transaction engine for payments via Skype Credits. Only one partner ever used the transaction engine: Scendix, for their PamFax offering. In fact, it was their use of all the features of the Skype Extras engine that contributed to their award as the winner of Skype’s Mashup competition held in the summer of 2007.
5. In the fall of 2007, Niklas Zenstromm resigned as CEO of Skype and the Skype Extras program effectively languished. A long promised road map never materialized. During the interregnum I put my thoughts down in A Primer for Skype’s Direction – Skype’s Extras Gallery and Developer Partner Program.
6. Two popular Skype Software Partners, Unyte and VAPPS (HiDef Conferencing) have been acquired by IBM Lotus Sametime Division and Citrix respectively.
7. Software Partners, such as Scendix (Pamela, PamFax), OnState (Call Center and Virtual PBX), Skylook, InnerPass and Evoca have continued to develop and mature their offerings. However, there was one noticeable trend – they also reduced their dependence on Skype, either by adding other voice and IM services to into their offerings or, in the case of PamFax 2.0, adding new payment mechanisms such as PayPal, Moneybookers and WorldPay.
8. Most of these vendors have effectively found other ways to promote their offerings through other channels. Certainly OnState and Scendix are seeing record levels of activity and revenues.

So to clarify today’s announcement:

• Skype Extras as a marketing program is coming to an end over the next year. No new software or upgrades will be certified for, or included in, the Skype Extras offering.
• Current Skype Extras will continue to be available via the Skype for Windows client “until they expire” (expiration may take up to a year). And those software programs that include a “check for update” feature will be able to provide a path to their latest offering.
• Skype will continue to support their software partners via the Public API’s; documentation will be maintained. (Developers had often lauded Skype’s level of support in this regard.) In other words, developers can count on having the technology resources required to continue development and support of their offerings.
• The Skype Shop will continue to feature currently listed Skype Extras.
• In an email to developers Skype also mentioned that they’ll have three months (until December 11) to continue using Skype Credits. As noted above, Scendix, whose PamFax was the only program using Skype Credits, has already built in alternative payment mechanisms.

In summary it’s approaching the end of a marketing program, but definitely not developer support. As an app store, the Skype Extras program was not exactly a success story; however, the underlying API’s and support for them are not going away. The smart developer partners have evolved their offerings in a way that certainly reduces or eliminates their dependence on the Skype Extras marketing program while experiencing new levels of market success.

Speaking this afternoon with InnerPass CEO Steve Parsloe, whose Skype-enabled document sharing program has certainly become successful via its marketing on Skype Extras, he stated, “I’m confident that Skype is looking at new marketing solutions that will continue to benefit not only its developer partners but also its end users, especially the business users.”

It does leave questions about where Skype is going in terms of supporting their partners’ through some form of a new or revamped Software Developer Program. Skype is taking significant steps to approach the Skype for Business market. In a post later this weekend, I’ll point to some signals as to what could be coming in the future.

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Stefan Öberg, Vice-President, Skype for Business, provided his overview on “the future of modern business communications” at Interop last week. He started off by outlining his perspective on how consumer adoption of Skype is building business adoption from consumer experience; he feels this is driven by:

• • Economy: 43% percent of knowledge workers in US enterprises with 500 or more employees already use non-company-owned equipment on enterprise networks and systems.
  • Connectivity: We live in a world with an increasingly ubiquitous, pervasive and affordable communications infrastructure, which encourages new acquisition and delivery models, especially those using the web.
  • New technology: A combination of affordable devices, low-cost communications, widespread ownership means that access to and acceptance of new technologies is growing.
  • Employees: Employees bring their experiences and expectations from the ‘real world’ into the work environment – this is particularly relevant when considering an increasing population of digital natives in the workforce.

Recently Voice On The Web has reported on a couple of examples of this trend:

• Stealthing Skype into Larger Businesses
• Stealthing Skype into Healthcare: Consumer Experience Drives Practitioner Adoption

Stefan went on to provide some statistics coming out of user studies carried out last year:

• 20% of our users make Skype video calls for business purposes †
• 95% say they are saving money *
• 62% say they communicate better with customers using Skype *
• 70% say they are using it while traveling on business *
• 80% say they are seeing increased productivity *

* Source: Skype user study of 4,000 users in the US, UK and China conducted in March 2008
† Source: Results from a December 2008 online survey of 2452 active Skype users in the US and UK

Stefan makes some good points, supporting more quantitatively what we have suspected about perceptions of Skype use in business.

However, when he went on to talk about Skype’s expanding ecosystem via Skype for Asterisk and Skype for SIP for penetrating the business market, his brief mention of business infrastructure for Skype (including the Business Control Panel) neglected the services provided by several of Skype’s Software Partners on which Voice On The Web has reported in the past:

• OnState: Virtual Call Center and Virtual PBX
• Managed Collaboration:
  • InnerPass: Team building that Integrates Skype with business grade document management
  • Yugma: desktop sharing across Mac and Windows platforms
  • Lotus Live Unyte: the pioneer in business grade desktop sharing using Skype
  • HiDef Conferencing (now Citrix Online Audio Services Group): a high quality, managed conference calling service
• PamFax: converting your PC into a worldwide accessible fax machine
• Pamela: a comprehensive Skype utility for call management, conversation archiving, personalizing conversations and a bit of fun
• Skylook: combining Skype with Outlook to deliver effective, yet low cost, customer relationship management; turning Outlook into a conversation manager and archive
• Evoca: hosted voice recording for building audience engagement and participation across news services, television documentaries and websites or weblogs (a description and review of Evoca’s new Express services is in preparation).
• (and, if I have missed any Skype Software partner with a business application, add a comment and I’ll update)

Bottom line: While certainly Skype for Asterisk and Skype for SIP will expand the reach and promotion of Skype through their respective distribution channels (Digium/Asterisk ecosystem and PBX vendors), ongoing innovation is also occurring and being adopted in the Skype Software Partner ecosystem. The current economic conditions are accelerating adoption of these conversation management services as businesses, whether entrepreneurial SMB’s or business units of larger enterprises, search out ways to grow their business but at significantly lower costs. More examples of Skype Everywhere driving business model disruption.

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Pamela, the original Skype Extra that provides a range of utilities to enhance your Skype conversations experience, recently introduced Pamela 4.5 with enhancements which provide new call management functionality.

Pamela’s feature set can be broadly summarized as including:

• Conversation management
  • notification management
  • voice mail (with optional email forwarding)
  • video messaging (caller can leave a video message)
  • call transfer (missing from Skype for Windows 4.0)
  • call scheduling (new)
  • conference call management (with new features)
  • launch an application (when a call is received)
• Conversation archiving
  • Call notes (personal text notepad while in a call)
  • Call recording
  • Chat session archiving
  • Video recording
  • Custom recording (for blogs or podcasts)
• Personalization
  • personalized chat auto-responses
  • birthdays
  • rich mood editor

The two key new features are probably of most benefit to business users who have repeated calling patterns to, say, customers and/or suppliers or those who have routinely scheduled (say, weekly) conference calls with a common set of participants, such as a sales or marketing team.

Call Scheduler, shown above, allows you to schedule Skype calls with notification and recurring calls features. When the call is made there are options to provide an audio notification prior to the call, record the calls and/or open a text notes window.

More interesting is the Auto Conference Group Editor  which provides the ability not only to create conference call groups but also to trigger a conference call with the “group” when either (i) a call is received from a designated Skype contact or (ii) an outbound Skype call is made to a designated Skype contact.

It’s a feature-limited conference call management feature; it’s not a full conference call service such as Calliflower or HiDefConferencing with full moderator management features.

As outlined above Pamela has a long list of features that I have used over time, there is one feature that still needs work on both its operational reliability and the user interface. The video recording feature requires download of DivX decoders (which have licensing issues otherwise). I also find that it only works with one of the DivX decoders (DivX 6.8.5 YV12) out of a list of decoders available in the drop down box for selection of a video decoder. Apparently there are some PC- and webcam-specific dependencies related to the decoder issue.

Pamela is traditionally associated with Skype call recording – the feature that made it become virally adopted over the years; however, this is only one feature out of many that can benefit Skype users. Its uniqueness arises from:

• archived content (call recordings, chat sessions) is stored on the local PC’s disk drive in a standalone “Pamela” folder (whereas, say, Skylook is tightly linked into Outlook stores this information in your Outlook folder or Evoca stores your Skype call recordings at a hosted location accessible from anywhere on the Internet).
• the comprehensive feature set of the utility allowing you to select the combination of conversation management, archiving and personalization that adapts best to your individual Skype-enabled conversation activities.

Both PamConsult and Skylook offer basic call recording utilities based on the more feature-rich “parent” utility. Pamela Call Recorder is a free utility for Skype calls up to 15 minutes long. Skylook’s Call Burner has free basic call recording of Skype-to-Skype calls where  both parties have CallBurner but requires their premium version for calls to non-CallBurner users and SkypeOut calls. Evoca offers a free 30-day trial of their hosted recording service.

You can download Pamela 4.5 here for a 30-day trial of Pamela Professional. Pamela comes in four different configurations (including a free Basic configuration) when it comes time to purchase. Updates for Pamela and Call Recorder released

Pamela Case Study: Radio Free Asia: A Skype Facilitated Broadcasting Service

Sometimes communications services come along that demonstrate technical feasibility but then you have to ask “Why?”, “Who would use it?”, “What are the real user benefits?” Such a service is the voice-to-text SMS-based service announced by Skype and partner SpinVox last week.

Basically a Skype user can set up their account such that Skype voicemails can be converted to text via SpinVox’s speech recognition technology. The resulting text is then sent out as “segmented” SMS messages. But when one looks at both the limitations of the service and the alternatives to receiving the same information, one has to question whether any market research for a business case was done:

• Message segmentation: a single SMS message can only handle 160 characters and is usually reduced by “identifying” information. This means any text conversion needs to be sent out in 150-155 character segments as multiple SMS messages.
• Content limitation: the text version can be sent in up to three SMS messages which means the recipient will only see the first 465 or so characters of a voicemail message.
• Sender identification: there is none! Who is 233-33?
• Cost: there is a service charge of US$0.25 per voicemail plus Skype’s “per message” SMS charge of US$0.112 for each SMS. so a 450 character message costs US$0.59 per voicemail (assuming you have no additional SMS messaging charges from your mobile carrier).
• Timeliness: whereas one is immediately informed of a voicemail’s arrival on a landline or mobile phone (or even with Skype’s or Pamela’s voicemail), there is a ten to fifteen minute dead time waiting for the voice-to-text conversion to occur prior to sending out the SMS message(s).

Alternatives:

• Email notification of Skype voice mail: I can receive real time notification of a Skype voicemail including, at a minimum, the sender’s callerID via email on either my  PC or any mobile device that handles email, such as GMail for Mobile or BlackBerry email.
• Employing Pamela, which records voicemail as an MP3 file, these recordings are automatically forwarded via email to my BlackBerry or any GMail for Mobile configured mobile device (such as my iPhone). I can then listen to the voicemail as an MP3.

A major issue working against adoption is simply the difficulty of even activating this service. On following links from the press release to the Voicemail to text description page and hitting the “setup voicemail to text” button I ended up on “My Account” page with no indication anywhere about this new service. Only after enquiring via Skype PR did I learn that there was an obscure and non-obvious path to setting up this service. Apparently this relates to the fact that I already had set up use of my mobile number for other Skype services (such as my SkypeOut callerID). It is readily apparent that nobody at Skype had performed a quality assurance walk through.

Overall a poorly thought through offering that needs more professional product management, including market and user experience research. From the Skype perspective the only way to generate revenue from such as service would be to send the voicemail’s text as SMS messages which can be charged against Skype credits. Converting all the content of a voicemail to text and sending as an email has no inherent revenue generation model.

I also have to come to the conclusion that SpinVox was desperate for some form of Skype partnership, given that there are many alternatives available to readily handle the content of a voicemail message. One has to question the overall value of and market need for having a text version of what starts out as a voice communication. If messages need to arrive via text, start with a PC (using email or even Skype SMS, for instance), a BlackBerry or other email-enabled mobile phone where the entire process involves text only.

I usually am a fan of Skype services but this one has to be considered a FAIL. It’s a service that has neither the quality or value that one usually associates with Skype.

Another perspective….

Andrew Hansen: Skype makes a small ripple, but no Splash with new VM features.

Related articles by Zemanta

• SpinVox Will Transcribe Your Skype Voicemails & Send You a SMS (gigaom.com)
• Skype offers SMS voicemail notifications: good idea, poor execution (skypejournal.com)
• Skype and SpinVox team up on Voice to Text (saunderslog.com)
• Convert Voice Messages to SMS With Skype (mashable.com)

Software developer and publisher PamConsult pioneered third party software development for Skype, having provided the initial German translation of Skype and then launching the first Skype Extra, Pamela in 2005. Two weeks ago PamConsult released Pamela 4.5 for which a review is forthcoming. Their PamFax offering won accolades as the 2007 Skype Partner mashup competition.

But the PamConsult team has also been busy developing software that interfaces home TV sets with Internet-based services. A recent announcement provides a window into how consumers will interact with these services simply through their TV’s remote control.

Just a little over two years ago, the Pamela team linked up with Scendix, publisher of “digital home” software for Windows Media Centre, to form PamConsult. For instance, mceAuction allows you to bring eBay onto your TV screen via Windows Media Centre; mcePhone for Skype provides easy access to Skype from your TV. More recently Scendix released Jaast for Wii, leveraging their mceAuction technology into the Nintendo Wii console. Scendix also developed an eBay Skype Tab used in German and French versions of the Skype for Windows client. While attending CeBit in Hannover two years ago I had the opportunity to experience these offerings first hand; the simplicity of their user interfaces via a TV remote control opens up new opportunities for consumer access to eBay and Skype.

Last Thursday, Philips announced a new line of LCD TV’s which will include a new feature, called Net TV, that will deliver Internet-based services and modules to the viewer’s screen via the remote control. From the Philips press release:

The Net TV feature will be available on all Philips televisions in Europe in the 8000 series, 9000 series and Cinema 21:9 from Spring 2009 onwards. Through Net TV, Internet content is tailored for the best possible viewing experience on the TV screen, and is easily accessed through the TV’s remote control, without the need for extra set top boxes or service subscriptions, or for starting up a laptop.

PamConsult, leveraging their Scendix experience and technology, yesterday announced that they will be providing the eBay channel for Net TV, designated as “eBay, Powered by Jaast”:

Internet with remote control on TV/Media Center/Wii are things we have been working on for years and thus we are proud to say that eBay and Philips have selected us to provide an eBay channel on the new sets.

Based on our mceAuction technology we have adapted the eBay content to work seamlessly on the new Philips systems.We will provide the channel via our Jaast brand.

eBay navigation on the TV is very simple, the same intuitive way of browsing eBay as with mceAuction on Microsoft Media Center and Jaast on Wii.

Given Scendix’s experience with Skype, how long will it be before their mcePhone for Skype technology could be showing up on Philips’ offerings? More importantly does this provide a path for Skype to deliver “Skype Everywhere” through TV as Skype announced at their CES 2009 press conference?

Related articles by Zemanta

• PamConsult Has a “Fantastic Year” (voiceontheweb.biz)
• World’s largest Windows Media Center remote control (istartedsomething.com)

Amidst all the macro economic turmoil of 2008, there are businesses that have stuck to their knitting and had a quite successful year. Pioneer Skype Partner PamConsult recently reported on their 2008 achievements where they have both built out their product line and provided consulting services that have resulted in a stronger development team and enhanced product offerings.

PamConsult comprises two business divisions: Scendix for software product offerings, such as their widely accepted Pamela utility for Skype (the first Skype Extra going back to 2005) and PamFax, and PamConsult for development consulting where, for instance, they developed Skype for Salesforce.com under a contract with Skype. Some highlights:

• A major accomplishment has been the ongoing growth of PamFax. During the year they built out the infrastructure to provide the robustness and scalability such that PamFax now supports over 130,000 registered users. They have announced plans for a fax-in service as well as Mac support in 2009.
• Pamela has now had over 5 million downloads; early in 2009 they expect to release version 4.5; mcePhone, their Skype integration tool for Windows Media Center, will soon see version 3.
• Finally, PamConsult continues to provide eBay offerings, including the eBay Skype tabs licensed to eBay Germany, eBay France and eBay UK. At last year’s eBay Live event, PamConsult won an eBay Star Developer award for their Jaast for Wii, which brings eBay to your TV via Nintendo’s Wii console.

It will be interesting to see how PamConsult’s Skype partnership evolves in 2009 as the new executive team introduces a comprehensive technology roadmap and revamped partnering programs.

Other posts:

• Radio Free Asia: A Skype Facilitated Broadcasting Service
• PamFax: Adding Click-to-Fax

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Pamela, the pioneering third party Skype conversation management utility, has evolved since its launch in 2004 into the premier utility for assisting your Skype activities with features such as call recording, conversation archiving, personalization, call scheduling and enhanced voice mail management. Its Rich Mood Editor, Emoticons, PamCasting and Blogging Support are amongst Pamela’s additional features.

Summary from Supplier : To be supplied by the vendor.

Ideal for: All business persons who use Skype as a critical tool for their business communications.

Publisher’s Expertise and Background: The PamConsult team is the pioneer Skype partner, having done the initial German translation of Skype and having worked with the Skype API’s since they were first made available.

Contact Information:

• Website : http://www.pamela-systems.com
• Phone: Skype Dick Schiferli
• Email: Contact Form

Products and Services : Pamela has four versions:

• Skype Extras: Call Recorder, Rich Mood Editor (free)
• Basic, Standard and Professional:
• Business (recommended): One-time $36.95, includes priority support
• Multi-user licenses available

Requirements:

• Skype: Version 3.6 or later (to take advantage of Call Transfer and High Quality Video recording)
• Platforms: Windows

Product Acccess :

• Skype Extras [Tools | Do More | Get Extras];
• Download Pamela

Installation Comments: When installing you will be asked to agree with the license.

Product Review

Case Study

• Radio Free Asia: A Skype-Facilitated Broadcast Service

Offerings and Pricing:

Skype has become a vital tool for not only keeping their reporters in touch but also for delivering high voice quality reports and more effective technical support.

Broadcasting in nine languages, via short wave radio (primarily), Internet and satellite feeds, to several southeast Asian countries where open sources of news and information are lacking, Radio Free Asia competes with Deutsche Welle and BBC for southeast Asian ears; from their website:

RFA is a private, nonprofit corporation that broadcasts news and information in nine native Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. The purpose of RFA is to provide a forum for a variety of opinions and voices from within these Asian countries.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Radio Free Asia’s Chief Technical Office, David Baden, to learn more about how RFA is dealing with their voice communications requirements.

RFA has recently incorporated Skype into their operation, largely for voice conversations. Initially they had been using Net2Phone for low cost voice communications but with ownership changes and other happenings at Net2Phone they had to find a new service. Interestingly enough the original trigger for using Skype was its ability to manage billing and accounting related to a VoIP service. They had found many of their ~100 reporters and stringers migrating to Skype on a personal basis; the Skype Business Control Panel provided a path to consolidate and manage all their voice communications amongst their many offices in southeast Asia, including an office in Hong Kong that is a legacy from the British colonial period.

Their primary goal for using Skype was initially to reduce voice communications costs amongst their own offices; however, this has expanded to call recording for interviews. For IM they had been using Jabber due to its interoperability amongst various IM platforms and did not change when introducing Skype. As their users get more experience with Skype and its features, they are expanding their use to include features such as conference calling and video calling.

We then moved into discussing the realm of call recording, With the invocation of Skype, reporters naturally started asking how they could record their interviews. In their research of recording options they had requirements such as the ability to easily record both sides of an interview conversation and to maintain the original conversation’s voice quality. First they found that Skype was the only voice service with the range of evolved “add-ons” required to provide a complete recording capability; then they had their technicians determine which applications to evaluate. Working with some of their field staff and producers, they elected to go ahead with Pamela (and their new version 4.0) for the following reasons:

• ability to record into WAV files (to maintain the original conversation’s quality)
• ease-of-use (they are working with reporter who require simplicity of operation)
• reliability and sound quality

WAV is important for use of interview segments as sound bytes. When doing a report they don’t want to lose voice fidelity (through recording to MP3 and back to WAV) as they edit sound bytes into a report that is done as a WAV file.

Ease-of-use includes the auto-start and auto-stop of recording as well as easily locating the resulting file on the reporter’s local PC. Once Pamela has been configured there’s not a lot of “real time” thinking required to save, name and recall a file. As a side benefit these logistics also contributes to avoiding accidental loss of an interview.

They are intending to use the Mega Emotion Sounds Player feature to incorporate sound bytes into their reports, viewing it as a tool for a live report. Repeatedly David mentioned the importance of the overall voice quality of Skype, providing a much better quality than standard phone lines. Overall he stated, “It beats the ‘old days’ where a reporter just holds a cassette recorder to the phone” to introduce a sound byte into a live report. They are looking forward to seeing what other features within Pamela they can use, such as voice mail, in the course of their normal operational processes.

Some other comments David had about Skype use:

• In addition to enhancing the services available to reporters, they are also using Skype for technical support calls, providing support out of Washington to their staff worldwide. And because the calls are either free or very low cost, they find their tech support is more effective since the people involved do not feel they are under a time constraint. For instance, they can wait while a user tries out a suggested fix rather than arranging a call-back.
• Again, as a result of no time constraint, reporters can do more “in-depth” interviews.
• Skype overcomes phone line limitations into various countries, independent of carrier relationships between various countries’ telecom service providers. No longer are they limited to whatever relationships and bandwidth AT&T, MCI and others have for services into, say, Hong Kong, Viet Nam or South Korea. They can actually count much more on making a call connection when using Skype.
• While, along with Skype Journal, access to their website is blocked¹ in countries such as China, Skype’s encrypted peer-to-peer technology provides a shield against blocking of Skype calls into some of the countries they target their broadcasts to. In fact, he views China as having all the characteristics of an enterprise’s intranet, including the ability to manage website and other traffic. But Skype knows something about traversing firewalls.

Lower calling costs, higher quality interviews and reporting, ease-of-use and more effective internal communications and support would sum up RFA’s experience with Skype.

¹ Appears that the Great Firewall of China test site is down until Feb. 1, 2008.

Tags: Skype, Radio Free Asia, Pamela, Skype call recording, Skype voice quality, Skype Business Control Panel

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Pioneer Skype Extra application Pamela has this week released version 4.0 with a new user interface:

and several new features:

More screenshots here. Download here. Pamela Basic is always free; other versions of Pamela have a 30-day trial. We’ll be doing a review, including a user case study, within the next ten days but in the meantime check out the free trial version.

This is the fourth post in a series summarizing the current state of Skype’s ecosystem and providing a perspective on the assets in place for a new CEO to run with.

Getting to the Present

Alec Saunders’ Voice 2.0 Manifesto talks about Applications as the value creators in a Voice 2.0 world. Once again Skype differentiates itself through a two-year-old Skype Developer Partner program as evidenced by Skype’s Extras Gallery. But getting to this point was not easy; in fact:

• Developer Partners had to be true entrepreneurs who kept their vision of a value-generating application above all the obstacles encountered in not only developing their offering but also in initially marketing it. Close communication with many players at Skype was a key to resolving many issues.
• Skype needed to develop experience with all the subtleties of a developer program from building a roadmap and a viable API set to communicating where Skype would play and where they would let their Partners play in the overall market space.
• Skype’s API set has evolved over time to the point where only over the past summer, as evidenced through the Skype Mashup competition, it provides a more complete set of developer tools, including many, such as Call Transfer, that have been clamored for by developers. (But Skype is by no means finished yet with delivering API’s.)
• Skype has also developed a publishing platform, Publishing Studio, that lets developers focus on their application while providing the infrastructure to bring the application to market and generate transactions associated with the application
• To provide standards for quality assurance, Skype is in the process of certifying its partners’ software applications.

The Voice 2.0 Challenge

The Voice 2.0 Manifesto talks about three flavors of applications:

• Voice applications such as conferencing, enhanced voice mail, audio hosting.
• Voice enabled IT applications: collaboration tools, Salesforce.com, Outlook integration, call centers — all designed to assist the knowledge worker
• The voice web: mashup of voice and the Internet. Here the combination of voice and web services offers the greatest opportunities. From the Voice 2.0 Manifesto: “Examples include: spoken word real estate descriptions from the MLS coupled with mapping, voice enabled matchmaker services, customer service coupled with inventory / ordering / availability. The mix of text, web, voice, and programmatic access to data is a heady brew.”

To date we have seen several offerings in the first two categories with initial steps taken, such as with PamFax, into the last category. However, this category’s true potential will only be realized when web services API’s are incorporated into the Skype API set. (The first one is on their recently released roadmap.) One other challenge for the SDP is to extend this program from Windows to the Mac platform.

Skype Publisher Studio

In the course of judging for the Skype Mashup Competition and checking out some newer Skype Extras, it became apparent why the Skype Publishing Studio is a valuable asset and differentiator, not only for Skype but also for, especially, the Skype Developer Partners:

• provides complete install/uninstall infrastructure
• includes Digital Rights Management that allows the publisher to determine the licensing terms for the software including free trials and offerings; tolled, monthly or annual subscriptions, etc.
• connects to a transaction processor that provides mechanisms for payments via Skype Credtis, which, in turn, can be purchased via PayPal or a credit card.

Basically the Publisher Studio relieves Extras publishers of the need to worry about overhead that would be common to them all and allowing them to focus all their resources on the actual value-creating application. Along with the Publishing Stuido, the Skype Developer program is requiring adherence to standards for usability, robustness and overall quality assurance through the Skype Software Certification program.

PamFax, worldwide winner of the recent Skype Mashup competition, demonstrates the full power of the Publishing Studio through its use of all features, including transaction handling. My quote to the Share Skype blog post about PamFax’s award:

“As I judge I found many excellent entries that demonstrate the value of various aspects of the Skype ecosystem. However, the winners have gone beyond the normal “just add Skype” and taken a broader advantage of the entire Skype ecosystem to turn their Skype Extra into a full business opportunity. For instance, PamFax demonstrates that the Skype Extra program not only provides API’s into Skype but also provides a flexible set of licensing terms and a unique means to quickly collect revenues via the Skype Extras transaction engine.”

Essential Reading: Phil’s post yesterday (Russell Shaw also thought so): Why Skype and Vonage Must Live:

Skype is still evolving how to work in the hundreds of network and compute environments in hundreds of millions of situations. Those situations are challenging and evolving on their own. How you cross firewalls, scale p2p, and adapt streams for mobile conditions aren’t ready to be locked down.

Bottom line: Along with Skype’s provision of a complete suite of real time conversation tools, the Skype Developer Partner program is the other big differentiator from other “VoIP” services. This program:

• positions Skype outside the traditional “legacy telephony replacement” space
• opens up significant sustainable revenue generation opportunities for both Skype and its Developer Partners
• brings reduced communications costs and increased productivity to its business users

And somebody must like these Extras: over 21 million downloads. Another success story: WebDialogs (publisher of Unyte) recently became a division of IBM’s Lotus SameTime Group.

Reference posts:

• Unyte’s Tale: Pioneering and Persevering as a Skype SDP
• On Being a Skype Software Business Solution Partner
• A Banner Day for Skype Development Program
• Desktop Collaboration: The Skype Ecosystem Expands
• Skype Partners Answer Jeff’s Challenge for Innovation in Voice Services
• The Dawn of the Mashup World: – Part I: Challenges, Why and Expectations

Business Solutions Extras:

• Voice Recording and Archiving Applications: Pamela, Skylook
• Voice Services: Evoca, HighSpeed Conferencing.com.
• Call Center: OnState ACD for Skype
• Collaboration: Convenos, Unyte Yugma Skype
• Animation: Crazy Talk
• Miscellaneous Utilities: MyToGo, PamFax

For Skype Journal posts on these Partners, enter the Partner’s name into Skype Journal’s Search box and you will get a list of all posts related to that Partner. The complete set of Skype Extras, including games, entertainment and personalization Extras, can be found here or by going to Tools | Do More | Get Extras on the Skype for Windows client.

Other posts in this Skype Primer Series

• A Backgrounder
• Enabling Real Time Communications
• Skype Hardware – If and When Available

Tags: Skype, Voice 2.0 Manifesto, Skype API, Skype Extras, Skype Developer Partner Program, Skype Publishing Studio, Pamela, Skylook, Evoca, HighSpeedConferencing.com, OnState ACD for Skype, Convenos, Unyte, Yugma, Crazy Talk, MyToGo, PamFax, Phil Wolff, Russell Shaw

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The past week has provided an opportunity for all the nay-sayers and pessimists to say “I told you so”. But many bloggers have followed on Jeff Pulver’s lead with I Come to Praise Skype, not to Bury Them. Alec Saunders: Stop Wringing Your Hands. Skype is a Huge Success:

No, Skype isn’t a failure. By most definitions it’s a roaring success. The failure was EBay’s when they paid so handsomely for a business that was dedicated to sucking the profits out of a bloated telecom industry. Skype’s business plan was to take less money from consumers than a telco would for the same services. What were they expecting? What Skype hasn’t done is live up to its potential. The platform which many hoped would emerge from the momentum of Skype — the Voice 2.0 ideal of voice as an element in all applications — appears to have been sublimated to the needs of EBay’s balance sheet. The potential for Skype to utterly dominate voice in this new world has not yet been realized.

There’s still time. Nobody else has come close to what they’ve accomplished.

Over the past week I have also spoken with several Skype Partners; they all can only talk about the potential of Skype. I have to say, that due to the entrepreneurship shown by these partners, the Voice 2.0 ideal is being demonstrated in practice. Yes, they may be Skype versions of some legacy applications; however, Skype makes them even more useful and cost effective as applications. Best example: OnState’s Call Center virtually eliminates the need for a six figure PBX in order to operate a call center. And it provides an additional mode of communication with its unique chat capabilities. Three collaboration tools (my series will continue later this week); a voice conferencing app that handles up to 500 participants; Skype utilities (Pamela, Skylook) for logging and archiving in depth your Skype activities and a voice hosting service are all contributing to the Voice 2.0 ideal. And Paul Amery has done an excellent job of leading the Skype Developer Partner program while still recognizing there’s still a long road ahead to make it totally successful. The recent Skype Mashup contest demonstrated developer enthusiasm for incorporating Skype services into new applications.

Ken Camp, one of Skype’s most frequent critics, in “Comments from the Blogging World on Skype” sums it up with (typos corrected):

Overall, I think the community at large is still waiting to see what happens. There have been times I have not been a fan of Skype at all. That said, I want to see them succeed. I want to see them thrive more than they ever have. And like others, I’m optimistic that under the right leadership, Skype can set the bar far higher than they ever have before.

Thanks, Ken. Enough said….

Now that we are through the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday my Skype Primer series will continue later this week also.

Tags: Skype, Jeff Pulver, Alec Saunders, Ken Camp, Paul Amery, Skype Developer Program, OnState, Pamela, Skylook, Evoca, Convenos, Unyte, Yugma

Yesterday (Sept. 19) was the 25th anniversary of the birth infamous smiley via a bulletin board message on a primitive pre-ARPA Carnegie Mellon Universtiy network. Smiley’s inventor Scott Fahlman tells the story of its emergence into the public domain..

Given the nature of the community, a good many of the posts were humorous (or attempted humor). The problem was that if someone made a sarcastic remark, a few readers would fail to get the joke, and each of them would post a lengthy diatribe in response. That would stir up more people with more responses, and soon the original thread of the discussion was buried. In at least one case, a humorous remark was interpreted by someone as a serious safety warning.

This problem caused some of us to suggest (only half seriously) that maybe it would be a good idea to explicitly mark posts that were not to be taken seriously. After all, when using text-based online communication, we lack the body language or tone-of-voice cues that convey this information when we talk in person or on the phone. Various “joke markers” were suggested, and in the midst of that discussion it occurred to me that the character sequence would be an elegant solution – one that could be handled by the ASCII-based computer terminals of the day. So I suggested that. In the same post, I also suggested the use of to indicate that a message was meant to be taken seriously, though that symbol quickly evolved into a marker for displeasure, frustration, or anger

(cake)What began 25 years ago as a few emoticons to inject some basic moods — humor, anger, wink — into nascent text messaging has become flood of graphic innovation with emoticons reflecting wide ranges of expression; Skype chat dedicates a key menu item to a selection of 72 choices to express “a picture worth a thousand words”. Pamela incorporates a Rich Mood Editor, which has been broken out as a free Skype Extra, to mix text, emoticons and hyperlinks. Entire websites are devoted to providing emoticons.

Hat tip to Jaanus Kase for pointing this one out.

Tags: Emoticons, smileys, Skype, Pamela, Rich Mood Editor, Skype Extra, Scott Fahlman, Jaanus Kase

A post a few days ago, The Dawn of the Mashup World: Part Ia: What is a Mashup, generated a heated discussion on the Skype Mashup Group Chat. Also a few comments. Glad to get some feedback onto Skype Journal; thanks Don and Thomas. (And congratulations to Don Kennedy for having MyToGo selected by ProgrammableWeb.com as August’s Best New Mashup.)

Having monitored the discussion and been involved as a judge in the Skype Mashup competition, my criteria for a mashup are:

1. An solution to a user or business problem that
2. Marries two or more otherwise independent technology platforms or technology services and
3. Makes use of both the technology craftsperson’s unique toolkit mix and his/her experience
4. To satisfy an otherwise unfulfilled user or business process need.

In the course of this exercise I took the opportunity to ask a few developers what they used for delivering their solution. For instance, the iotum team combined the Facebook API’s, Ruby on Rails, the Active MQ framework and an interface to the conference bridge to create their Free Conference Call mashup for Facebook.

In judging the Skype mashup contest I also learned a lot about the wide experience range of mashup developers. Many have excellent experience and development process skills while others forgot some basics such as testing their install and registration procedures and/or their software in a user environment. Some looked at the business or user need while others failed to realize that the world does not need another social networking platform. Ideally mashups are an opportunity to leverage the large user base of a Skype, eBay or Facebook! in meeting an unfulfilled niche user need.

The PamConsult team created PamFax to solve the problem of providing a very simple process (especially relative to the somewhat cumbersome WinFax) of using the Internet to easily fax an MS Office document anywhere worldwide. The primary Skype feature here has nothing to do with voice; they used the Skype Extras publishing platform not only to install the application but also as a transaction processor for collecting revenues for the service using Skype credits. Skype Chat is used to send notifications re a fax’s delivery. In addition they developed a web-based portal to manage and archive your use of the service. The application can be launched from the Skype Extras menu or from within MS Excel or MS Word. A link to Google Maps will also show roughly where the fax is being sent (to within an Area Code).

PamConsult married the Google Maps API’s, Microsoft Office COM objects and a backend fax API with their long term experience using the Skype API’s. They started a year ago this summer with development of specifications; coding commenced in January with an initial version available in May. After a beta testing program in July, PamFax was released as a Skype Extra in the second week of August.

In the course of this process their CTO attended the Skype Developer Conference in Boston in June where there were several sessions on the Skype Extras program, including one on the Skype Extras publishing platform. And it was developed during a period when PamConsult was also developing and releasing new versions of Pamela, Skype for Salesforce.com and some eBay utilities.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to me was the simplicity of the process. For years I fought with WinFax to have a means to send faxes from a PC (although many new Internet technologies have in the interim reduced the need for faxing). As an initial test I sent myself a fax via PamFax and was somewhat surprised that (i) I had completed the process in so few steps and (ii) I did not need the overhead of installing a printer driver to make it work. Find or create the document, insert the fax number, select a cover page and enter any cover page message, arrange payment and the fax is delivered. Serves a niche need within a small mashup application marrying multiple technology platforms. From the PamFax website:

Simple to use:

• Fully integrated with Skype
• User friendly wizard makes sending a fax a breeze
• Send faxes from Word/Excel 2003/2007
• Easy payment with your Skype Credit
• No upfront payments, no subscriptions, no additional cost, no registration

That last line is one example of why mashups can be so readily accepted; it’s there when you need it but you have no ongoing commitment to use it with any regularity.

Well, last night at the Skype Developer Evening in Prague, Czech Republic, PamFax received the award as the best European Skype mashup. In a Skype chat interview this morning with Dick Schiferli, Founder and CEO of PamConsult, he stated:

“We are very excited to be the winner with PamFax. Using PamFax to fax with Skype is a great solution because you can pay with your Skype credit. And its very easy to use. We enjoy working with Skype and plan to further expand our solution suite.”

You can download PamFax via the Skype Extras [Tools | Do More | Get Extras | Business], the Skype Extras website and also at the PamFax website. Give it a try; the first fax sent is on Pamela.

Tags: Skype, PamFax, PamConsult, Skype Extras, Pamela, Skype for Salesforce.com, PamBot, Skype Developer Program, iotum, mashups, Skype Mashup Competition, Dick Schiferli

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One aspect of the telephony domain that has been absent from the Skype ecosystem has been the ability to fax documents via Skype. Fundamentally, sending a fax is an asynchronous one-way activity that has “ridden” the phone network to transmit a document to a device that is able to decode the fax signal back into a readable paper document.. Skype itself has traditionally allowed document exchange via the file transfer feature; however, it does not address the issue of sending a document to a destination without Skype access or sending “executed” documents in legal transactions. Even for those who have a fax machine in their home office, sending a fax while traveling can be a challenging (and usually somewhat expensive) experience.

PamConsult, publishers of the pioneering Skype Extra, Pamela, this week launched a beta version of their forthcoming fax utility, PamFax which will be available as a Skype Extra. PamFax makes faxing a document from any broadband-connected PC a relatively straight forward experience:

• Designate the document to be sent
• Enter the recipient information (multiple recipients allowed)
• Select a cover page
• Enter the cover page message
• Select notification methods: Skype Chat, SMS and/or email
• Pay for the fax
  • Option: Preview the fax

The fax is then sent, followed by receipt of the selected notifications in, say, a Skype Chat window, an email message and/or an SMS message.

During the process:

• PamFax will only open if you have Skype running on your PC
• You may designate the document to be sent in multiple ways
  • Browse for the document from the PamFax client
  • Select PamFax as a “SendTo” destination in the Windows Explorer right click menu
  • Select the PamFax button inserted into the MS Word or MS Excel toolbar
• On the recipient information screen there is an option to view the destination location on Google Maps. Not terribly granular but it provides the location to within, say, a North American area code.
• Payment is executed via deductions from your Skype Credts
• When you select the “Pay and Send” button on the “Pay for the Fax” screen, you are sent to the Skype payment page in your web browser where, as would happen with any other e-commerce site, you are presented with an invoice, an option for inserting promotion codes and a “Buy Now” button.
• If you do not have sufficient Skype Credits, you can navigate to the Skype Credits purchase page (requires your Skype login information) and buy Skype Credits through the same Skype transaction engine used to buy SkypeIn, SkypeOut and Skype Pro services. If linked to PayPal you will also have to login into your PayPal account.

PamFax is accompanied by your own individual PamFax Portal – a web-based utility that logs your faxes, stores your default settings (cover page, sender information, notification settings) and provides a rate table.

Rates vary by destination country and can run from €0.17 per page to most European and North American destinations to €1.28 per page to many Middle Eastern, African and South American countries and €1.59 to unlisted countries (confirm via the rate table). Prior to sending a fax and even approving payment, you are provided with the cost of the fax.

Having been a beta tester there are still a couple of features I would like to see in forthcoming versions:

• acceptance of fax numbers from Microsoft Outlook
• adding a fax number to a Skype user profile (which would probably require some coordination with Skype itself).
• configure PamFax as a Windows printer driver option

In summary, after many years of fighting with WinFax and other PC telephony client installations and configurations, PamFax does provide a simple means to transmit faxes from your PC while on the road or any situation where the clarity and accuracy of document provided by a “direct to fax” process that bypasses scanning “fuzzies” is required.

Interesting to note is that, as for using actual Skype features, PamFax only uses Skype Chat for notifications and the Skype Extras Publishing Studio for both hosting the application, managing the digital rights licensing and providing the e-commerce engine.

Note: according to this FAQ, during the beta phase, PamFax is only available to Skype users outside Canada and USA.

Download PamFax beta. PamFax FAQ’s.

Tags: Skype, Pamela, PamConsult, PamFax, WinFax, Skype Fax, Skype Extras

Over the past three weeks I have had the opportunity to attend the Skype sessions at the eBay-Skype Developers Conference, to meet with and/or interview several Skype Software Business Solution Partners (product reviews forthcoming), and to spend a day at eBay Live – especially in the exhibit area.

Out in the blogosphere, especially via posts from the mesh 2007 and Enterprise 2.0 conferences, we have also seen a few observations about how social networking tools and, in particular, Skype, are penetrating the small enterprise market. The combination of these activities has helped bring into clearer focus what it takes to be a successful Skype Business Solution Partner, not from a technology perspective, but rather an approach to building a sustainable business.

First and foremost – bring along some experience in a vertical market or solution:

• Unyte has been providing desktop sharing services for several years;
• Real Allusion brings expertise in graphic enhancement and animation to Crazy Talk
• The OnState team brings over twenty years’ experience in developing successful Call Center solutions to its OnState ACD product,
• VAPPS brings carrier grade conferencing technology and experience to HighSpeedConferencing.com
• The Convenos team brings several years’ experience in building virtual meeting solutions
• Evoca had been developing a call recording, messaging and transcription web service business around any telephony service for academics, media companies and political campaigns

Second: Be prepared to be a persistent, patient pioneer.

• The Unyte story, initially presented here in an interview with Unyte’s CTO, Gershon Goren , but also articulated so well by Unyte’s CEO Lou Guercia at the Skype “Concepts to Cash” presentation, describes how the Unyte developer team had to work with Skype personnel as both the API set and the developer program evolved over the past two plus years.
• But I also heard about how incorporating Skype into Evoca’s product offering required supportive assistance from Skype personnel to bring on board the first web service involving Skype.
• The OnState ACD solution required patience until Skype could offer full call transfer capability; in the interim they built a Skype chat solution accessible from any website.

The evolution to the current Skype Software Developer Program removes some of the obstacles encountered by these pioneers; on the other hand they have been trail blazers contributing towards what is offered today.

• But the most important advice comes from Dick Schiferli at Pamela: “Nurture your Skype relationship and maintain an appropriate level of engagement by building good lines of two-way communication with Skype”.
• And don’t forget about Skype Software certification whose goal is to provide standards for quality assuance. As of July 2, Skype Software Certification will be required to become a Skype Partner.

Third: Ensure you have a value add product or service, not simply a feature

As an example consider Call Recording: Three partner products involve Call Recording: Pamela, Skylook and Evoca. In addition, Skype offers its own voice mail service but it’s simply that – voice mail with no PC access via MP3 files or other enhancements.

However, when you dig deeper you will find that call recording is a feature within each of these products/services. It is the value add proposition incorporating the call recording feature that differentiates each of the offerings. For instance:

• Pamela offers (MP3) call recording/voice mail as one feature of a set of personal assistant utilities that enhance your overall Skype experience;
• Skylook logs call recordings/voice mails into Outlook for individual PC archival purposes, integrated along with archiving of chat messages and call history within Outlook. In fact, with Skylook, you can manage all your Skype real time communications activity from Outlook and leave the Skype client in the System Tray
• Evoca offers online archiving with web access and RSS feeds for website, weblog and podcast reference along with transcription and translation services but no voice mail service.

And if you investigate the respective pricing models for each, you will find they represent various approaches to providing business-driven value-add.

Fourth: follow Lou’s Rules. From Lou Guercia’s presentation at the “Concepts to Cash” seminar:

• Rule #1: Develop a product that you’d like to use with Skype .. Something that enhances the user experience.
• Rule #2: Don’t forget Rule #1 (when you get into the actual development cycle)
• Rule #3: Keep It Simple Stupid (make implementation and operation intuitive)
• Rule #4: Offer free and paid solutions
• Rule #5: (not stated but implicit in his presentation) Bring your solution to Skype’s global user base in a way that requires no (or minimal) real-time tech support

Fifth: Use Web 2.0 tools and social networking to build your customer base:

While traditional SMB marketing programs will certainly bring results, a profitable business model for selling Skype Partner software involves leveraging Web 2.0 tools wherever feasible. Social networking has become a key business tool:

• From Alec Saunders’ Enterprise 2.0 Reflections: We’re onto something BIG!:

… the business of being an enterprise solution provider just got a lot harder. Over and over we heard repeated that the young bring their own networks and applications to business. And because these are mostly web based applications, not much can be done to contain them. Within a short period of time, we should expect millions upon millions of GMail, Facebook, and Skype users within every enterprise globally.

• Unyte grew its registered user base from 250,000 to 500,000 in six months simply through the visibility provided by Skype Extras
• “Staff increasingly dictating the corporate IT agenda”. This forum entry is consistent with a story I heard while having lunch at eBay Live about a Fortune 500 company that blocked Skype internally but all their field agents use Skype to communicate externally.
• Obtain third party reviews, especially in the blogosphere.

And from several comments heard at the developer conference:

• Employees start using Skype and bring it into the business
• Skype becomes a key communications tool for building business presence worldwide for small to medium businesses
• Business investigates Skype Business Partner Solution and adopts one or more solutions
• According to Unyte, each license drives four more Skype user registrations as the product infiltrates the business’s best practices

Skype’s introduction into (initially small-medium) businesses via products such as Convenos, Unyte and OnState is demonstrating that Skype Partner Solutions will be a primary driver for building the Skype user base going forward. When you hear of 100 license sales for Unyte and 200 to 400 license deals for Convenos, and leverage those into additional Skype user registrations, you start to recognize that business solutions incorporating Skype will become a key differentiator for Skype from other VoIP players and a key driver of new user adoption in what is becoming an otherwise very competitive market space.

Tags: Skype, Skype Software Developer Program, Pamela, Skylook, Unyte, Convenos, OnState, HighSpeedConferencing.com, VAPPS, Skype Extras, Evoca, Real Allusion, Crazy Talk, mesh07, Enterprise 2.0, SaundersLog, Alec Saunders

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