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.

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

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

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

Two questions:

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

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

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

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Aid workers and care givers who provide services in politically- and infrastructure-challenged countries where law and order is not necessarily a given, where war, violence and crime are rife, have always ranked very high on my admiration list as one of the most unselfish and high risk roles that one can perform in hopes of betterment of individuals’ lives. And often these workers are in hardship situations where they must spend not only weeks or months but even years with little or no contact with their families and friends.

So what is Skype doing to help?

Today Skype announced a partnership with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) where Skype has not only worked to supply communications services to 120 “hardship locations” but also adapted their software technology to deal with the low bandwidth communications infrastructure available to these locations. Skype’s Antoine Bertout has discussed this partnership with UNHCR’s Mohammed Faisal:

In Skype experiments with refugee workers, Skype Journal’s Phil Wolff outlines some of the special technical features of this “bespoke” version of Skype:

Changes that limit bandwidth use:

• Video will not start automatically.
• Video will not start until Skype sees needed bandwidth.
• Skype’s SILK voice CODEC (8-40 kbps) will be used when possible.
• No Facebook support.

In the video you will hear Mohammed refer to “our network”; there is an element of a virtual private network (“VPN”) involved in some circumstances as well. Also the client supports Skype Chat, including Group Chat, and SkypeOut calls to the PSTN. Note also that the Blue Wall firewall incorporated into the associated infrastructure allows calls only “outside business hours” in order to minimize impact on critical business operations.

Video calling may be bandwidth challenged in some situations; it would be interesting to know what resolutions and frame rates are supported (even if lower that High Quality Video’s 640 x480 @ 30 fps, at least one should be able to see images at, say 320 x240 @ 15 fps, etc., given Skype Video’s bandwidth adaptation features). But just hearing a distant voice will suffice for most calls.

But why just for UNHCR?

Dan York questions why such technology would not also benefit a sector of the business market in Interesting Tech in Skype’s Low-Bandwidth Version for UNHCR – Wouldn’t Enterprises Want This?:

As I listened to the video, it definitely occurred to me that there are businesses and organizations out there who could also benefit from a low-bandwidth version of Skype. I think, for instance, of shipping companies with limited Internet connectivity to vehicles or ships. Or to companies with distributed offices with very small branch offices with very small Internet connections.

Skype’s Peter Parkes has responded to a comment (to the original Skype blog post) about other aid organizations with:

UNHCR is the first partner to benefit from this low-bandwidth version of Skype for Windows. A large dispersed organization such as UNHCR is an ideal testing environment to evaluate the performance of this software in a wide variety of challenging connectivity networks. At the moment we are focused on ensuring a successful roll-out of Skype to a planned 80 to 85 per cent of UNHCR “hardship” locations before the end of 2011.

As such, it is not currently available to other organizations or the general public to download. It is clear to us however, that others could benefit from the changes and the lessons learned during the evaluation of the software that Skype has developed for UNHCR. Unfortunately, however, we are unable able to talk about our future intentions and can only discuss our partnership with UNHCR at present.

You can support UNHCR’s activities also….

Skype and UNHCR have also put up a page where you can provide financial resources to UNHCR to assist with supplying textbooks and training manuals, funding teachers and purchasing solar-powered computers, amongst other requirements that go to support their programs.

Bottom line: Over the past few decades advances in communications technology have helped to overcome many political injustices, natural disasters and barriers to economic opportunity . While it’s been great that Skype offers many cost-free services to all of us,  when it comes to providing assistance to those helping peoples disengaged from life’s real opportunities, Skype’s services become “priceless”.

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• UN refugee agency staff trial new version of Skype (guardian.co.uk)
• Skype Creates Bespoke Software to Help Refugee Workers (mashable.com)
• Low-bandwidth Skype custom app created for UN Refugee aid workers [Video] (slashgear.com)

Over the past six weeks I have attended four local social media and technology events – a PodCamp, a monthly social networking seminar, an annual project management ski day and  WordCamp Toronto 2010. At each I was able to bring along a few Skype Everyman headsets to be given away as prizes.

Prior to selecting the prize winners I had two or three minutes to talk about how the Everyman worked and their affiliation with Skype; the outcome was not simply a mere handing out of hardware but rather became an opportunity to learn about how broadly and enthusiastically Skype is accepted and used across a range of personal and business communications activities. I started by asking how many in the audience use Skype – usually about 50% to 60% raise their hands but at WordCamp Toronto Saturday about 95% of the 400 attendees raised their hands; three who came up to talk with me later said they had to start using it.

But here’s the best part – it was the spontaneous emotional enthusiasm they exhibited for their use of Skype. Not only when handing out the prizes but by the questions and inquiries I received during subsequent networking breaks. It was the smile on their faces telling about the success they had experienced.

I heard stories of weekly family calls back to South Africa, Europe and the Far East, often with video. I heard stories of how small business entrepreneurs depend on Skype for weekly conference calls to manage their projects and the use of screen sharing to build business relationships around the world.

On the other hand, some conversations would become a mini-training session. Skype has so many features of which users are unaware. Editing chat messages, one-to-one screen sharing and using the FireFox and Internet Explorer Skype toolbars were some of the subjects of conversations during networking breaks at WordCamp Toronto.

As a result Voice On The Web will be introducing two new features:

• Skype in My Life: how users use Skype to support their personal and business life.
• SkypeHints: a twitter feed that will provide daily tips and hints reminding users of the many individual features that are available within Skype with links back to more details at the Voice On The Web reference guide.

If you have a story, tip or hint that you would like to share send your suggestions to me at jim dot courtney at voiceontheweb dot biz or contact me on Skype (mention Skype Hints or Skype Stories in the chat message or contact request).

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A month ago at Mobile World Congress, Skype and Verizon stole the spotlight by announcing Verizon’s forthcoming Skype mobile service. This afternoon at CTIA in Las Vegas, Verizon and Skype announced that the service will launch in two days on Thursday, March 25 (think Christmas in March).

If there was one overriding theme that came out of the press conference today, it was “it’s about the user experience”. Skype’s Russ Shaw emphasized this during our CES interview in January; Josh Silverman, Skype CEO and John Stratton, Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer, reinforced this during the Mobile World Congress press conference.

So what is this “user experience” that “it’s all about”?

• Make it as easy to make a Skype call as to make a circuit switched wireless call.
  • Find a name in the address book and press a “Call” button.
• Provide free Skype-to-Skype voice and IM conversations to any Skype contact worldwide
  • Without any charge against voice minutes or data usage
• Provide an “always on” experience by allowing the application to run in background
  • Receive IM chat messages and Skype voice calls while running other applications
  • Provide ongoing “presence” status via Skype IM
• Merge the device address book with your Skype contacts to ensure ready availability for both making and receiving a call
  • whether a normal voice call, a Skype-to-Skype call or an international call via SkypeOut
• Run the voice conversation over a proven, scalable, reliable voice network
  • that also has maximum geographical coverage
  • receive calls anywhere, anytime – not tethered to a PC for Skype conversations
• Optimize for longer battery life
• Make the download and installation a default with minimal, if any, user intervention
• Make it available to all your existing customers who have bought either BlackBerry or Android smartphones in the past
  • going back to the original 8830 BlackBerry World Edition and the Curve 8330
  • also available on the BlackBerry Storm, Storm 2, Curve 8530, Tour 9630 and three Android models
• Two other points made: the service is CALEA-compliant and E911 access remains available via the Verizon voice channel.

Customers will be able to access and install Skype mobile in one of four ways:

• For existing BlackBerry customers the application will be pushed to their BlackBerry’s home screen over the next few days after launch
  • New BlackBerry customers will find the application on their home screen
• Android users will be able to install the application from the Google App store
• The application can also be downloaded by going to www.skype.com/go/mobile
• Text “SKYPE” to 2255 to receive a download link

While there is no universal Skype for BlackBerry yet, the Verizon offering demonstrates how Skype can take advantage of the BlackBerry’s feature set:

• optimize for battery usage
• “always on” Skype connection by running the Skype mobile client in background
• using BlackBerry’s “push” technology to push the Skype application to all (existing) Verizon customers on BlackBerry

There are some limitations:

• No WiFi; must be in a location where Verizon signal is available
  • not deep in an underground location
• No roaming with Skype;
  • Skype calls can only be made while on the “Home” Verizon network in the U.S.
• Limited audio bandwidth using the inherent Verizon voice network
  • No SILK codecs involved; probably G.729

One final note: When asked about exclusivity, Skype’s Russ Shaw, GM for Mobile replied to the effect that “the Skype mobile experience is exclusive to Verizon” and that “features and functionality won’t be elsewhere”. Leaves a lot open to interpreation; we’ll see as Skype for Symbian and Skype for iPhone evolve.

Bottom line: While it will be a great service for Verizon’s customers wherever they are in the U.S., there are limitations such that the service is not available for international travel. It’s a service that is not only available to new customers but to their entire legacy base of BlackBerry and Android users.

The service, however, provides an initial step for getting Skype onto a mobile service with revenue generation for both Verizon and Skype. The big question is “Will it drive new users for Verizon?”

Yes, this post only covers the basics; more commentary to follow.

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During my three plus years of blogging, the most educational and informative conference for keeping up with innovation in the “Emerging Communications” space has been eComm, the Emerging Communications Conference (and now Awards). And now eComm is coming to Europe in two weeks.

Conference organizer Lee Dryburgh and his team of advisors have assembled many of the top thinkers and activists in the IP-based communications space with the goal to “promote and accelerate communications innovation”. On the website’s home page is an outline of the forthcoming changes foreseen:

Telecom is becoming software

Today’s model of the telephony and SMS cash-cows will significantly dry up long-term

“Phones” are becoming general purpose always-on computers

A march is underway to change how spectrum is allocated and utilised

Applications innovation is being democratised

The media industry is converging with personal communications

Internet-style ecosystems are starting to pressurise the traditional value chain

Search engines and computer manufactures are encroaching into the space

App downloads; media content and even communication streams are increasingly routing-around operator’s billing systems

The telecom kingdom is fragmenting daily.

It’s only at eComm that you will find respected experts such as Martin Geddes, Thomas Howe, Alan Duric, Brough Turner, Dean Bubley, James Enck, Jonathan Christensen, Jan Linden and Gerd Leonhard all under one roof at the same time. But amongst the others, there’s always at least one or two who will surprise us and challenge our thinking about how the telecommunications industry will evolve. While we all talk about “networking” from a technology perspective, the personal networking at eComm is just as valuable as the presentations.

Also this week it was announced that Skype has taken on the role of Headline Sponsor of the show while innovative companies such as Voxbone, Voxeo, GIPS and Voice Sage are Platinum Sponsors. Without their support Lee would have to triple the registration fees and probably put the conference out of reach for many of the attendees.

Alec Saunders has bought his tickets to go; have you? Click here for a 10% discount when registering.

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Consider this a “Retweet for video”; in Renee’s dialogue/interview with/between Skype’s Chief Blogging Office Peter Parkes and Robert Scoble we learn a lot about the evolution of Skype’s approach to using social media.  Skype sees social media as a key channel for engaging customers in conversations as a complement to both their marketing and support activities.

Just to reinforce, Peter can be found on Twitter as @peteratskype listening for and responding to questions, comments and support issues.

And thanks to Renee for making this interview available.

Update: Dan York highlights a key statement made by Peter: Social media: Where brevity is appreciated, where clarity and simplicity win:

One phrase of Peter’s, though, stuck out in my mind as being so accurate about Twitter and really the whole current state of social media:

It’s actully quite refreshing to be able to work in an environment where brevity is appreciated, where clarity and simplicity win.

Indeed. A nice concise summary.

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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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Doing the “grandparent” Skype video call and using Skype in a business environment has led two medical practitioners to begin using Skype to facilitate and accelerate patient care in their practice. While not a replacement for all doctor visits, there are situations where Skype video can be used to both screen patients prior to a visit or drive access to medical care.

In an ABC News  report on Good Morning America today, reporter Tanya Rivero talks about “Bringing Back the House Call, Virtually”. She interviews a New York-based plastic surgeon and one of his patients; she then interviews Iowa-based psychiatrist Dr. Loren Olson via Skype video.

Dr. Spero Thodorou, a plastic surgeon, found that many of his patients comprise a younger demographic familiar with the Internet. He uses Skype video to screen and educate patients prior to their first office visit. Patient Christine Traveras talks about how using Skype minimized her time requirements for the screening call; subsequently she has visited the office and had one of the surgeon’s procedures carried out.

Psychiatrist Dr. Loren Olson had started using Skype for calls to his grandchildren and then realized that he could use it (i) for routine follow up “med-check” visits with both urban and rural patients and (ii) for clinical consultations with a team of medical providers in a rural area. Amongst his points in the interview:

• the need in the cities relates to getting the 50% of mentally ill patients who do not have access to medical services to simply interact with a medical professional.
• while his calls do not have the intimacy of an office visit, there’s often a question of “this visit” vs. “no visit”.
• patients can become so totally absorbed and relaxed in the discussion such that the technology literally melts away.  In one case a patient asked for a glass of water (says something about the realism provided by Skype’s High Quality Video)
• one paranoid schizophrenic patient actually preferred using Skype for his doctor calls.

Bottom line: With the ongoing debate over rising healthcare costs, can Skype video calling contribute to solutions that not only reduce both patient and practitioner costs but also shrink travel requirements, accelerate remedial procedures and, most importantly, cut the time spent reading six-month-old magazines in the doctor’s waiting room?

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.

The highlight of today’s sessions at Voice over the Net Canada was a presentation by Stefan Oberg, General Manager, Skype for Desktop and Skype Hardware. Stefan’s theme built on Alec Saunders’ Voice 2.0 Manifesto by talking about how Skype is working to be “better than a phone”.

After reviewing the history of text messaging from the telegraph to telex to fax to email, Stefan then contended that the current phone is to voice as the “telex” stage was to text messaging, leaving many opportunities open to build new services and features. He went on to repeat how currently phone services are in a pricing game requiring complex marketing messages to differentiate.

He went on to state that Skype’s vision is “to be the voice communications channel of choice wherever one is: on the PC, on the Web, on mobile devices and in third party applications” … “whenever I need to talk”. But when does one need to talk?

• Start with people who know each other
• Expand to people with common interests
• More formally when I want to buy something
• When I want to travel but need a translator to make travel arrangements

Stefan then went on to define “how we (Skype) can be better?”

• High quality, hi-fi stereo audio
• World phone book – is there an opportunity to pool PSTN numbers?
• Presence – especially for communicating across time zones
• Privacy – users can build their own “Do Not Call” list
• Speed dialing
• Mood messages – self-publishing
• Archiving – storing voice mails, chat sessions and call records
• Text – combining voice and text
• o Multi-party chat: instant, brief, efficient, persistent
  • Becoming an alternative to email
  • Privacy: no spam
  • Unlimited attachments
• Conference calling: currently 5 or 10 users but developing a server-based technology for larger calls
• Video
• File Transfer

Stefan then pointed out that we are only at the beginning of seeing the features that can be built both into Skype and into third party applications.

Back to the phone: why is the phone so ubiquitous? Five 9’s reliability (even in power outages) and a simple user interface. Stefan mentioned a few guidelines for adding features:

• Don’t bloat the client – keep it simple
• But aim to be the Swiss Army knife of voice communications
• Look for hardware integration in addition to software features.

He then went on to point out as a simple example how Skype gets complicated as soon as a desktop user installs Skype, realizes they need a headset but need to plug/unplug the headset on the back of a(n older) desktop PC. Such a complication (or to use Stefan’s words – “such a terrible user experience”) limits the mass market appeal of Skype; it is a goal of Skype to overcome such hurdles to mass adoption.

Stefan’s concluding slide was his opening slide: “Better than a phone”. We look forward to experiencing new features from both Skype and their third party developer/partner community.

As an aside, Stefan mentioned during his introduction (Carl Ford has a unique way of introducing speakers at VON conference sessions) that there are four divisions to Skype: his (Skype for Desktop and Skype Hardware), Skype Mobile, Skype Telecom (working with termination partners) and Skype eCommerce.

In response to a question about their approach to the business market, Stefan emphasized that Skype is staying focused on its mass market potential as they do not have the resources to address the business market. However, he gave a couple of examples of partners who are addressing the business market: (i) Web Dialogs with their Unyte web conferencing application and (ii) integration with SalesForce.com.

As described in the Voice 2.0 Manifesto, the business opportunities for Skype and their partners lie in the Applications.