Recently Skype has participated in several technology sharing activities with Facebook: Facebook Video Calls, Facebook Chat sessions through the Skype client, a Facebook news feed on the Skype client home page and most recently video calls from the Skype client to your Facebook Friends.

However, until now Skype has been somewhat weak on using Facebook for social networking’s real power – user engagement. Even so over 5,000,000 Facebook users had “Liked” Skype’s Facebook site.

Three weeks ago Skype launched its new Facebook Fan Pages site with a focus on building user engagement. According to Jennifer Caulkin, Skype’s Social Networking Manager,

“We revamped the Skype page on Facebook because its about engagement with our fans.  We want to give them compelling content, access to product information, the latest Skype download, exclusive deals, unique promotions and fun stuff.”

One of Skype’s marketing challenges is to make users more aware of Skype’s broad feature set beyond basic voice and video calling. Skype’s Facebook page is one step in this direction with its focus on allowing users to more readily learn about these activities, experience some Skype features and provide feedback.

Several new tabs have been added (click on”More” to see all tabs). For instance, Skype  and Facebook provides a promotional video about using Facebook from the most recent versions of the Skype for Windows/Mac clients. “Stellar Deals” describes a few “bundle” packages involving hardware and Skype calling plan subscriptions. (However, would be more useful to have these specials offered beyond the U.S.)

Say It With Skype provides a way to experience Skype Group Video calling by using Skype Group Video to send a birthday greeting. More on this in a post to follow.

Much of Skype’s Facebook site is promotional, encouraging use of services, purchases and having fun. However, here’s where the reality hits the fan: the Facebook Support tab is one channel for entering issues with using Skype. When an entry is made onto the Support tab it is immediately also copied over to Skype’s new Community Forum for a response. Replies posted to the item in the Community Forum are then also copied back to the Facebook Support page. Click on the tabs below to see how one entry is mirrored on the two support venues.

Skype Support Channels - An Example Entry

• Facebook Support Page
• Skype Community Forum

Basically the Community Forum mirrors any entries on the Facebook Support page where Skype personnel and Community Forum members can respond to an issue.

Eventually it will also be possible to post Replies directly onto the Facebook Support page; however, due to a recent change in Facebook’s requirements for Fan Pages, Skype is working on the adjustment required to adhere to Facebook’s new policy re Fan Page security.

Bottom line: many businesses are feeling their way to determine how Facebook’s Fan Pages can be used for user engagement and as a marketing tool. While there is certainly going to be a lot of self-promotion, providing opportunities for customer participation or user feedback is critical to maintaining the integrity and credibility of Facebook Fan Pages and, most importantly, repeat visits. Only time will tell how successful Skype can be with their Facebook presence but at least there is now a concerted focus on engaging users through social networking activities.

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• Skype Now Using “@SkypeSupport” on Twitter (disruptivetelephony.com)

Since its release late Saturday, Skype for iPhone 2.0, with its support of calling over 3G carriers and superwideband audio using Skype’s SILK codec, has set the blogosphere awash with two genres of commentary: those who seem to think the end of free Skype calling is approaching as an Armageddon and those who recognize the launch of Skype for iPhone 2.0 as not only setting a new benchmark for mobile voice calling, especially for call quality, but also having a significant impact on the overall smartphone market.

Re the “small fee” (now set to start at the beginning of 2011), I simply say this is one more sign that Skype is a business with investors who are looking for a return. Nobody can argue about its value-add, both in terms of providing international mobile calling convenience but also by delivering a significantly enhanced user experience through establishing a new benchmark for mobile call quality. This outcome definitely justifies a “small fee”, provided it is not obsessive. Alec Saunders, author of the Voice 2.0 Manifesto, positions this issue appropriately in “Skype’s “small fee” is noise, guys”:

Sometimes you have to really shake your head at the quality of the commentary on the internet.  Fact: Skype has finally released a version of Skype for iPhone that supports calling over 3G networks.  Never mind the fly in the ointment that all the commentary is  stuck on – the fact that Skype wants to charge a “small fee” for you to use it on a 3G network.  Frankly, that’s noise.  People will pay for the ability to make a high quality Skype call on 3G, and not pay their carriers long distance termination charges in foreign markets.  So long as the fee is reasonable, nobody is going to object.

Alec goes on to make several points about what the launch of Skype for iPhone 2.0 really means; his post is well worth the read. (Full disclosure: as Canadians who participate in the Canada Pension Plan, Alec and I each have a $17.50 investment in Skype.)

As for the new benchmark for mobile phone call quality, there are several impacts. But first, if you have not heard it already, click here to hear Skype for iPhone 2.0’s “near CD-quality” call first hand between myself and Dean Elwood in the U.K.

Andy Abramson comments on how deeply Skype developers may have gone into the iPhone hardware to achieve this result in “Skype on 3G-Something Borrowed, Something New”; he concludes with:

How good? Well put it this way..why would anyone with an iPhone want to call over old AT&T after their first Skype over 3G call. Oh, and yes, it makes Skype on Verizon sound like, well, a plain old telephone call…..Ma Bell, you’re back sounding like you’re old self. The way the boys in the labs have always dreamed and said you could.

Over at Voyces.com, in “Skype for iPhone over 3G: An Industry Benchmark Game Changer for Skype”, I have commented on the broader impact of Skype for iPhone’s support of SiLK. Simply put, it has the potential to place Skype as a key mobile communications software infrastructure supplier across the entire mobile phone industry. Not simply because of the technology itself but rather as a result of demonstrating high quality voice calls accessible to Skype’s several million users through a single application for the iPhone resulting in several million end user experience – the “Skype network effect”.

With the support of SILK in a smartphone application that runs over both 3G and WiFi, calling costs become almost secondary to an exceptional end user experience with voice quality on mobile devices.

SILK has now become not only a benchmark but also a key communications infrastructure element. End users will pay for a quality experience, especially when it impacts business productivity. Both wireless carriers and smartphone vendors need to rush to ensure they have incorporated Skype’s SILK technology into their offerings. Otherwise the iPhone (iPad and iPod Touch) have one more key feature that sets them apart from the remainder of the smartphone users.

Dean Elwood sums up this “Skype network effect” best when he talks about the Skype “on-net” calling:

The proposition for Skype’s shareholders is the fact that you have to be on the Skype network in order to get the “near CD-quality”. Because you don’t get hi-def when you call a regular landline or mobile, only another Skype-enabled device. So if you want to make free calls to your friends, they all need to get on the Skype net.

and concludes with…….

It’s the mass-market adoption of Skype that makes it work. You need to be on their network, along with other contacts you call regularly, to make it work for you. So in the absence of interconnect, which Skype do not do, your a. n. other mobile VoIP carrier of the future has to start from the ground up.

Bottom line: Dean backs up his observations by telling me that he will be making most of his voice calls using Skype for iPhone when away from his office. It would be most interesting to see not only if this drives more users to using Skype as opposed to the carriers’ voice channels but also the fallout for the transition of communications from a very hardware-oriented infrastructure to a complete software infrastructure operating totally “in the cloud”.

Next: the questions that remain to be answered going forward.

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• Skype Pushes iPhone 3G Voice Fees Until 2011 (iphonesavior.com)
• Skype 2.0 for iPhone: Is it worth subscribing for 3G VoIP calls? (reviews.cnet.com)
• Skype on the iPhone Goes 3G … Finally (gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Skype on 3G mobile impresses (saunderslog.com)
• Skype on Mobile over 3G: A Skype Video Calling First Experience (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Voice and Chat over iPad: Skype and Truphone Fill the Gap (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype for Mobile – Now Focusing a True Skype User Experience (voiceontheweb.biz)
• Skype’s SILK Codec: Working Towards Adoption as a Standard (voiceontheweb.biz)

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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If you own a brand name as a TwitterID, take heed. Twitter will reveal your ownership details to the brand owner. Nerdgirl Stephanie Robesky, a former employee of a venture fund established by the founders of Skype, was shocked recently into realizing she still owned the @Skype TwitterID even though she had moved on in her career and never used the account. In an email exchange with Techcrunch she responded:

“I registered the Skype Twitter name because I worked at Skype at the time so thought it might have been of use to us at some point. I’m sure I told someone in marketing who ignored me and had no clue at the time what Twitter was. Left Skype last year and forgot that I even had registered the name until yesterday… Glad they don’t have my credit card details.”

In her own Nerdgirl blog she wrote a letter to Twitter:

I would like to say, however, that I am hugely disappointed that my name, email address (even if it didn’t work) and details were given out to anyone in reference to any account held on Twitter.  And, yes, someone at Twitter did give this information out and this is how I was contacted about the account, so please do not try to deny it.  This is a violation of my privacy and, quite honestly, probably a big violation of your privacy policies. It is unprofessional of your team to hand out users information regardless of circumstances and this is something that we never would have done at Skype – even if Obama himself couldn’t log into an account that he says wasn’t even his!

I hope that you and your team take privacy more seriously in the future.

Read the Mike Butcher’s amusing post on Techcrunch, Gone in 140 characters – Privacy issues raised as Twitter employee hands over personal details of @Skype registrant to Skype, for more details.

I always appreciated that Twitter would close down accounts that had an element of illegitimacy to them. However, let’s hope Twitter can come up with a more discrete protocol for handling issues involving use of brand names as TwitterID’s.

In closing I need to draw your attention to the Chief Twitter Officer for Skype: Skype’s blogger Peter Parkes, who goes by the ‘nom de Tweet‘ PeteratSkype. Peter is often found addressing individual customer issues in the Twittersphere. You do need to be following him in order that he can DM you a reply to any Twitter queries.

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.

Paul Amery and his Skype Developer Partner team have organized another Skype Developer event to be held in lower Manhattan on Monday, December 10, 4 – 7 p.m.. Hosted by Vapps, Inc., a vendor of hosted conferencing services, this event will involve getting “your thoughts and feedback. The Skype Developer Program is navigating a clear Roadmap for 2008 with a key focus on sustaining our partnerships and our ecosystem while planning for the coming year.”

In attendance, Paul Amery, Director of Skype Developer Program, Antoine Bertout, Partners Relation Manager and several key partners, like our host, Vapps. This is your chance to get behind-the-scenes with some of Skype’s key third party applications and a chance to check out some of the latest Skype partners products, understand the partnership route to market and meet our partners who continue to extend the Skype platform.

Skype Journal will be there to report.

ana