Skype

The free VOIP service owned by eBay

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Virtual panel discussion via Skype

I just wrapped up participating as a panelist at the monthly chapter meeting of IABC‘s chapter in Orlando, Florida. Also on the panel with me was Barbara Gibson, immediate past chair of IABC. Barb’s from London. I live in the San Francisco East Bay. We both participated on the panel without leaving our homes.

Not that this is an all-time first. I’ve done a talk from Intel’s Santa Clara headquarters to a group meeting in the company’s Oregon offices. I’ve participated via conference call and Skype. But this was the first time Skype video was used the way chapter member Patrick Grady set it up.

As members arrived for the meeting, they could wander over to two laptops, each running Skype. I was connected on one of the laptops, Barb on the other. During this social hour, we chatted with members just as we would had we been there in the flesh. We disconnected during lunch, then reconnected for the panel discussion, at which time Patrick switched the output from laptop to a couple of big screens. Barb and I could see the audience; they could see us. (Unfortunately, Barb and I couldn’t see each other, but we heard one another just fine. We chatted a bit by direct message over Twitter, though.)

Of course, the videoconferencing element of this cost nothing. The IABC chapter’s only expense was the Internet connection in the meeting room and whatever they may have spent on the TV monitors and speakers.

There are other ways they could have been done for roughly the same money: Oovoo, for example. But these days, I’d look long and hard at why I’d spend a bundle of money on teleconferencing costs when free tools do the job perfectly well.

Friday, December 18, 2009

VodBurner: Record both sides of a Skype call

Netralia CEO Jeremy Hague and I chatted for a bit over Skype today while I recorded the call using VodBurner, Netralia’s latest product. It couldn’t be simpler to use. Just click the “record” button on VodBurner when you’re ready to start the recording, have your conversation, then hang up. A box appears to let you know the video recording has been saved; click the button in the box to launch the editor.

You can set the point at which the video switches to you, the person on the other end of the call, or the split screen that shows both of you. When you’re done, you can publish the video to the ASF format or upload it directly to YouTube. Jeremy tells me a lot more features are in the works, including multiple file formats, improved caption capabilities, and more. But right now, in its earliest iteration, it’s still a slick tool for sharing video. Neville Hobson, my co-host on For Immediate Release, and I are planning to give it a try for a five-minute (or so) discussion of the kind of topics we talk about on the podcast.

Here’s the video of my brief chat with Jeremy:

VodBurner is $9.95 per month—the first 30 days are free. You can use it without licensing it after the trail period ends, if you don’t mind a watermark in the middle of your videos. More great work from Jeremy and the Netralia team—I’m already a huge fan of CallBurner, for recording both ends of a Skype audio call.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Professional behavior results in an effective embargo

Media embargoes—the ones arranged between professionals—are designed as a win-win. The organization gets concurrent coverage from multiple outlets while reporters get the chance to dig deeper into the subject and craft a compelling story.

In his report on episode 412 of “For Immediate Release”, correspondent Dan York talks of a serendipitous alignment of the stars that drove traffic to a screencast he produced. Only in the most offhand way does Dan note that an embargo played a significant part in the screencast’s success.

The screencast presents the features of the latest iteration of Skype for the Mac. Dan was among those offered a preview of the app, contingent on agreement to honor the embargo which would expire when the software was introduced at Macworld.

That window gave Dan time to put Skype for Mac 2.8 betea through its paces and decide that a screencast was the best angle for him to take with the story; it also gave him time to assemble a thoughtful and illuminating video.

The Macworld announcement created the interest that led to searches for more information, leading people to Dan’s post. The quality of the video and the information it presented compelled some of those who viewed it to link to it from their own blogs and other social media properties, bring Dan even more traffic.

Had Dan violated the embargo and launched his video before the announcement, interest most likely would not have been as great. The success of the video—over 8,000 views as of the time Dan recorded his segment on Thursday morning—is precisely what an embargo is designed to do when it is offered and accepted by people who behave professionally. Skype benefits from coverage exploring the software from a variety of perspectives (including Dan’s) while Dan and others who agreed to the embargo draw new readers to their sites.

There would be little room for complaint if everyone behaved as professionally as the parties did in this case.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

ooVoo has big potential

It’s been a while since I participated in a videoconference hosted by Mitch Joel, part of the My ooVoo Day initiative designed to get people talking about the service. (Sorry about the delay—life has been hectic; I’m hoping to catch up on several posts I’ve been wanting to write over the next few days.) You can still sign up to participate in these scheduled My ooVoo Day conversations through February 22.

The ooVoo service—which I hadn’t used before—was impressive, as many others reporting on their experiences have noted. There were six of us on the call and I could hear and see everybody just fine (except for one person, which I attribute to his broadband connection, considering everybody else was coming through loud and clear). The interface is as slick as they come, making Skype’s look like a relic from an earlier time. In addition to the video conferences, ooVoo handles Skype-like calls; right now, all calls to phones in the US and Canada are free, but after the introductory period, they’ll charge for calls, presumably using a model similar to Skype’s SkypeOut service. I haven’t been able to find any reference to a SkypeIn-like service that would assign a phone number to your ooVoo account, allowing you to receive calls from people who aren’t on ooVoo.

ooVoo also does instant messaging, just as Skype does, but also makes recording of the video conversations a breeze. According to one post I read it’s just as easy to record phone conversations, which requires jumping through hoops to accomplish with Skype. You can also record video messages to send via email.

Pretty impressive work from the ooVoo folks who could, conceivably, give Skype a run for their money. Neville and I may even try recording an episode of FIR over ooVoo one of these days, just to see how it goes. (Still, I’m not planning to dump Skype any time soon—my SkypeIn number, after all, has become my only business line; I no longer have a land line for the office.)

Equally impressive, I must admit, is the My ooVoo Day promotion. Congrats to crayon for coming up with the idea and executing it so well. I’d be curious to see the metrics crayon produces from the effort, but I’ve seen plenty of buzz online following the introduction of the campaign. Nice work.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

FIR Interview - John Penberthy-Smith, Hutchison 3G UK: October 29, 2007

3, the mobile operator, and Skype, the internet communications company, have launched the Skypephone, a new handset that lets you make free Skype calls and instant messages from your mobile phone. It’s the first time an operator has offered a mass-market device which is tailor-made for free calling over the internet from a mobile.

During the press launch in London on October 29, Neville Hobson spoke with John Penberthy-Smith, Marketing Director at Hutchison 3G UK Ltd., the operator of the 3 network, about 3’s marketing and communication plans for the Skypephone focused on experiential marketing and word of mouth.

About our Conversation Partner

John Penberthy-Smith joined 3 UK in October 2006 as Director of Customer Marketing and in January 2007 he was appointed Marketing Director. As Marketing Director he is responsible for all marketing at 3 including products, customer propositions, channel and base marketing. He is also responsible for marketing the X-Series, 3’s flat-rate mobile broadband offer launched in the UK in December 2006.

Prior to joining 3, Penberthy-Smith was at Vodafone where he held a number of positions including Head of Global Voice Propositions for Vodafone Group and Director of Consumer Marketing for Vodafone UK.

Penberthy Smith, 39, is married with two children.

Download the 12-minute conversation here (MP3, 5.5MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio or iTunes, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

Listen to this podcast now:

If you have comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, email us at fircomments@gmail.com; or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America) or +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe); or Skype: fircomments; or comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR; or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Smart Skype move

Skype has been the subject of much commentary and speculation since its outage last week, caused (according to the company) by millions of computers rebooting simultaneously after receiving a routine Windows update. Some have asserted that the two-day outage (the first of its kind since Skype launched) calls the service’s reliability into question. (For me, I wonder how reliable Ma Bell was three or so years after it was launched compared to Skype.)

In any case, Skype has made a smart move by giving all of its customers—whether they were affected by the outage or not—an additional seven days on their current subscriptions to Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail. Notifications are going out via email; I just got mine. From a PR perspective, Skype has it on the ball, taking a short-term hit (what is the cumulative value of all those subscriptions?) in order to rebuild (in some cases) or reinforce (in others) goodwill among its customers?

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Skype introduces calling plan

The Washington Post reports that Skype will introduce a plan that lets customers pay $30 per year for unlimited SkypeOut dialing to US and Canadian phone numbers. The rate has been 2.1 cents per minute, but for most of 2006, the calls have been free as part of a promotion to entice more customers to try SkypeOut. For anybody who expects to make SkypeOut calls within the US and Canada exceeding about 30 hours (which would be just about anybody using Skype as their business phone, as I do), this is a good deal.

The free dialing deal has been available in other countries, but no flat fee is planned outside the US and Canada when those promotions end with the new year.