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Skype
The free VOIP service owned by eBay
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.
Marketing • Skype • Video • (3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
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.
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Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.
For Immediate Release • Mobile • Skype • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
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?
Crisis communication • PR • Skype • (0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
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.