Alumni: Christopher Dean joins Urban Airship
January 9th, 2012
Congrats to Urban Airship, the mobile platform-as-a-service company, on landing former Skype strategy and bizdev czar Christopher Dean as their chief revenue officer.
Skype?s GroupMe drops mobile voice chat, saying group text enough
January 4th, 2012Skype bought two mobile app companies last year: GroupMe for its group SMS service and Qik for its live mobile video streaming and sharing. GroupMe stripped out its voice conferencing as of 1 January 2012, they say for lack of use. Taking them at their word, why weren’t people using their voice chat? [...]
Cisco kills Umi before Skype shows more TV apps at CES
January 4th, 2012BI reports Cisco’s telepresence unit is ending Umi, a webcam and set-top box for living room video calls. No patience for consumers to learn about it, no chance to iterate and find what works. Why is Cisco giving up on consumer products when the consumerization of corporate IT is at an all time high?
My 2012 Skype Journal Wishlist
January 3rd, 2012Phil Wolff?s 57 Scurrilous Skype Predictions for 2012
January 3rd, 2012Every year I see into Skype’s future, foretelling with unconvincing accuracy, cynicism and hope. Platform: SkypeKit licenses open up for servers. Blue Jeans Network already cut a private deal to run Skype on their servers. Skype will open this up widely, with a few strings. Skype launches SkypeKit hosting. Why set up your [...]
Skype is boring
January 3rd, 2012Skype is no longer revolutionary or disruptive. Boring can be healthy, if uninspiring. Can Skype inspire again? Capture passion? Define a moral conviction for users to love and support? [...]
Work Design: Translating the web a few words at a time
December 10th, 2011You know cyberspace is better than sex when?
December 8th, 2011We’re reaching for mental cognition many times an hour, perhaps more often than we think of sex. A quick look at the value, the risks, and a test. [...]
Q. Does Skype not have push-to-talk functionality? Why?
December 6th, 2011CORRECTION: Skype for Windows 5.7 Beta includes a Push-To-Talk feature. ?We have introduced a Push to Talk feature in Skype. Many people who are playing multiplayer games have requested this from us. With this feature you can set a hotkey which will toggle microphone muting on Skype call. You can set the Push to Talk up [...]
Skype Journal ? December 2011 News Roundup
December 6th, 2011Skype?s man in Washington, Chris Libertelli, now leads the Netflix government affairs team. While at Skype his deft touch with the FCC helped Skype assure access in US markets and partner with wireless operators. He also led Skype?s government affairs operations for the US states, Canada and Latin America. Paul Bond says usage-based-billing is [...]