Skype makes a small ripple, but no Splash with new VM features.

Over a year ago, I talked about a Skype/Spinvox deal and I was admittedly lukewarm to the idea. I have been critical of Skype's Voicemail Strategy (VM) and I think for good reason.

Skype's VM service is proprietary and closed, this severely limits its usefulness, and for some reason Skype refuses to add any significant resources to this feature. You can't listen to a Skype VM message unless you are logged into your client. It has remained unchanged for the better part of 3-4 years, until now.

Today, Skype has made some 'upgrades?' to this service - announced @ Ecomm (I think) Skype has (finally) integrated with the Spinvox API, and now allows Voice to SMS transcribing of your messages for a cost of .25cents PLUS the cost of up to 3 SMS messages depending on the length of the transcription. There is no email option (which would be trivial to add) so you have to pay the piper twice. I don't think this will be very significant in the long term, it is far too expensive, and the nature of Skype's VM service limits its usefulness anyway.

The other news regarding Skype's VM feature upgrade, is the ability to receive txt ($) and email (free) alerts that you have a VM waiting for you. This is a welcome upgrade, but frankly still falls far short of what would be expected of a Voice 2.0 service today. You can also call a Skype to Go number to listen to your VM if you live one of the 11 countries that has Skype To Go numbers.

I am (I think) rightfully critical of Skype's VM strategy. In other posts I have asked for the following as a minimum.

A web interface and portal of my messages would really tie me to Skype as a communication tool, even when I am not logged onto the p2p. Every other VoIP solution currently offered in NA/or the world provides this basic form of Unified Messaging.

Personally I wouldn't pay for the SpinVox solution, if it was free I would probably use it - I imagine more text/SMS centric people will think differently. But as a member of the Blackberry faithful I would rather just get an attachment sent to my mobile/email, that I can then store and forward a la' Apple's new Visual VM for the iPhone.

Messaging could be major area for revenue @ Skype, they have the ability to create something much better than what Google offers with Grandcentral, and users will gladly pay! I don't know why; but they dip their toes into the messaging pool, rather than cannon balling off the high dive. They need to make a huge splash, not a ripple.

Jim Courtney's thoughts here:

Skype Voicemail to Text via SpinVox: Tell Me Why?

Adhearsion - Great name, great project

The Adhearsion project (which I have been following for a while) has some big news today. A new site Adhearsion.com and a new member of the team, and friend of mine Jason Goecke. Jason knows call centres and telephony probably better than anyone I know - this guy gets Voice and Web 2.xxx. Jason is excited about Adhearsion, if I knew nothing else about the project that would be good enough to get me interested.

Adhearsion (from the site):

is a new way to write voice-enabled applications. It's not just an API or library — it's a fully-featured framework, the first of its kind, designed for maximal code reuse and intuitiveness. The name "Adhearsion" is a combination of "adhesion" and "hear" because Adhearsion shines best when integrating technologies with voice.

I will be watching very closely what is coming out of the Adhearsion project. This is something completely different in a very hot market segment. IfByPhone, Ribbit (now BT), Voxeo are all sucessfully entering/defining the market with unique voice services platforms. Adhearsion is something a little bit different - marrying Asterisk with Ruby without any of the complications.

Adhearsion will make the 'cool voice stuff' mainstream - I have been a long proponent of IVR becoming web/visually based - Adhearsion is the first step to that reality. I encourage you to check it out, play in the Sandbox and start combining the web and voice together in the most complicated; yet simple ways easily.

Skype for Mac beta 2.8 with ScreenSharing!

Dan York has the scoop on the new Skype for Mac beta 2.8. Probably the most interesting for me is the Screensharing feature. This has been a favourite of Skype developer partners for some time, and it is now native to the Skype for Mac client. It even supports dual monitors!! full screen and application only.

It was announced at the Showstoppers event this evening - pre MacWorld.

New features (from Dan's Blog):

• Skype Access
• Screen Sharing (awesome)
  
• Improved chat management: ability to sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats
• Quick Add: much easier to add people to chats
• Mood message chat: mood message updates from your friends as chat messages
• Large avatars: 256x256 pixels
• Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests
• Ability to add your own notes to contacts

You can check out the UI on Dan's podcast.

Transfer your Skype IM history from PC to Mac

Having recently made the jump to Mac (and loving it) the first thing I installed on my new MacBook was Skype. It is fantastic on the Mac by the way - with the built in iSight and screaming fast processor - the HD video and voice sessions on the Mac are incredible. The omni-directional mic is just fantastic. The Mac was built for Skype.

Much like my Outlook .pst file, I wanted to transfer my chat/IM history to my Mac. It is quite simple and here are the steps.

First - on your PC go to: C: > Documents and Settings > "username" > Application Data > Skype >"username"

and copy the entire "username" file that you want to transfer.

Copy this information to a thumbdrive and transfer it to your mac desktop to which you have Skype already installed. Place the folder on your Mac desktop and open Finder.

Navigate to "Username" > Library > Application Support > Skype and then drag your username file from your desktop to the Skype folder and replace the folder with the new one you are dragging.

Presto.. start Skype and you have your IM history.

I did get an odd "password is incorrect" notice on my first boot of Skype, but after I entered it - I had my IM history intact.

Callburner - the BEST Skype calling solution.

Recently I installed a copy of Callburner, a Skype recording tool - from Netralia software ltd, based out of Australia. Netralia is famous for there other home run Skype solution called Skylook - a product which completely Skypifies Outlook.

Callburner takes the best of Skylook (the recording feature) and allows it to run as a standalone desktop app., that does one thing - Record all Skype calls perfectly. It is really slick, the GUI looks like a native Office 2007 application and it resides in your system tray with a little hot pepper icon It does everything I want in a windows application - hides itself seamlessly, uses little memory, looks great and functions perfectly and behind the scenes.

This is a must have for Podcasters, you can record in .wav, .mp3 or raw PCM to a separate file & either side of the conversation separately or together - including SkypeIn/Out and conference calls. It even allows for note taking after a call. Great job guys.











Callburner comes with a 14 day free trial, after which you can purchase a license for $49.99. It is a little pricier than the other recording solutions for Skype, but it is worth it.

Vonage/Verizon Patent Dispute Dissected

Ipurbia has a great post on the details (sadly unavailable on the web) about the Vonage/Verizon patent dispute.

It appears that Skype and other VoIM clients are in the clear, but Level 3 and other Termination providers might be in the crosshairs in the future.

Worth the read.

Skype and Spinvox... I guess it's sort of cool

via Andrew Watson @ The Independent

According to a news story from The Independent, Skype has announced a deal with Spinvox which is a UK based company with a reported 130K users. Spinvox converts voicemail (VM)messages to text messages that are then delivered to the users mobile phone. This will be handy for avid Skype users who (at this point) don't have a method of retrieving voicemail from any source other than the Skype client.

I am lukewarm to this service, mostly as Skype seems to have jumped a big step in the evolution of VM. Simply having the VM messages delivered as mp3/wav attachments via email would be a welcome addition for Skype VM. Currently messages are proprietary in nature and only available through the Skype p2p network, which to be blunt - sucks - and is a huge limiting factor to Skype VM adoption and usage. A web interface and portal of my messages would really tie me to Skype as a communication tool, even when I am not logged onto the p2p. Every other VoIP solution currently offered in NA provides this basic form of Unified Messaging.

Personally I wouldn't pay for the SpinVox solution, if it was free I would probably use it - I imagine more text/SMS centric people will think differently. But as a member of the Blackberry faithful I would rather just get an attachment sent to my mobile/email, that I can then store and forward a la' Apple's new Visual VM for the iPhone.

There is no mention of the deal on Skype's website as of this writing, but I will update if they release a press statement regarding SpinVox.