4 posts tagged “skype”

After seeking a private buyer, and finding VC and investment firms too skittish, eBay has announced that it will seek to spin off Skype in an IPO, hopefully early next year.

Skype is the global leader in quasi-VoIP (voice over IP) services with well in excess of 400 million users.And it is remarkable that eBay could not capitalize on it after spending an estimated $2.6 bil

lion to acquire it. There are some very obvious ways to make money off Skype (picture me making "call me" gesture), but alas no one has so far implemented them.

So what to do now? Google should buy Skype. Skype has by far the best global calling service, which is why we all use it. On the other hand, Google is poised to revamp telecom services in the U.S. with Google Voice. Google's new application, which should launch this month, amounts to a universal in-box (voice mail, e-mail, SMS, etc.) and single follow-me number--all for free. It's so good that every journalist that has tried it in beta is still using it (including yours truly). But it's missing one thing: integration with a service like Skype (or Google Talk, but who really uses Google Talk, really?).

For more on Google Voice, watch the video from my Fox Business report.

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Skype appears to be back up in the U.S. Connecting to the service takes several minutes, but it appears to be running. However, since none of our contacts are online, we haven't been able to confirm it. So is it safe to log back into Skype?

Try it out and let us know what you uncover.

PS: If you're not a Skype user and are wondering what all the fuss is about, see this article.

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Currently, millions of Skype users worldwide are disconnected. The Internet voice over IP phone and video calling service--which boasts over 220 million users--is experiencing outages around the world.

In the U.S. service has been disrupted with callers unable to log into the Skype service. This is a serious issue for many small businesses who rely on the service and will doubtless hurt the eBay-owned company's credibility. Compounding the problem, Skype has done little to address user concerns, offering only this terse and uninformative note on its website:

"Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Additionally, downloads of Skype have been temporarily disabled. We will make downloads available again as quickly as possible."

24 hours? Uh oh.

Incidentally, we recommend NOT leaving the Skype client open. It's wiser to shut it down for now and wait until we hear service is back up and running.

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Just in case you haven't been reminded often enough by now, Sunday, May 13th, is Mother's Day. Many of us will be plying beleaguered matriarchs with chocolates and flowers, but according to one survey about two-thirds of adults won't be able to spend the day with mom. For those people, a couple of communications companies are letting sons and daughters reach out and touch mom for free.

Internet phone service company Skype is letting users in Canada and the U.S. call any number in the world (okay, not satellite phone numbers) for free during Mother's Day. If you're not a Skype user, all you have to do is download the software, sign up for a free account, and dial out. Now remember, you're supposed to phone mom, not your paramour. So Skype is limiting calls to 200 minutes, which ought to be plenty of time to tell mom that you're eating properly and flossing.

For people who are surgically attached to their cell phones, T-Mobile is allowing its customers to send and received unlimited picture, video, IM, and text messages on Sunday, May 13. For some of us, that may not exactly be the sentimental gesture we were looking for, but times change and it may be all that the Y generation (or blank generaton, or whatever) will be up for on Sunday.

Even you don't avail yourself of these promotional Mother's Day freebies, just make sure you're really nice to mom on Sunday.

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