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Skype Makes U.S. Retail Debut
JamesAlfaro wrote to mention a C|Net article discussing the U.S. retail debut of Skype. From the article: "More than 3,000 RadioShack locations nationwide on Monday [the 21st] will begin offering the Skype Starter Kit, which includes the software that enables a customer to use Skype's free computer-to-computer telephone service, a headset and 30 minutes of Skype's premium service, with which a user can call a landline or cell phone, company executives said. The move is an attempt by Skype, the world's largest provider of voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, to introduce its service to mainstream America."
Let's just hope it's not crippled with over-regulation before it, or any other VoIP service, becomes mainstream. Telephone calls need to do some serious catch-up with free email & IM.
I'm not holding my breath though.
Argh.
I've said it before and I'll say it again until more people know. Here are some concrete reasons why Skype is kind of a bad thing.
I had the displeasure of talking with my sister on Skype this week. Apparently Skype connections are made from some form of solid lag. I've heard better audio fidelity using tin cans and string.
I'd rather pay 3 cents a minute on a phone card than suffer another fscking skype call.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, eBay.
$
Bullshit, ozzie.
I can use any browser, on any OS I choose, on any hardware I choose, via the internet service of my choice, to get to Slashdot to read your inane statement.
The case here is slightly different. It is a question of money, but quite a different one.
If you look at the people who founded Skype their previous P2P ventures were started and sold when the number of freeloaders exceeded the network capacity. They waited for that moment every single time. Same with Skype, as the proportion of people with NAT and firewalls increased the quality of the network decreased. In fact some of the analysts noted this. So did many of the users. And that was the moment when Skype was sold.
Now Ebay is "saving" its venture by the only means possible - by recruiting an enormous amount of hypernodes from population that is too clueless to use a router or a firewall. An ebay is footing the bill for this seeding. Quite smart actually. And not entirely unexpected.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Skype is great.
.Audio 85 Headphone:s p?id=33411
I bought a powerbook about 5 months ago, and whilst overseas working (I'm Australian) I bought a headset from an Apple store in NYC in Soho.
It was around $60 USD or something like that.
Plantronics
http://www.macaudiopro.com/articles/viewarticle.j
Highly recommended.
Comes with a DSP, and is USB. A LONG cable with a comfortable headset thats foldable a big bonus for frequently travellers like myself.
I was totally impressed on the mac, no drivers to install, and it Just Worked. Skype detects it as a Plantronics in Skype config.
Totally cool..
Once Google Talk offers their service via SIP and most importantly allows federation with others, they will become the glue that binds together all the currently fragmented voip offerings. Providers that don't want to open up and federate with Google will slowly dissappear. After all it won't be long and most the people that you talk to will not be on landlines, but IP only, and you therefore don't want a provider that is not connected.
If I was an incumbent telco in any part of the world, I would be scared, I would probably try dirty games such as providing restricted internet access with SIP traffic filtered out.
Well, not the same exact thing, but Skype reps here in London were handing out little packages with a mini CD with Windows software (Mac, Linux, and Pocket PC users had to go to the website), the 30 minute card, and a little earbud with mic. Of course, I would recommend getting a real headset.
Oh, and those that say that Skype will never be big until it uses SIP: the fact of the matter is, it already is huge in Europe and some other parts of the world (3,402,086 users are currently online, according to my client). Also, Skype calls to other Skype users have excellent sound quality and are far better than SkypeOut calls (ie to a standard phone number). So, like any service that seeks to become the standard, they're giving you incentive to join their orbit (think Aol Instant Messenger not working with other IM clients). But yes, it doesn't use SIP. However, if someone made a Skype-enabled box (like the Linksys Vonage ones), I'm sure they're clean up.