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Facebook Wants To Buy Skype
An anonymous reader writes "Remember when we learned that Facebook had resumed talks with Skype? Well, it turns out that Facebook is considering buying Skype outright. 'Skype is reportedly talking to Facebook about some sort of deal. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been involved in internal discussions about buying Skype, while Facebook also reached out to the Luxembourg-based company about forming a joint venture.'"
Fuck no
No
Bad idea
If they buy Skype, they should change their name to Phonebook.
Deal is set to finalize December 21st, 2012.
I don't think this is a good idea, getting 5 skype conversation requests at a time while being on Facebook or getting Skypeville requests.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
Seriously, Skype has been a grudgingly-necessary eyesore for years, and yet we don't seem to have a widely-accepted and/or functionally-equivalent OSS project in the wild. How can this be?
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Skype's success, apart from having a good client, is its mobile clients such as android and apples app. I think a pay-model would be needed for such widespread platform support as I don't think open source would be able to achieve this.
Skype was huge way before their android and apple apps. Just sayin...
Why haven't you written something?
It seems that Google is looking at buying it too, which I'm hoping for since they're much more likely to open things up.
Not too sure what to replace it with. Google, perhaps. Ugh.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I'm not sure how to feel about this one. On one hand Skype as a company could do with a huge amount of improvement. Their support is frankly the worst I've ever dealt with from a company of their size, and their software is only one release away from breaking again (and never worked correctly on Android).
I don't have any love for Facebook as a company, but frankly I have such a low opinion of Skype that it couldn't get too much worse, at least I hope. The funny thing is that I pay Skype hundreds of dollars a year for a service which is only borderline passable, but just like the telcos they're the only game in town, so there is no motovation for them to improve.
If Google released a competing product tomorrow I'd switch. And, no, Google Talk is NOT remotely comparable to Skype.
Despite Skype's recent disaster with its client (5.x is worse than 4.x), it pales in comparison to how crappy Facebook is.
After years of resisting, I finally caved and opened a Facebook account so I could watch some Tsunami footage on some guy's page. Since then I have tried to search for some "friends" on Facebook only to find it has the clumsiest user interface and lacks a lot of basic features. I wanted to add friends from my high school class (or at least find them). There is no simple, intuitive way to do this, I kinda had to luck across the page that let's me search for people who listed my high school as theirs. Great! Except I cannot limit the search by class year, so I get hundreds, if not thousands of people from the past 20 years since I graduated. When all they need to do is add a "Class of XXXX" filter. How simple it would be.
This is not the only thing wrong. For a site worth billions, it is incredibly primitive and lacking in features. I helped my mom upload a picture for her profile. When there was some adjustments available, I expected to be able to select a part of the image and crop it for her profile. Such functionality is not hard, and I'd expect it form such a major player like Facebook, but alas, they are in the stone age in this regard. The lolcats site is higher-tech.
Facebook sucks, and I would not want to trust them with skype. I use skype to talk to friends online pretty much every day. I use the 4.x client, and skype is decent enough to let me continue to do so without forcing me to upgrade to their new, crappier client. Recommend I upgrade? Yes. Force? No. Facebook has lucked into a following despite its shoddiness. It's like a retarded kid winning the lotto. Zuckerberg is king retard in this.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
What's so hard to achieve? One iOS app, one Android app, sorted for the majority of smartphone users. I think the real barrier to a true OSS competitor would be setting up servers and doing deals to allow calls to normal phone networks.
which is totally what she said
Skype was huge way before their android and apple apps. Just sayin...
Agreed: Skype became "the" thing way before it found a life on SmartPhones.
I have to agree with the earlier poster... I'm sure there are more open solutions out there, but I've yet to hear of anything large enough to even be considered a blip on Skype's radar.
If you slap an Asterisk box on a static IP on the open internet, and then link your POTS phone number to your asterisk box through a directory service like E164.org, the 4 other guys who do that with asterisk can dial your phone number and their asterisk servers will realize that you're doing that too and call you over a data connection instead of through the traditional phone system. I'm pretty sure Asterisk can also initiate video conferencing sessions.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
XMPP video with Pidgin.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
on my Skype account and then close it.
People facebook so they don't actually have to TALK to their 'friends'. This makes no sense at all.
How can this be?
It's simple: Skype is to Ekiga as Windows was to GNU/Linux circa 1998. When end users think of VoIP, they thing of Skype, not Ekiga, and only people who are both technically sophisticated and who "get it" (that is, people who want to avoid proprietary software) are the ones using Ekiga. To make matters worse, Ekiga for Windows is poorly supported, poorly functioning, and difficult to configure -- so GNU/Linux users who want to communicate with Windows users are left in a difficult position.
Palm trees and 8
It's not just about the POTS service, though. I rarely, if ever, see folks using it for voice-only calls. People use it for (in my experience):
1) Text-only chat (which is bat-guano-insane, IMHO)
2) Video chats
#2 sees the most use in my family and company circles. If we want voice-only, we call the other person's cell phone.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Or Gajim.
It's simple, though -- a Skype-replacement just needs to end up on Leo Laporte's desk. He and his TWiT network cohorts have been ragging on Skype for years, and yet they continue to use it because it
1) works on durn near every OS out there
2) is easy to acquire and install for potential collaborators
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Do either of these support
1) multiple concurrent video chat streams
2) Windows, Mac & Linux with a similar UI
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Anyone at Facebook in a position to know anything about any such possible deal is not legally allowed to say anything. If Facebook isn't dumb, they started any discussions with a confidentiality agreement due to their legal requirements not to say anything. Also, since Skype is privately owned, the majority owner would have nothing to gain by publicizing the talks.
That means that whoever is talking to the press about this is either:
1. some other party with a motivation for derailing the deal, such as eBay (a minority owner of Skype),
B. an insider at Facebook illegally attempting to manipulate the stock price, or
III. somebody with no clue who wants to seem cool to the business press.
I am officially gone from
One reason is that Skype has always worked well even if both call participants are behind a NAT. Which other software had this at the time Skype was launched?
Would it hell. Most of Skype works across P2P and Direct Connection..
Serverless P2P can even be done if they don't want a central authority controlling it. (or having to pay for one)
But a server is most likely the best option.
Skype itself is slowly but surely getting more terrible as it ages. Oh hey guys, look at all these features you don't want! ENJOY THEM! ENJOY THEM NOW! ... AT RANDOM! SURPRISE!
You want crashy video pane on top of every chat window? WELL WE GOT THAT COVERED, ENJOY YOUR FULL OS CRASH
I checked their Issue tracker recently, so many severe bugs in there...
Honestly, if anything, they NEED to be bought, they are severely behind in fixing huge issues like this.
Mumble with a better interface and a few more basic features would instantly be better than Skype.
Or, Google, Google could release a not-crap client for theirs and it will have a competitor.
Seriously, what is it with Google shooting their own feet with every kind of gun imaginable? Hey use our awesome chat system, the client sucks 10 kinds of balls and is ancient. Hey, use our awesome e-mail system. Using an old computer? Ooo boy you're in for some summer heats. Hey, use our social network. Why? Because. (I'm almost paraphrasing the last one there, Orkut isn't bad, but nobody knows the damn thing exists, ADVERTISE GOOGLE, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS STUFF, IT IS YOUR BUSINESS)
I dont care about the phone networks, I'd just like a more trustworthy, secure voice/video chat.
I thought Facebook was privately owned too?
I'm confused. Are you saying that Skype is running Detroit?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Atlas did indeed shrug. Anyone who wants to see what liberals are all about should head to Detroit.
You, my friend, are an ideologue. This can be disproven by trying to find some disconfirming evidence for your previous statement. If you think none exists, then my point is proven.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
All the software pieces exist as OSS projects but it's not only the software that made Skype big. It's been the company behind it that signed contracts that let me connect with standard phone networks all around the world. I can call POTS numbers from within Skype, I can get a virtual phone number so phones can call my Skype client. I can redirect my Skype account to a phone number or vice versa, with voice mail. That's something that a software project cannot do: you have to be a company and start competing with Skype.
It's very simple, trying to get a non-geek-friend to use anything else than skype is like trying to get an apple user to use something without an apple-logo on it, you've lost the discussion the second it started. Skype works. End-of-Story.
I was certainly using it WAY before Android or the iPhone turned up. It had a Windows CE client which I used on several occasions to make cheap calls via an iPaq.
That said, it's gone a down the route of other IM clients stuffing in ads and other annoying behaviour which I could well do without. If facebook pull any shit like trying to make me use a Facebook login to use it, then bye bye Skype.
Adam Connor with Facebook previously stated the following; apparently in reference to gaining access to the Chinese market.
"Maybe we are going to censor our content in some countries” ” We have dealt with many unpleasant situations because we allow too much freedom of speech in the countries that have not experimented this until now" http://www.gev.com/2011/04/facebook-and-freedom-of-speech/
I know for a fact many users and businesses use Skype because it's encrypted end-to-end. Now, that may have already been compromised some time ago and thus no longer secure in China. But, I for one believe that Facebook would hand over the keys to the Chinese government in a heartbeat. I doubt Google would as there's already a bit of contention between those two.
Life is not for the lazy.
bloody facebook, if they can't get my info voluntarily, they just buy it. adios skype!
Windows, Mac & Linux with a similar UI
The first sign of a lousy port. Try instead: Windows, Mac & Linux versions, with UIs that fit each system's UI guidelines.
Circumcision is child abuse.
And then there's the iPhone (etc) skype clients, blah blah.
What Skype brings to the market is infrastructure and penetration. A cobble-it-together-yourself-out-of-FLOSS-components solution offers neither.
Somebody needs to (somehow) make this easy AND free.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
1) Text-only chat (which is bat-guano-insane, IMHO)
Why would I use three different client types for different communications when one covers them all? That sounds a lot like having one car to go shopping, one to go to work, and one for the weekend. Personally, I don't have the inclination to maintain three cars, and one which does all three jobs is ideal.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
if this really happens, than its Google Voice for me.
-T
Don't worry, they'll recommend that you keep Skype open in the background... For added connectivity.
I'd rather put Skype in the hands of GLaDOS.
I am not sure what you mean.
If you mean n-way video chat, where n>2, Skype (on Linux at least, I have never tried on Windows) does not support this, so it is not a step backwards.
If you mean multiple independent chat streams, you could just run multiple copies of the program.
Or does Skype allow multiple video sources in one call?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
List of Open Source VOIP Software. Feel free to verify or modify the source to your liking. I think Ekiga sounds like a nice starting point, though I don't know how secure it is. It even supports calls to normal phones, so it seems I was wrong about that being a massive barrier.
Personally I don't care about trustworthiness or security in voice/video chat, since I've only ever used it for chatting to friends. For business use then being assured of confidentiality is more important of course.
which is totally what she said
Why haven't you?
I have an online DnD group that I play with on weekends. Between then, we keep in touch using the text chat built into Skype. We don't use video, either (although that might change due to some friends from a different DnD session moving away).
Having it all in one nice, compact package is really nice. Keeps problems to a minimum, too. Lord knows trying to coordinate seven people between three different programs is a nightmare and half.
Sent from my CR-48
All your phone calls are belong to us!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
This would be a reason to drop Skype. I know many people, who don't use Skype because their protocol isn't open, they are not opensource or not SIP based. No reasons for me not to use it, it just works very well, even on Linux. But being forced to open a FB account? Do not want... I abhorr FB and it's poor privacy policies and conduct.
In a next logical move they should buy Google and make the Internet their own. Privacy? Big Face Brother Book got all your moves ...
Windows, Mac & Linux with a similar UI
The first sign of a lousy port. Try instead: Windows, Mac & Linux versions, with UIs that fit each system's UI guidelines.
I hope you're not serious. If you are, wxWidgets does exactly what you say is the sign of a lousy port and fits each system's UI guidelines.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
for decades:
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/05/04/report-nearly-half-of-detroiters-cant-read/
Atlas did indeed shrug. Anyone who wants to see what liberals are all about should head to Detroit.
This is SPAM, it has nothing to do with the topic, it's a totally irrelevant bigoted shot at Black people. (I'd mod it down, but I've commented, so I'll comment it down)
I mean allowing multiple video streams on one call, yes. Perhaps the Linux client doesn't yet allow for it. The Pro/subscriber edition on Mac and Windows does, at least in theory.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
>implying Apple allows FOSS applications in its store
Why haven't I?
If, like me, you do not want all your private information "integrated" with Facebook and its ever-changing use of private information, maybe this is the time to contact Skype (maybe via posts to their blog?) and letting them know how you feel about having all your calling information and other Skype data "integrated" with facebook. I for one have long ago deleted my Facebook profile after I started seeing how pervasive their tracking and data agglomeration on individual has become and how lax they are about sharing that data with other vendors and application developers. I share Julian Assange's assertion that Facebook is "near-evil" and cannot imagine continuing using Skype if it is a Facebook extension.
...Because the Mac client is a hideously-designed UI and slow as all get-out, plus I can use Meebo to integrate all my other chat channels?
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
That doesn't work on relevant operating systems yet, unfortunately. But it's a (small) start.
Seriously, Skype has been a grudgingly-necessary eyesore for years, and yet we don't seem to have a widely-accepted and/or functionally-equivalent OSS project in the wild. How can this be?
There are plenty of OSS alternatives out there...
All sorts of VoIP softphones, text chat programs, videoconferencing apps...
But that's kind of the problem. Skype is a single company and a single app. There isn't any confusion or choice. You say "I'm on Skype" and folks know how they can get in touch with you. You say "I use Ekiga" and they look at you like you've grown a third eye.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
There isn't really one. Ekiga is close, but if you've ever tried to use it you'll know it's really tempramental. Pidgin's voice and video support is somewhat popular but I've no idea how well that works either, though it does supposedly interoperate nicely with Google Talk on Windows.
Skype was a borderline useful tool for a while. But if Zuckerberg gets his claws into it, the risks will far outweight the convenience. Gonna blank my account now, and wait for the fall out. Hopefully, this is just Skype playing coy, to improve it's position in negotiating with someone else...
... the end of all that is unique and distinct. Game over, man!
I like Skype -- I'm a paying customer. I like Facebook. I wouldn't trust Facebook (the company) with anything that I don't mind becoming 100% public, including my credit card, and use it with that knowledge in mind. I am not necessarily interested in Skypeing with my Facebook friends or the awkwardness of socially networking with my Skype contacts (who are mostly business collaborators). [One would hope that everyone has learned the lesson of Google Buzz].
I don't like the fact that the Internet is turning into AOL 2012.
Yep, time to finally look for other options and not lazily continue to use Skype.
If it happens, I'll stop using Skype. I'm guessing I'm not the only one with that sentiment, either.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Who would want video chat with DnD folks?
In development: http://planet.gnu.org/gnutelephony/?p=14
There were also hoards of VoIP companies offering those services for under half the price charged by Skype, although some bundled the in-dial and out-dial. In fact, there are only a very few marketing heavy VoIP providers like Vonage charging more than Skype. The real issues are :
(1) Skype's user experience obliterates every other VoIP provider : Download & run Skype, make account, done. No tweak this setting if you use symmetric NAT. No please pay us first. etc.
(2) Skype has NAT traversal that afaik equals or beats any other VoIP software & provider combo. In fact, they use almost exactly the same NAT traversal tricks, but they may ask other clients to provide TURN (relay) when STUN fails, and maybe their STUN servers are better too. TURN gets expensive if the calls are all free.
(3) Skpye simplifies finding people you know who use Skype. And they've always encouraged people to talk to strangers, making it more likely that your friends already use Skype.
(4) Skype's encryption gives small businesses greater confidence.
If you wish to compete with Skype, you must (a) match them on PTSN price while offering awesome STUN and TURN, (b) match or beat them at friend finding, (c) beat them on encryption, i.e. use an open source client, preferably Zfone, and (d) offer "something more".
I think the logical "something more" might be encrypted friend-to-friend file sharing, perhaps with discussion threads ala facebook's photos. All IM clients offer file transfers, but no popular ones offer file sharing.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
sipgate provides this. See http://www.sipgate.co.uk/user/tarife.php
Sure, Skype were there first, but there is now some competition. I left Skype when they refused to provide a (real) VoIP client for my Android G1. (I believe they do now, but they've already lost me.)
A landline number that others can dial to call you (equivalent of Skype-in) is free. If I don't answer and someone leaves me a voicemail, then I get the sound file emailed to me. I use this on various PCs, and via Linphone on my Android G1.
It's not quite everything I need, but it's darn close.
It works on Windows and Linux, no?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
There are a couple. The problem is, even the few that are available for windows, osx, and linux aren't any better than skype.
If you want to do a conference call, you have to run your own server, or find and pay someone.
In Skype, you just pay them and don't have to worry about any technical details or voip lingo.
Well, anyone who actually cares about using OSS either wouldn't have bought an iPhone in the first place, or would jailbreak it.
I don't really care one way or the other, I'm never going to own an iOS device. If people want to fuck themselves over like that, they're free to do so.
which is totally what she said
http://www.linphone.org/
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Where is the FLOSS alternative to Facebook? By this time were supposed to be using Diaspora or one of the several other competing projects
Let's hope that this doesn't come to pass - this would basically mean that I would have to find someone else to do VoIP with since I will not allow any of my data onto Facebook since I don't want to be fending off ID thieves constantly.
You've got a good point: if Facebook users start using Skype to talk to each other instead of reading and writing, they'll end up illiterate. I think the big question here, is why did Skype do their trials in Detroit instead of somewhere more affluent where more people are on the "have" side of the digital divide?
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
http://www.linphone.org/
You also have XMPP clients that do VOIP as well as VideoChat.
Heck Gtalk, MS Messenger, Yahoo Chat and many others will handle most of what you can do with Skype except for calling a phone number which might just be a matter of time if Google doesn't to that already.
You know in many ways the phone number system in the was a great geocentric routing system. 1 == long distance, area code would get you to that general area and then the general area was broken down into exchanges roughly 10000 devices. When you think about the fact that at one time each call was a dedicated circuit between two phones the fact that it worked as well as it did was amazing. No wonder they gave us the transistor, Unix, and c. Also explains why they where slow to adopt packet switching.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
No, that's just it. It very well can be encrypted end-to-end yet have virtually worthless security. That's why whenever someone merely brags about having encryption, it should set off alarms in your head. You can't meaningfully talk about encrypted communications without also talking about how keys are exchanged. Anyone who glosses over the topic of key exchange is probably bullshitting you. And guess what: Skype glosses over the topic of key exchange.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
makes sense, they want to get at the encryption codes.
Will somebody punch this guy's frequent geek card?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There are rumors floating around that Google is also interested in buying Skype, but I really hope Skype will remain independent as I really hate the idea of users data concentration - it will make us so much more vulnerable to being spied on in one centralized way.
Even today hardly anything manages that well. I'm permanently behind a shitty ISP-level NAT (I share an IP address with probably hundreds of other people) and the only messaging service that can reliably transfer files or do video chat is Skype.
Sadly it only works on Linux, iirc.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
How well do Ekiga do NAT traversal? I think the problem-free nature of the Skype system for such is what got it going in the first place. And now that it is entrenched, its proprietary nature keeps it there as few people are interested in making the jump to some FOSS system. This largely thanks to having everyone they know already using Skype.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Nimbuzz, better audio quality... it's also a multi client IM (used to support Skype until Skype found out how popular it was getting and sued.
Of course that's only a part of the full solution... check the website in my sig for a full solution. Don't rack up another 200+ roaming charge cell bill.
Why would I use three different client types for different communications when one covers them all? That sounds a lot like having one car to go shopping, one to go to work, and one for the weekend. Personally, I don't have the inclination to maintain three cars, and one which does all three jobs is ideal.
Well, I might have a van or SUV to do my shopping, a Prius or other hybrid for the commute, and a motorcycle for the weekend. And a truck for when friends need to move.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
1) Text-only chat (which is bat-guano-insane, IMHO)
Skype handles connecting to the same account from multiple clients far more gracefully than anything else. AIM will boot one of you off. Jabber will route messages to whichever has set the obscure "priority" field higher, or, if it's set to the same for both, a random one (I believe it's even in spec to route different messages for the same conversation to different clients, though I doubt any real server's that crazy). With skype I can just leave my work and home copies signed in, and connect my phone as and when I use it, with no fear of getting random half-conversations in each. That's why I use it.
I am trolling
We do the same thing. We've tried the group video chat using the free preview, but in the end the video screen ended up being hidden, even by those of us with multiple monitors. We also used MapTool (rptools.net) for a virtual tabletop, so that was always maximized on one screen, and I usually had the SRD or our campaign wiki open on the other screen.
Skype sat in the background, giving us the group voice chat. We'd occasionally text chat there too, but MapTool has it's own chat window (which now supports hyperlinks) so Skype pretty much handles only the voice.
We've never had any major issues, although occasionally when I'm hosting the map as DM I have to have someone else host the call as my kids are usually streaming Netflix in the other room and I don't have the bandwidth to support all that at once.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Is non-existent in size, generally uses other networks and piggy-backs on them (such as in case of skype).
To be fair, you could always use imo.im which has (unofficial) Skype support.
Having a good FOSS alternative is far from simple. It is not there, and a p2p netwrok with video streaming and chatting is not something you can build froma available blocks.
It is even worse than that, even skype (well, the brand owned by ebay) does not fully own the technology behind skype.
With EIGHTEEN public diaspora pods available, each with TENS of seeds, I think it's safe to say that everybody who's anybody is on Diaspora by now.
you were too busy taking all the credit for the SONY/PS3 network breach (or taking all the blame)
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Why? If you buy skype you should buy it for the customer base... Facebook already have a huge user base... Wouldn't it be stupid to buy skype for the code base?
IV. Incompetence.
IIIIIX. Someone ancillary
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, it appears to be a shot at black Democrats, judging by the title. Who knows, maybe the guy is OK with black Republicans and black Independents, and maybe even black Libertarians.
Really? Are we going to stick with this "change the source yourself" argument?
*sigh*
I tried using Ekiga... couldn't get it to work between a Windows and a Linux client. I wanted to video-chat with my wife and kids while on business trips. Then tried several video chats with no consistent success. Grudgingly tried Skype, and it works great. I now can video chat with my parents across the country as well.
Sorry, but Skype even on Linux just worked.
I have a CS degree (from way back) but I am no longer a programmer. I'm not about to pick it up just to get video chat to work.
If Facebook buys it, it will make me sad because I abhor Facebook.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
If you haul gasoline for work then you need a tanker truck. If you like to 4x4 on the weekends then the Prius you use to go shopping isn't going to cut it. I suppose using one mediocre application for many different purposes is ok for some, but there is a reason mIRC is still around.
Hey, use our social network. Why? Because. (I'm almost paraphrasing the last one there, Orkut isn't bad, but nobody knows the damn thing exists, ADVERTISE GOOGLE, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS STUFF, IT IS YOUR BUSINESS)
Orkut is hugely popular in Brazil. Why? I have no idea; different cultures can be very different from one another and not make much sense to outsiders. Why do the Japanese believe that a person's blood type indicates their personality?
Orkut's been around for ages, but it just never caught on in America. Facebook, OTOH, did. Why? Who knows. It's probably one of those butterfly flapping its wings deals.
So a version for Windows that looks like a candy apple, one for the Mac that has a brushed chrome frame around it that uses 2/3 of the screen area, and 35 different versions for Linux, then?
"With EIGHTEEN public diaspora pods available, each with TENS of seeds, I think it's safe to say that everybody who's anybody is on Diaspora by now."
I guess I am not anybody then. I am on their Facebook fan page and I had no idea they were up and running. I hope they don't that attitude and that they work harder about letting ordinary people know about the service or they will not even make a dent in replacing Facebook.
The problem is, you just described 97% of the demographic. I don't think they will be the ones who have to resort to fucking themselves.
This is the problem: In order to make calls between two people behind a NAT work, skype (ab)uses other, completely unrelated, clients to get the connection going. This would never fly in an open application because the helper feature would be immediately removed or disabled by the "other" clients.
This was a huge discussion point when skype first came out. If you got turned into a skype "supernode" it would eat your internet connection. Universities had major problems with this. But apparently slashdot has forgotten it.
But as a closed piece of software skype can require you participate as a "helper".
Yes, this means an essential feature of skype, the one that makes it "just work", directly violates a central tenet of FLOSS software, full user choice.
If skype had done a bad job, this would have killed them. But it turns out they got everything else mostly right, so they were able to overcome this stigma. For example, they actually provide specially modified clients to universities to mitigate this issue.
1) Text-only chat (which is bat-guano-insane, IMHO)
Why would I use three different client types for different communications when one covers them all? That sounds a lot like having one car to go shopping, one to go to work, and one for the weekend. Personally, I don't have the inclination to maintain three cars, and one which does all three jobs is ideal.
Because skype does multi-presence properly
I can be logged in on all 3 of my machines (2 windows, 1 BSD), and carry on a conversation as I move around, the full discussion visible on each machine.
The minute facebook becomes the owner of skype,
I will be one of the first to cancel my account. I use skype everyday and will walk away in a "heartbeat"
when facebook becomes involved.
Goodbye personal information, hello every tom dick and harry law enforcement being able to pick your line
just for giggles.
Don't worry, once Skype becomes part of an evil empire, if it isn't already, there's always Viber (http://t.co/wcE4frR for iPhone and now in beta for Android) to tide you over with HD voice and messaging...
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
The thing skype does, is the kazaa style super-nodes, allowing 2 users who are both behind NAT w/o port forwarding to connect and carry on a conversation. For this system to work properly, you need a critical mass of users, which skype has, with 10-40 million people logged in at all times
I doubt it has anything to do with culture. Rather I suspect it's a question of the network effect. If 10 people you know already have Orkut accounts and 2 have Facebook accounts, which will you find more useful?
/blush
Sent from my CR-48
Yep. Network effect and chaos theory. Somewhere along the line, one Brazilian loves Orkut, and convinces a couple of friends to join it, and then next thing you know, the whole country's on there, like a butterfly flapping its wings and starting a tornado. In the USA, some people joined FB faster, so things swung that way.
What's interesting however, is that these things can change. It wasn't that long ago that MySpace was the dominant social media site in the US, but now everyone's moved to FB and MySpace is all but dead.
Nope, it doesn't work on Windows.
Smile, I was joking.
Given that they're open source advocates, I expect that they will have the typical FOSS tin ear for and pronounced distaste for marketing and advertising, which they would need to actually attract more users to their service.
Honestly, Diaspora is on track to become permanent "fun-time" beta abandon-ware, just like a large percentage of other Open Source projects (see: Sourceforge.net). Kudos to them for trying, but it seems to have been a poorly conceived notion that was poorly executed, judging from the initial quality of the code they released. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Diaspora to light the social networking world on fire.
(But seriously - am I really the only one who finds it unbearably ironic that Diaspora, the self-styled Facebook-slayer, has... a Facebook fan page?)
Not to mention the FLOSS/open alternative to Facebook.
Soon, please!
I think you have your butterfly effect confused with domino effect.
No harm done.
How disappointing. With all of the hype about uber geeks contributing serious money to the project I was expecting a Facebook alternative that respected privacy.
I wonder if Diaspora fizzling out had anything to do with Mark Zuckerberg contributing to it.
Realistically, probably not.
College is the last time in a person's life where flaking out is okay and college students have large demands on their time. Zuckerberg probably knew this and knew his donation wouldn't produce any results beyond making him look like a sport.
If you slap an Asterisk box on a static IP on the open internet, and then link your POTS phone number to your asterisk box through a directory service like E164.org
Whoa, man. You think THAT is a valid alternative to Skype?
Tell you what: as long as Aunt Tillie can't install it on her windows box and have it work out of the box, with no further requirement other than setting up an account (which shouldn't be much more involved than choosing a screenname and password), it isn't an alternative.
Yes, I realize that this may well mean there won't ever BE a F/LOSS alternative, as it'd depend on an infrastructure that somebody would have to pay for and maintain, but if you think "slapping an Asterisk box on a static IP and linking it to your POTS phone number" is in any way a realistic alternative to installing Skype, you're insane.
I could be off-my-ass wrong, and I'll readily admit I'm speculating on their future prospects. But at this point, I see very little that suggests they're going to make a real go at Facebook - or even Myspace, before Myspace finally implodes. I don't think they've fizzled quite yet, there's still small amounts of activity over at github, but there certainly doesn't look like there's much of a trend towards more interest/contribution/users, and if you're challenging an established competitor, and you're not growing, you're pretty much dying.
Bottom line is that Diaspora's appeal is mostly geek-centric. 500 million users says that a lot of people don't really care that much about Facebook's privacy policies, or at least can learn to coexist uncomfortably with them and edit out anything they're really unwilling to share. I'm not sure I ever saw the real draw to producing a Facebook-like social platform for people who don't want to share their information, or require absolutely fine-grained control over every byte of data they share.
My problem with Facebook and privacy is that Facebook changed the rules about what was private, several times, without notice, without permission and without apology.
Had those things been involved I could have chosen what I wanted to reveal like I would with slashdot, another blog or a web board.
I use Facebook now with the assumption that everything will be public, in time. I was looking forward to a "privacy aware" alternative to FB so I could relax and socialize more with my friend via the web. Now, I rarely post and when I do I don't say anything interesting.
I think you are right in that most people enjoy Facebook and have learned to look the other way about privacy concerns.
Then there are ignorant people who keep those stories about Facebook getting people fired and losing divorce cases coming.
Well then you haven't seen my mum. #3 She uses it for leaving me 10 minute long voice messages with 10 secs of voice and 9:50 of mouse clicks as she lays the cards waiting for the grim reaper to show.
This is a great alternative. People are very opposed to setting up their own servers - setting up any lightweight XMPP server is NOT too difficult, and the server space will not cost you an arm and a leg. Granted, it depends on what you're doing, but you can set this up and have super encryption and security. Unfortunately, Adium hasn't added support for XMPP audio or video, so Pidgin it is.
Yep, I think the network effect explains it. I am from Brazil and Orkut right now is losing space for Facebook. It makes sense because in terms of both interface and functionality Orkut sucks a lot. But in the beginning, back in 2004, it was the first social network to get some kind of recognition here. Facebook wasn't what it is today, and Friendster and Myspace never made success here also.
Also, Skype handles non-headset microphones really well. I use my laptop for most non-gaming activities so when I'm playing a game with friends I just put it down nearby and run Skype. I don't need to worry about the fact that the laptop's speakers are blaring into the microphone; Skype does a pretty good job at eliminating feedback.
I tried TeamSpeak but TS absolutely requires a headset or at least headphones if you don't want to be limited to push-to-talk half-duplex communications. Skype wins out on quality here. (And since I refused to "upgrade" from version 2 of the client it even has a decent user interface.)
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Why would I use three different client types for different communications when one covers them all?
Do you eat everything with a spork, or does your kitchen have a cutlery drawer?
Do you do all your maintenance with a Leatherman, or do you have screwdrivers, pliers, wire strippers, etc?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
If only their was some sort of financial incentive for people to group together to make things easy to use...
Penetration... of a certain kind:
Skype does not need Facebook to spy on users with secret backdoors nested into encrypted code heavily protected against reverse-engineering:
http://www.recon.cx/en/f/vskype-part2.pdf
"An interesting feature of the API is the Application to Application protocol, which allows two applications to communicate through Skype.
- They benefit from Skype NAT and Proxy bypassing abilities
- The data is encrypted by Skype itself
- The remote endpoint is only identified by a login and not an IP address
Perfect for:
- Exfiltration
- Discrete remote control of the machine
- File transfers
- Network connections tunneling"
Strangely, Privacy groups, Governments or even ANTIVIRUS companies, did not find that abusing tenths of millions of end-users around the World with the Skype obfuscated backdoor is a problem.
Skype was sold $4.1 billion to eBay - and they are now going to sell the trojan horse a second time.
To make the point furthre, Skype's CEO is Tony Bates (CISCO) and they hired James Allard (a MSFT director):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/27/businessinsider-rumor-j-allard-heading-to-skype-2011-1.DTL&type=printable
But you will not read this in mainstream media.
Mumble and other such open-source projects already to a marvelous work on eliminating echos, feed-back, and the like.
The current problem is really NAT-to-NAT users.
Absolutely all half decent alternatives to Skype use open standards. Like H323 and SIP.
And the main problems is that these standards were never designed with NAT in mind.
They assume things like specific ports being always internet-wide visible (to be callable, both SIP and H323 require you to have an open specific port on which callers can catch you).
And absolutely all standards (H323, SIP *and* XMPP/Jingle) assume that all the software has to do is to listen to a few UDP ports, perhaps with the help of a little STUN. (Whereas sometimes, even default firewall of most modern Linux installs would interfere with this. Not to speak the NAT topologies of lots of home networks).
What is needed is one of the following three :
A. either designing a new standard protocole which better takes into account the problems of modern NATed networks.
That was partially the idea behind XMPP/Simple (XMPP doesn't need internetwide open ports, so for initiating calls, it works better than the others)
B. or, design a new software which pack all the necessary elements
- perfect cryptography support (OTR for chat, ZRTP for voice and video). That in itself will be a huge gain over Skype (which has officially stated that their are open to collaborate with governments and official. Meaning that they probably have back-doors).
- SIP and/or XMPP/Jingle clients
- support for STUN and TURN in case of problematic firewalls
- integrated STUN server, which can help other users behind NATs if the client currently benefits a situation where it is directly internet-wide accessible and can help others punch wholes. This has to be optionally selected by the user (unlike skype which forces its equivalent functionality).
- integrated TURN server, to help forward calls when simple whole punching doesn't cut it. This has to be optionally selected by the user (unlike skype which forces its equivalent functionality).
- integration with Network manager so mobile devices (laptops and the like) can automatically detect and adapt their offered network services to varying networking connection. (no TURN when on 3G, no STUN when behind a NATed firewall, etc.)
- integration with distributions' firewall
- an automatic discovery system on the local network (avahi and the like to quickly find peers)
- an automatic discovery system on the global network (finding seeds, just like any Peer-2-Peer system).
All these building blocks already exists, but no one has already been able to combine them to provide a completely "flawless, zero-setup-required" experience
This solution has the advantage of nicely working with pre existing infra structures.
C. last but not least
a mixture of A and B which simply then shows up as a local SIP or XMPP/Jabber server.
Use your existing favorite SIP or Jingle solutions (use Ekiga or Pidgin) and then let the proxy connect you to the magical "skype-perfect" new-gen peer-2-peer VoIP network.
That's the idea behind project like "SIP Witch". Build a peer-2-peer nework, and connect with SIP to your local node running on your machine.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This is the problem: In order to make calls between two people behind a NAT work, skype (ab)uses other, completely unrelated, clients to get the connection going. This would never fly in an open application because the helper feature would be immediately removed or disabled by the "other" clients.
Why so ? The open source equivalent would be packing TURN and STUN servers together with your software, and simply having a nice polite pop-up the first you fire up the software explaining why it is important and how it works.
Precedents (like the Tor network) show that, given a clear explanation, a certain chunk of users will willingly help and participate by donating some bandwidth.
Bonus point if your software uses a combination of NetworkManager integration so it can better adapt to varying network scenarios (if your netbook switches to 3G, shut down the TURN service to save bandwidth and monthly data-volume cap ; if you laptop joins your home network, shut down the STUN service, because now you're NATed too), and a combination of Avahi and Peer-2-peer seed exchange, so it can easily find and join the swarm (and communicate with the swarm to arbitrate and easily split the relaying activity among neighbors to avoid overloading a network with super-nodes).
Yes, this means an essential feature of skype, the one that makes it "just work", directly violates a central tenet of FLOSS software, full user choice.
Well, as long as the user is nicely informed and can make a choice, that won't be problematic. It's not the NAT-to-NAT connection themselves which violates FLOSS philosophy, it's the way they were impolitely imposed on unsuspecting users.
Also if the software were open-source, you can bet that within a few weeks, patches would be written to help mitigiate the problem. Like enabling the software to detect available bandwidth and avoid saturating the network. And detecting how many peer share the network, to avoid every single machine in a university maxing out its connection by working as a relay.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Pidgin might not.
But XMPP and Jingle are open standards and other software work on other system.
(It's even available on Windows from within Gmail itself)
What needs to be worked on is NAT traversal made easier.
With Skype you just install it and it takes care of the rest.
With opensource software, you need to find and configure access to STUN and/or TURN servers, fiddle with ports, etc.
What we needs is a software with packages its own optional STUN and TURN servers, and politely ask user if they accept to help their NATed peers (unlike Skype which forces it). Bonus point if that integrates with NetworkManager to detect changes in network topologies (and for example shut down TURN upon switching to 3G to save bandwidth and costs ; or shut down STUN if the laptop moves to a NATed network). Additional bonus points if using Avahi to quickly find other nodes on the network (and arbitrate with them to avoid saturate the network link with every single machine becoming super-node) and peer-2-peer-like seed exchange to quickly find other relay on the net.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You have available blocks.
One solution is things like SIP Witch. It's a small light weight proxy server. It works on a Peer-2-peer network. And it shows up as a SIP server on the local machine.
No need to develop complex applications - use any existing SIP client (like Ekiga).
The other solution is to use existing blocks :
we already have STUN and TURN servers to help NAT traversal.
We need to package them with the clients, and politely ask the user if he wants to contribute helping other users behind NATs (unlike Skype which just forces it on their users without asking).
We need to make this integrate with NetworkManager to have the server intelligently start and stop as needed (shut down TURN when moving to 3G connection to save bandwidth ; shut down STUN when moving to a NATed home network).
We need to make this use Avahi to find other clients on the same network (and also to abritrate among clients, to avoid saturating some university's network with every single instance becoming super-node). We need to make peer-2-peer-like seed exchange (like on p2p download networks) to make joining the swarm faster.
All the building blocks exist, just nobody has until now combined them to make life more easy to users of other VoIP networks.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
...and for the people who want to chat with their Windows-using social groups?
I'm being pressured into either letting my users use the official MSN bloat-client or Skype so that they can video conference with other Windows users. Google could have sown this market up if they just put the ruddy jingle support into GTalk rather than GMail. Seriously, who wants to use a web page as an app on a desktop machine?
What I ideally want is Jingle support in Pidgin on Win32 and then native-jingle support in the various xmppmsn gateways.
Boo.
Pidgin + XMPP supports voice and video. Used used it for a long time, and no issue. Have never used, or will use skype.
My GF uses pidgin for voice+vid with no issues. And she doesnt' even install software on ubuntu by herself, so she's REALLY far from tech-savvy.
Looks like Microsoft's buying Skype for $8.5 billion... lol