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Skype To Feature Giant Ads
benfrog writes "Skype will be introducing a new 'feature' into calls for users don't have subscriptions or credit. Giant ads. They are actually calling them 'Conversation ads' because they hope the ads (as large as the picture of the person to whom you are speaking) will 'spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences.' The ads, of course, are tailored to each individual user, though there is an opt-out for that."
What the fuck is up with this fucking ad and how the fuck do I get rid of it?
"they hope the ads (as large as the picture of the person to whom you are speaking) will 'spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences" Hey, Grandma, what do you think of hot singles near me?
Marketing department: They are not ads, they are conversation starters. Therefore you should read every one, click on them, purchase something from the site, then talk to your friend on Skype about how great they are!
sudo make me a sandwich
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkp7f8IxJNU
What's more fascinating than discussing ads? I can just imagine the Skype conversation with my wife as I'm on a week-long business trip: "Hi Honey, how are you doin ... hey, did you see that Microsoft just added new Windows Phone app?"
if the complete abandoning of the linux version wasn't enough, i think this will give just the right incentive for us to start using it and for the devs to do their best
"Looks like you're going to be in the doghouse tonight. Would you like to order some flowers?"
- Bill Hicks, 1961-1992
Thank $deity Bill isn't around to see this shit...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There have to be some decent alternatives out there.. right?
(Popularity aside, of course.)
I mean making a decent voice/video chat program doesn't seem like a huge task... and Skype has demonstrated many times that it sucks very much.. so the market for alternatives is there.
Where I see an ad, and I immediately post a status update about the awesome ad I just saw.
Oh.
No.
I don't really do that. I won't do it on Skype either. Anyone noticing a trend with companies increasing prices this past year? Comcast raised their rates from $60 unlimited TV to $60 + $7 each extra TV. Sounds like a bargain unless you are the typical house with 3-4 TVs, then you spend more.
Verizon raised their rates from $60 unlimited phone calling to $90 for just 1GB. Dish Network eliminated their $20/month Family Plan, so now the cheapest rate is $35/month, and my phone company just tacked on an extra $1/month for 911 service. Companies are scrambling for extra cash.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
It didn't block your comment, though.
I am not in the market for giants, despite the temptation of Death By Snoo Snoo
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
telephore's contextual cellular ad system uses advanced speech recognition technology to monitor and record subscriber conversations. It can then deliver advertising in call to connect your customer with high-quality ads that meet their needs.
For example, if your customer has a medical problem that they discuss with their doctor, our ad system can then later deliver an audio advertising message when they use the phone on a subsequent occasion.
Better still, the other party on the call also hears the ad. So, if they have common interests then they can share the enjoyment!
* Yeah, it's a spoof.
Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
bahahaha
"Looks like an advert for some kind of leisure footwear."
"I can see that, but what IS this infernal thing, I mean, like WTF?"
"It seems the Microsoftian overlords of Skype are looking for yet another way to extract value from the working class."
"That's unfortunate."
"yes, it is. I guess we'll just have to find some alternative to Skype now. Fuck. What a pain in the ass."
"No shit."
"And the damnedest thing is they figured the ads would spark conversation on Skype."
"Right. Like I'm going to go on about some ad for Crocks. "Crocks! For when Flip Flops are a bit too formal!"
"See - you just did."
"Oh, FML."
"I think the next conversation is when can we meet again, F2F?"
"When I'm back in town, next week, darling."
"Cool. So, doesn't Apple have some kind of alternative to Skype on the iPad we can use to avoid - LOOK! There's another! I see it as an ad for boil creme. What do you see?"
"Oil. All I see is oil."
"Yeah - well that'll run out soon enough and put an end to all this garbage."
"Not a moment too soon, love. Not a moment too soon."
"I'll check into the Apple angle, and see what we can do. Gotta go - love you!"
"Love you too."
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Google knows how to do ads well. If you're looking for free, try their plugin: https://www.google.com/chat/video
Isn't Skype supposed to be encrypted between the end users? Of course, that claim has always been in a "Trust us, we're trustable!" framing, but if this listens to your text & voice comms in order to select ads, that finally does confirm that there is absolutely no privacy on Skype.
I'd say this is more or less the death of Skype, since it opens the window for someone to create an open-source alternative which doesn't have this annoying feature at all. Quite what form that will take is up in the air, but really we just need the motivation to put the pieces together in a friendly way.
here at slashdot we tend to be highly suspicious of anything that looks like an advertisment thanks to people who post Irellevant comments mention a certain piece of software.
You didn't get it. You can't opt out of the ads, you can only opt out of personalized ads.
Well, actually, that's not entirely correct, either. TFA:
These new display ad units will appear within the calling window of users who do not have Skype Credit or subscriptions
So it looks like you can, effectively, make this go away with a one-time payment (a minimum of $10 for Skype credit, IIRC).
You can use Skype if you wish. Somehow I see alternatives gaining traction.
SIP protocol for VOIP supports video from several vendors for free. Some SIP providers provide free VOIP gateways to/from Skype and Google Talk.
You can ring my POTS phone plugged into a SIP ATA (analog telephone adaptor) suchas a Linksys PAP2T from Skype, Google Talk, SIP, or a plain POTS phone for free. No ads, no Skype-In expense. I call all of US and Canada for free dialing with Google Talk. No cost for Skype out.
Other than the optional Linksys box purchase, the calls are free.
SIP provider with free Skype gateway - ippi.fr
Free US DID number for free in calls from POTS - IPKall
Free calling to US and Canada linked to IPKall number and SIP -- Google Voice (limited locations)
Free SIP softphone for Linux as an alternate to the Linksys box - Ekiga.net or Twinkle.
Why pay for Skype-in or out minutes? Ads are optional.
The truth shall set you free!
"I would like to show you a fasrad"
TFA mentions that the ads are only for audio calls, not video calls. So not all that intrusive. In audio calls you can minimise the skype window or have a different window in the foreground on top of it.
I don't understand why people are claiming the service is going to die because of this, or how dare they, or what have you.
They're silent ads which appear on the conversation window where the participating callers are tiled. Do people seriously do nothing but stare at the conversation window so they can look at that static avatar image of whoever they're talking to? It's not an audio advertisement. It's just a picture that takes up a slot in the conversation frame. It's going to interrupt conversations to have a silent, ignorable show up on the conversation window? Of course their reasoning for doing this is marketing spin but seriously now. You can even opt out of personalized advertisements so it's not trying to target you.
I really just don't see the problem with them doing this. Skype is a free service with premium services attached. If you're using nothing but the free service, you will get rather unobtrusive advertisements, otherwise if you've been paying for the premium services it won't even show up.
Yeah, that will be so easy for my family and friends to figure out how to implement. Maybe I should just dig a dedicate landline to all their houses while I'm at it.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
No, it is no boost for people already using ios. The boost is the additional people it will spur to take up ios devices who might have been otehrwise satisfied with skype.
I understand the ads. They suck, but at least you can get rid of them.
What gets me is that according to Skype, these aren't ads, they're "conversation starters" and they hope that we will discuss them with our friends. That's just downright insulting.
Show me the ad if you must. Don't tell me that I should like it and talk about it with others. I'm not your damned advertising agent.
Please point me to a open source equivalent that can do video too.
(And that I can use with my grandma, who can't handle anything more complex than a iPad. *sadface*)
SIP only works with audio, as far as I know
XMPP's Jingle can also only do audio, as far as I know.
And in any case, I don’t know any client that does video.
MSN, Yahoo and ICQ do video, don’t they?
(But it was usually not really good quality, and complicated to get to work. Plus, I did never see it work with open-source clients. [Including even aMSN.] Sadly. It lost me a girl's love for Linux.)
what other new "features" will we be seeing? I cant wait.
Yeah, that will be so easy for my family and friends to figure out how to implement. Maybe I should just dig a dedicate landline to all their houses while I'm at it.
Good example of why they should have Apple products and use Facetime.
I'm just wondering who the brands in the ads will be local to? Me or the relative on the other side of the world I'm speaking to.
When the housewives speak to troops in Iraq will it strike up a conversation on the best local store to buy suicide bombers vests?
When I speak to my Russian friends will all my ads get served up with incomprehensible type containing the letter R backwards?
Or maybe someone in the UK will be interested in the new toll road opening in my city.
I bite my tongue when using a free service with ads.
But come now, 'conversation starters'? Just because I'm broke doesn't mean I'm dumb. Just say, "We're putting ads on this shit, deal."
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
You can use Skype if you wish. Somehow I see alternatives gaining traction.
Skype used to be great and everyone was on it. Now not so much. I have a lot better luck getting people on Google Talk. And Skype just seems to suck a lot lately in terms of dropped calls, stuttering sound and slow status updates. On my Android tablet it runs for an average of maybe 10 minutes before the app crashes. Looks to me like quality control ended when Microsoft bought the business.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Anyone here who is the least bit surprised at this move needs to turn in their geek cards immediately.
While Skype's popularity has continued to steadily increase, its quality has unquestionably been in decline since even before Microsoft bought them. Now that they're MS-owned the only real option is to seek out alternatives.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Exactly, that's I love and recommend Linux. It's open source so Linux is trustworthy. It even comes with a 'true' program.
Linux, for all your software needs.
Are you people seriously complaining that a company that provides you a completely free service is going to start showing ads? Can you please point me in the direction of a free Google service or product that doesn't have ads? In fact, can you point me in the direction of a highway, TV station, newspaper, magazine, website, game, car race, ANYTHING that doesn't have ads these days?
As they said, the ads will appear if you don't have a subscription or any available credit with your account. This seems entirely fair, to me. You can get a free service in return for tolerating some advertising or -- if you're like me and abhor ads -- you can pay for the service. This is exactly how things should work (as opposed to things like cable television and XBOX Live where you get advertising *even if you do pay*.
This is the 2nd time I'm saying it, for the 2nd reason: Ever since MS acquired Skype, it's been going downhill. MS has always been a marketing-driven organisation, this just goes to show that the takeover is now complete.
It does give us a glimpse into the mind of the spammer, though. Doesn't "they are conversation starters" sound a lot like the "people are waiting for our newsletter" rationalisation that the other spammers use?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
People are willing to pay money to get rid of ads. That should tell the spammers / marketing people something, shouldn't it? (and no "great, make more ads, then charge people for not showing them is not the right answer)
The right answer is: Go get a useful job.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Honest question: which other service?
I'm using Skype occasionally for video calls. My parents would like to see their grandson, that's why. And my grandson is happy to see his grandparents now and then too - it's a 12 hour flight away so you can imagine we don't go often.
I'd be glad to see an alternative, as we often enough have problems with Skype. Having to deal with ads is going to be beyond annoying very soon. But I have yet to hear about a serious alternative:
Free of charge for PC to PC calls. I don't care about calls to landlines v.v.
Decent quality video. Skype's quality is not really good for the bandwidth it has available (400-500 kbit - our upstream speeds).
Decent sound quality. Skype's is generally not so good.
Cross-platform: up-to-date clients for Windows, Mac, Linux.
That are the basic requirements of what such software should do. Add some account management (you have to be able to find each other), I don't want to have to fool around with IP addresses like Gnome's offering (Ekiga?) used to do. It has to just work. Is it really that hard?
Is anyone out there actually interested in buying a giant? I hear they're nothing but trouble.
You hit the nail on its head,sir! Congratulations!
Swapping a locked in proprietary solution for another locked in proprietary solution seems like a well thought out strategy.
V long-sighted.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
couple of cans, some rope and you are good to go.
So you want to switch from one locked-in product to another, and transfer the cost from viewing adverts to up-front purchases?
Google Talk and Google+ are actually pretty good for this, and both will run on existing Skype compatible hardware (i.e. a PC or Android/iOS phone/tablet).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yahoo? Jabber?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I know what you mean, it's been bugging me that I can't email people using their phone number.
Jonathanjk.com
Besides the misplaced idea of needing to put cash into something just for a feature not to work. The credit disappears If you don't use the it. It disappears if you don't spend any of it after 6 months. This idea was implemented before MS bought Skype.
Jonathanjk.com
http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx - 12 way video chatting for free. Disclaimer, I found this on the verge yesterday when they discussed this topic, I haven't used it yet.
Jonathanjk.com
Well... yup. The devices they sell actually work, have decent support and value add services like... facetime.... :D
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
G+ hangouts can be good for that sort of thing.
Considering Skype STILL have not released a 64bit* version or one that works properly with Phonon, I can guess the Linux users will be safe from adverts too. * Static or dynamic are NOT 64bit versions, they drag a whole pile of 32bit junk. It's pathetic as the only application in Linux that refuses to be designed / built for 64bit systems.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
You can use Skype if you wish. Somehow I see alternatives gaining traction.
SIP protocol for VOIP supports video from several vendors for free.
I recently had a similar thought. I've been using Skype while living in Germany to keep in touch with my long-distance girlfriend for the last few months. I figured, let's give SIP a go, and give Skype the boot.
In summary: SIP is flaky as hell when both parties are behind NAT. Sometimes it works, but most of the time, it doesn't.
The big thing Skype has going for it is "it just works". No need to forward firewall ports, and no worries about whether it works when one party is behind a particular brand of router.
Needless to say, we've gone back to using Skype. Sorry SIP, I gave you a really good shot, but you just weren't reliable.
By what the article notes, this only happens for audio calls, specifically 1 on 1 calls, and also specifically on the windows platform.
So while there's no problem with looking for an alternative, it doesn't look like you'll see this "feature" any time soon, since it sounds like 1 on 1 video calls is what you're doing.
No ads so far, but why would they suddenly release an update after doing nothing for years? ...
Because the whole skype business model (selling skype-in/-out minutes) relies on having a controlled market locked-in through a proprietary protocol.
But recent advances in reverse engineering the skype protocole might represent a menace to the business model. Time to shift to a newer (not yet reversed) protocol, which the old 2.x generation of skype software might not have supported.
Might also something to do to some obscure wire tapping legislation which microsoft or skype has to comply to and which wouldn't have been possible with the older 2.x generation of software.
I would personally wait until AppArmor settings are updated for Skype 4.x before upgrading.
Or even better, hope that Eion Robb finds a solution to have the Pidgin/Adium plugin interfacing with (an AppArmored) SkypeKit instead of skype. Or that the reverse engineering efforts finally produce an opensource skype55-compatible re-implementation. (Not holding my breath, though)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
PulseAudio has been a great help. Since 2.1 skype can send all of its audio to/from pulseaudio, and let pulseaudio handle (well) all the problems related to routing sound to/from the correct hardware device, and handling multiple software trying to play audio on a sound card not supporting hardware mixing. Until then audio support has been catastrophic as any closed source application which can't be patched to play nicely along other software fighting for control of the sound card.
Also, because it's closed source, Skype can't be recompiled to use the local version of libraries (Qt and the like) used by the distribution. You have the luck of using Ubuntu, which is probably the distribution against which most of the tests are done. If someone is using a less popular distro, chances are that skype doesn't play along well with the rest of the system's library, although the static version might help a little bit.
Lastly Ubuntu isn't particularly enforcing security. Skype tends to try to read a hell lot of files and directories it shouldn't, for no apparent reason. (Some tinfoil hats think of wiretapping, hackers think of anti-reverse engineering measures, less paranoid person might think of sloppy programming, the reality lying probably somewhere in between). Any distribution with more security-related features enabled might make skype crash when it attempts to perform unauthorised actions.
Also next to these purely binary-software related problems, there have been network related problems, with sometime local keyfile and caches becoming corrupt or useless due to subtle changes in the network and/or protocol to which the never-updated linux version reacted badly. (A few cases where the local settings had to be completely wiped out and reconfigured. The last being around 2 years ago)
In short, you've been lucky to use a rather good combination of distribution and skype version, in a short time period where everything works more or less. That hasn't been the case of the rest of us having to deal, for example, with skype 2.0 suddenly freezing and eating 100% cpu for no apparent reason.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You should definitely update to skype 2.1 and let pulseaudio handle (much better) this kind of audio routing problems
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
There are alternatives out there. Some are much like Skype:
G+ Hangouts / Google Video Chat
ooVoo
Jitsi
Some are more meeting oriented but can do video chat also:
AnyMeeting
Buddy Meeting
At work we use a lot of Skype, but I think the video is crap. We did a meeting using GoToMeeting the other day and the video was much better than Skype but lots of echo (it was in a conference room using webcam mic and TV speaker, so not unexpected). I used ooVoo a couple of years ago and it was fine, but then it got blocked by the company firewall (going to try it again at my new company with less onerous firewall). I haven't tried Jitsi or G+ hangouts yet. My boss says G+ gives him some error about not working with USB audio on Mac... No problems on my Mac though with my USB audio dongle...