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Skype group video calling becomes free

blogs.skype.com

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Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#151

Post by gedrap »

tbassetto wrote: post #126
jackowayed wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how important of a mindshare property it is. I would guess most users don't even realize that Microsoft owns Skype.

I beg to differ. Nowadays Skype is always inquiring people to convert their account to a Microsoft Account! The "Metro"/"Modern" version of Skype for Windows 8 even requires a Microsoft account.

Well, following that logic, Facebook owns thousands of web sites because they require FB account to login.

It seems obvious to us, but we are an exception. Most of the people just don't care.

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#152

Post by Tagbert »

gmjosack wrote: post #145

I'd written Skype off as malware after it continued to put a browser extension on my computer that parsed every single page I visited without my permission. Even after removing the plugin it would regularly disappear. This behavior is not okay.

If it is the plugin that I remember disabling, it reads the page looking for phone numbers and creates buttons to make skype calls. Wasn't anything I wanted so I disabled the plugin. no biggie.

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#153

Post by zacharycohn »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #110
why-el wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really good point on Skype being friendly to beginners. I never realized it but my parents get really uncomfortable when I try to walk them over how to set up Google Hangout, and most of the time the conversation just continues on Skype and we drop the experiment. I mean for them its a hassle to install all those plugins and then invite and open emails and confirm and whatnot.

I'm a professional programmer that went to engineering school and I can't be fussed to start up hangouts with anyone. It seems like it takes a full 30 minutes to get everyone in the same hangout and I always feel like a buffoon for suggesting.

You used to be able to press two buttons and have a hangout up, then copy/paste the URL and send it to someone.

Most elegant video chat product in existence.

Then it got super complicated with circles and adding people via their g+ accounts and people who use 3rd party chat programs and permissions etc etc etc..

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#154

Post by chetanahuja »

isomorphic wrote: post #132
gregcohn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're seriously asking, I'm happy to answer my two cents, but i'm very concerned that you don't have a sense for the reasons people would want to use G+ gated products without being part of G+. As someone who has a personal G+ account and doesn't mind, and who runs a company that pays Google for apps for my domain on which we manage our email, I still had to register for G+ to be able to use the hangouts product…

I agree completely. I am astonished that Google people genuinely don't understand the things that are off-putting about Google+. I've never even tried Hangouts because of the G+ requirement. I suppose if I had to, I'd create a one-off account for the purpose.

well to be fair, plenty of google employees are/have-been fully aware of (and vocal about) the various problems with forced G+ integrations on users. It's just that those employees haven't had any power to change those decisions. With the recent changes in leadership, things may change.

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#155

Post by eurleif »

jackowayed wrote: post #112
rdl wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Innovator's dilemma matters if you're actually making money from your current product. Skype isn't in any way material to Microsoft's revenues, but is an important mindshare property (and could tie in to other Microsoft tools; integration on WP and Windows desktops, etc.)

I'm not sure how important of a mindshare property it is. I would guess most users don't even realize that Microsoft owns Skype.

Even if the mindshare isn't directly valuable to Microsoft, it's valuable to Google. Keeping Google from getting it should have been more important than squeezing every last penny out of Skype.

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#156

Post by zokier »

shmerl wrote: post #78

I hope open protocols will catch up already. XMPP/Jingle has user side multiplexing for a while (MUJI), but it requires decent bandwidth. It's a deferred XEP for some reason though. Also, most clients lack support for it. Server side multiplexing wasn't standardized for some reason, so XMPP servers didn't come up with anything common so far. Skype remains just another proprietary walled garden communication network w…

What do you think of COLIBRI[1]? Does it seem like it could address this problem adequately? Does it have a chance of getting traction beyond just Jitsi?

[1] https://jitsi.org/colibri/

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#157

Post by scrrr »

dalanmiller wrote: post #134

Does anyone else refuse to use Skype because Microsoft was complicit with PRISM? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...

Of course. They should suffer the loss of ALL their users if you ask me. If anyone here is still using Skype, I wonder what kind of community this is and what kind of future we are building..

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#158

Post by tommoor »

hiharryhere wrote: post #105
yawz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reference. I'll definitely check it out. That's what I like with Sqwiggle (or similar tools). It's the ease of connecting with a team member using video. (I'm just noticing something: I forgot to mention that AFAIK Sqwiggle doesn't support group conferencing.). Your connection/team member is a click away and you know if they're at their desk thanks to the snapshots.

With sqwiggle you can group conference a bunch of people by clicking everyone. You all get joined. Pretty neat. Unfortunately the way it reacts to changes in bandwidth isn't up to hangouts or skype. We've got one team member working out in the sticks and it just drops out when his bandwidth gets choked. Hangouts on the other hand just falls back gracefully to audio only. If we all had better connections sqwiggle woul…

Thanks guys! We're working hard on improving Sqwiggle's quality on low bandwidth / multiparty calls :-D

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#159

Post by tommoor »

yawz wrote: post #53

Finally! I've used many video conferencing solutions but I have the impression that Skype is going to be the most convenient (largely because we're already using Skype as a team). Sqwiggle[0] is pretty neat as well ( Edit: I had to mention that, AFAIK Sqwiggle doesn't support group video conferencing ). [0] https://www.sqwiggle.com/

We do support group video upto 4 participants, we're working on increasing this - if its a problem you'd like to help solve then we're hiring ;-)

Re: Skype group video calling becomes free

#160

Post by Oculus »

tanzam75 wrote: post #146
rz2k wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is amazing how little strategy and disruption there seems to be in the industry. My dad is mostly retired, he rents out his office, but his secretary still comes into the office one afternoon a week. I didn't want to stress her out by asking her to learn new technology, but the phone was used only an hour or two a month. I ported the same number he'd had for a few decades to Google Voice, and attached an O…

> Both Microsoft and Google should offer small businesses packaged services where you bring your own internet service, then buy telephone plus email using your own domain name from them for a flat fee. Microsoft is focusing on the enterprise, because that's where the money is. For example, CERN is using Microsoft Lync as an IP PBX, using the Polycom CX300. It looks like a desk telephone and works like a desk telephon…

won't be costing Microsoft a lot of money in support calls

I think you've got it backwards, there's nothing Microsoft loves more then support calls because that's where their real cash cow is: charging enterprise monstrous yearly support fees.

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