Businesses Countdown to TechCrunch Disrupt with Help from Skype

We’re counting down to TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco next week. A team of us from Skype’s Silicon Valley office are planning to visit the headliner event. We’re not only excited to check out the sessions, but we’re especially looking forward to the Startup Battlefield event at TechCrunch Disrupt.
As the official video calling host for TechCrunch Disrupt, Skype has been a key tool in the event’s Startup Battlefield competition. According to TechCrunch event organizers, “We’ve performed over 250 video calls and demos for Disrupt on Skype plus countless hours of calls, conference calls and chat sessions.”
That’s great. Not only do we think Skype is an essential tool for almost any business, but we also think it’s really novel that hundreds of startups and entrepreneurs are using Skype to be interviewed by TechCrunch. The final selected contestants will have their chance to pitch their ideas or products in person at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, for a cash prize of $50,000 that can be used to help them bring their idea to the market.
Millions of people use Skype every day, and in the first half of 2010, Skype video calling represented approximately 40% of all Skype-to-Skype minutes. In fact, approximately 37% of over 40,000 of our connected users surveyed in the first quarter of 2010 told us they use Skype occasionally or often for business related purposes. Businesses are using Skype to benefit from lower costs and expand how employees, customers, partners and suppliers communicate and collaborate with ease-of-use, greater convenience and efficiency.

Check out these tips to get started using Skype for your business today.

• If you can’t arrange an in-person meeting, suggest hosting the meeting over a Skype video call. Ensure you have a high quality webcam and microphone, high-speed Internet access, and Skype software downloaded to your computer.
• If there are more than two parties on the call, Skype’s latest beta for Windows can support group video calling, so you can talk to multiple colleagues or customers.
• If you want an easy way to manage and allocate credit for multiple Skype accounts for your organization, use Skype Manager.
• Don’t forget if you want to show a demo or run through a presentation, Skype’s screen sharing feature is easy and useful. In fact, check out this great TechCrunch post here about Skype screen sharing.
• Last but not least, a little bit of etiquette can go a long way when communicating with business associates over Skype. We enjoyed these great etiquette tips from TechCrunch here.

Announcing our representative office for the Middle East and Africa

I'm happy to announce that we have just opened our representative office for the Middle East and Africa region in Manama, the capital of Bahrain.
Today, at a press conference held jointly with the Bahrain Economic Development Board, we explained some of the key reasons to why we chose Bahrain.
Bahrain provides one of the most energetic environments to support and encourage innovation - it has a talented local workforce as well as forward thinking economic development strategies that help support business. In addition, as a gateway to the Gulf, Bahrain is the ideal location from which to support our global strategy - ensuring Skype is available for anyone, anywhere who want to do things together.
I'll be leading Skype's activities in the region, so if you have any questions, queries or just want to discuss the squad selection made by Algeria's coach , please get in touch.

Skype Support Network Now Available on Facebook

A few weeks ago, we rolled out our beta of the Skype Support Network, an online community where customers can learn about Skype from experts, find answers, and share information through topic-specific discussion forums. The community is available through Skype.com, and starting today is also now available from Skype's Facebook account page.

We think there is a big appetite for information about Skype, and Skype Support Network was created in direct response to that. Having this information available within our Support Network and extended to various social media channels, such as Facebook, is part of our efforts to engage customers and help them access information they need. So, feel free to ask us a question or search our community for answers right from within Facebook or visit us at the Skype Support Network.

Bring Your Social Network To Life

Back in July, Facebook video calling powered by Skype was launched. Today we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Facebook has reached yet another milestone with the launch of Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac and Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows allowing you to conduct a Facebook-to-Facebook call from within Skype. This new development in the Skype-Facebook partnership is the latest example of how Skype is removing communication barriers and making it easier to connect with friends, family and business colleagues. Our approach to social is about personal connections with people. We are on a mission to connect over one billion people and our continued partnership with Facebook brings us one step closer to this goal.
Initiating a Facebook-to-Facebook call from within Skype is quite easy; all you need to do is connect your Skype and Facebook accounts. Then, select a Facebook friend and hit the video call button in Skype- your friend simply picks up the call from Facebook. This new feature lets you maintain social connections with your Facebook friends and compliments previously announced features such as being able to see when your Facebook friends are online, read their status updates and IM them all from Skype.

Besides this great new Facebook feature, additional new features added to Skype 5.4 Beta for Mac and Skype 5.7 Beta for Windows including video rendering giving a smoother video experience for Mac users and group screen sharing for Windows users with a Premium subscription (group screen sharing is currently available for Mac users). Users who are chatting one-on-one will also be able to screen share with live video streaming.

We're excited about these new enhancements and we would love for you to download the latest version of Skype so you can bring your social network to life with Skype.

Skype announces partnership with Comcast to bring Skype (HD) video calling to more living rooms

 

We're excited to announce a partnership with Comcast, the largest provider of internet and cable service in the U.S. We see a lot of synergies in teaming up with Comcast to enable their customers to communicate with family and friends through Skype HD video calling on their television.

Comcast customers will be able to use Skype video calling from the comfort of their living rooms heralding a whole new experience of Skype, making those moments shared with family and friends when they are apart even more magical. With a broadband connection, HD camera and Skype on the XFINITY service, we think customers will really enjoy a whole new way of using Skype on their television - making the experience much more like a visit than a call.

A Salute to Oprah from Skype

A New York Times post on Facebook today asked "Will you miss The Oprah Winfrey Show?"
As the Oprah Show comes to its grand finale this week, I reflect upon that question, and the answer is a plain and simple "ABSOLUTELY!"
For Skype, we've had the honor and privilege of participating in the Oprah Show for three wonderful years. I remember when the first call took place between Skype's team and Oprah's team talking about how to use Skype on air. We started our first project together setting up video calling for Oprah's webcast to discuss Eckhart Tolle's book. Who knew Skype video calling would become an integral part of her show connecting viewers and guests all over the world for three seasons?
The honor has been ours to not only become a powerful tool for The Oprah Winfrey Show, helping her share important life lessons and entertaining moments; the honor has been ours having Oprah call Skype, "The coolest thing ever." We will miss The Oprah Winfrey Show and we wish Oprah the best luck in her new endeavor at OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).
As a salute to Oprah and to share one of our favorite Skype moments, here's a few video clips from a segment on her show called "Where The Skype Are You?"
And, there's no denying that going to the final taping of The Oprah Show last week was one of my favorite moments ever where it felt like I was part of TV history. So, tune in to Oprah's finale show tomorrow, May 25th.

Make free calls to some Canadian businesses with Skype

If you use Skype on Windows, you can now call some Canadian businesses for free -- with just one click. Thanks to an agreement between Yellow Pages Group and Marchex, you can make free calls to approximately 370,000 Canadian-based businesses advertising with Yellow Pages Group.
Here's how it works:
If you have the Skype Toolbar plug-in installed you'll see a blue 'Free Skype call' button in place of the phone number wherever it appears on websites. When the call button is clicked, the Skype software launches and the call is connected - at no cost to the caller. To see how it works, watch this video:

And, if the business you want to call hasn't signed up for the program, you can still call them at Skype's great low rates.

Advertising in Skype

Today we announce something new – the launch of advertising in Skype, which will appear in the Home tab in Skype starting this week.
The Skype experience is our first priority, which is why we we’ve taken a lot of time working through and testing what kind of advertising would work best in the Skype environment. In fact, some of you may have seen some test ads from our friends at Rdio in the last month or two. As we roll out ads on a wider basis, we expect to continue to test and learn a lot more, and make any necessary adjustments along the way.
We believe that advertising, when done in the right way, will help us continue to invest in developing great products.
Here’s the detail of what we’re doing:

• We’re working with some great advertisers, including Groupon, Universal Pictures, and Visa.
• Ads will appear in the US, UK and Germany and advertising sales for Skype are initially focused in those markets.
• You may only see ads occasionally. Our initial plan is to show an ad from one brand per day in each of the markets where advertising is being sold.
• The ads will appear in the Home tab in Skype for Windows, and we may experiment with ads in other areas as well.
• The ads won’t interrupt your Skype experience. You won’t suddenly see annoying pop-up ads or flashy banner ads in middle of conversations.
• We may use non-personally identifiable demographic data (e.g. location, gender and age) to target ads, which helps ensure that you see relevant ads. For example, if you’re in the US, we don’t want to show you ads for a product that is only available in the UK.
• You can opt out of allowing Skype to share this non-personally identifiable demographic data with advertisers from the Privacy tab in Tools ▸ Options.

Here’s an example of what the ads will look like:

The Skype experience is paramount and we are committed to learning as we go, continuing to evolve the offer for advertisers and to developing great products that enable you to connect whenever you’re apart.