Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Skypecasts

One of the great successful-so-far stories of the web is Skype, the voice-over-IP giant that saw its user base spread like wildfire through the word of mouth network of the internet. (And that’s one of the reasons I’m so pleased that Skype’s UK Manager, Alistair Shrimpton, will be on hand at What MySpace Means on 21st June to talk to us about the Skype approach to community cultivation.)

Acquired last year by eBay, Skype seems to be keeping its focus on community-enabling features. The just-announced Skypecasting addition to the product is certainly causing some excitement. From the independently produced Skype Journal comes this proclamation:

The announcement of Skype’s Skypecasting service is second in importance only to the announcement of Skype on August 31st 2003. Forget the fact you can have a conference call with 100 people. 100 is just a numbers game. Skypecasting changes forever the idea of podcasting. Blogging will be different after today. This is the wide channel. Skype in 2003 was mostly about you and someone else communicating, 1 to 1. Of course in 2004 we had conferencing of up to 5. But they were mostly private affairs. Family, cliques. Skypecasting is about groups, about public. About conversations: moderating, facilitation, sharing. Skype is about global connections and exchanges. Skypecasting is your village, your pub, your community. Live, real-time, now.

Should be interesting fodder for discussion with Alistair on June 21st.