New Skype is out…

by on September 5, 2006

Interesting, Skype comes out with a new version (2.5) with a bunch of new features and it isn’t on TechMeme. UPDATE: I’m just lame and late to the party. Oh well, I have the new stuff now, wanna try it out?

New features? Call phones more easily, send SMS messages, share contact details with your group, view and call Outlook contacts. But the biggie is better Skypecasts support that’s in the beta of 2.6.

How about trying it out tonight at 7 p.m. Pacific Time? My Skype name? RobertScoble.

  • Been out for a while Robert. That's why its not on TechMeme.
  • Sheldon: hmmm, someone told me it came out today. Weird, damn sources! :-)
  • colin
    Vonage/MSN will take the consumer market and why use proprietary Skype when you can use SIP-based services which are super low cost to PSTN (@ 1c a minute to Europe or less) or free.

    Skype downgraded its branding when it went to eBay. Google talk, smoogle talk.
  • colin: I don't know that I agree with you about Vonage. Seems like they are paying a ton to acquire customers but not having that good a run at doing that.

    I use GoogleTalk too.
  • Anyone here tried Yahoo Messenger w/ voice? Works quite well and the sound quality is good, though it does not have as many features as Skype does..
  • The one thing that Vonage need to do is let existing customers get their soft phone for free. I am not going to use Vonage for my computer for an extra 10 buck when skype is free for computer to computer.
  • colin
    Robert: Vonage is a first generation type player for sure and they will pay for that in the cost of land grab, but you don't see Skype advertised on TV. The MSN Messenger generation may love skype, but they are not the mass consumer market. With a Vonage-like service you use your regular phone - KISS in action. In canada Rogers Cable has that a step further - they provide VOIP, but they actually install a box at your demarkation point so that all the phones in your house magically switch to VOIP though it a hidden VOIP network - frustratingly inaccessible for the geek, but bliss for the mass consumer. So I still stand by Vonage/Rogers-like service for mass consumers and outwardly SIP-based services for VOIP. MSN Messenger runs on SIP btw!
  • Like others, I just don't understand why the "A, B. C" list is into Skype. Remember, the developers were the ones that developed the most bug infected, spyware, peer-to-peer network known to man kind.
    I just don't get it!
  • Just watch out for the huge problem with online/away/offline status not showing correctly. But Skype will say they're sorry and tell you that you are welcome to check for updates.
  • Walsh
    Skype shmype, Google shmoogle. You all need to check out SightSpeed! It works great for Mac and PC users, and the video quality is far superior to all other real time video services.
  • If you want to record calls, get Gizmo, which uses standard SIP and allows you to call free to 60 countries, in some cases even to mobile phones.

    The way it works is you sign up and assign a phone number to the account - after which you can call said number from Gizmo for free.

    One thing that really peeves me from Skype is that the Mac version is always two years behind the Windows version. They just recently launched v1.5 -beta-, which included, lo and behold, video! None of the funky new features of v2.6 for Mac users.
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