Tag Archives: im

Skype as Facebook, and a quick counterpoint

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Luca posted a great blog today, about how Skype has a way to become a social networking powerhouse, a la Facebook.  Interestingly, it was on Facebook that I saw Luca’s tweet about the new post:

All that above together with the new features introduced with Skype 2.8 for Mac made me wonder: can Skype ever become the next big thing in the field of “social networking” rather than “only” the most popular VoIP service ever? Let’s try to analyze how far Skype is from this “big picture”.

Users are not certainly a problem for Skype. With over 200M users (not active, but downloads), it’s not far from the huge 150M active users of Facebook. What Facebook is missing at this time is a powerful desktop client. Despite the world of consumer services is moving to the “cloud”, having an always on client on your PC has many benefits, such as being always available and experiencing a realtime interaction with your friends.

I don’t know if a desktop client is the best place to do social activity management.  The browser is good for what’s it’s good for: rich browsing experiences.  But I don’t want to change the form factor of the IM client just to accomodate a feed list or yet another messaging utility.  Skype needs to stay in the same size and shape it has now: on the right side of my screen, occupying maybe 10% of my real estate.

Plus, the other thing that’s cool about Facebook is that nothing has to be immediate.  The realtime nature of Skype conversations is precisely why I’d sometimes rather communicate on Facebook, or e-mail, etc.  But please read Luca’s post, as it is a really cool idea that warrants deeper inspection.

Palringo fills important gaps on iPhone

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There’s one feature Apple doesn’t advertise, one that comes with every iPhone: a Palringo-shaped hole.

Palringo is a messaging/voice communication solution that runs on desktop PCs and cellphones, but it really shines on the iPhone in particular.  This is because it offers multimedia messaging, a feature consipicuously missing from the iPhone since day one. Check out the latest:

PALRINGO BRINGS FIRST ‘RICH MESSAGING SERVICE’ TO THE IPHONE

LONDON–July 29, 2008—iPhone™ owners can now download Palringo’s rich messaging service (RMS) application from Apple®’s new App Store. Palringo enables picture messaging, text-based messaging and, soon, vocal instant messaging over the iPhone’s data connection.

Palringo integrates with several existing popular instant-messaging (IM) services: AOL’s AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber and Windows Live Messenger. People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat, Apple’s IM client.

Palringo offers two unique advantages to iPhone owners:
·       People can stay connected to the most popular messaging services at the same time, without the need to switch between applications or use Web-based messaging services.
·       In the current absence of multi-media messaging service (MMS) capabilities on the 3G iPhone, Palringo offers the ability to send and receive picture messages using the iPhone’s data connection.

Palringo launches and connects within seconds, with a single screen tap. Palringo then presents a person’s IM contacts in a single, combined, presence-aware list, whichever IM service their contacts are using. Sending a voice, picture or text-based message, whether to an individual or a group, are also single screen-tap operations.

Vocal IM, which is already available on all other Palringo-supported platforms, will be added in the second release of Palringo for the iPhone.

Palringo CEO Kerry Ritz said: “Just as Apple has changed people’s view of what it should be like to use a mobile phone, so Palringo aims to change the way people see messaging. Billions of people already use instant messaging on their home or work computers to communicate with each other. Palringo has added vocal instant messaging and picture messaging and has put IM on the iPhone—that’s a great combination.”

Using Palringo will barely make a dent in an iPhone customer’s data usage:  Just one megabyte is sufficient for Palringo to send/receive the equivalent of about 4,500 SMS messages, send/receive about 32 picture messages or send/receive as much as 15 minutes of vocal instant messages.

The service is available worldwide, which means conversations can incorporate people from across the globe, on any mobile network or connected PC or Mac. This makes it very attractive for multi-national corporate users or extended family use.

Palringo for the iPhone is free, and is easy to download and install from Apple’s new App Store. There are no hidden costs, catches or other charges.

As well as the iPhone—both the original and new models—Palringo works on almost all models of mobile phone released in the last two years; visit www.palringo.com.