Skype Stories


The following sections contain stories that highlight how people use Skype to enable business, education, and personal relationships from Montana to Mozambique.

Note

The stories here are fictionalized, but they were inspired by real reports of how people are using Skype.


Extend Business Relationships

Skype allows teams of people in different geographies and time zones to work collaboratively.

Support Virtual Teams

People who work together but don't reside in the same building (or city, state, or country) use Skype to hold spontaneous meetings.

I am a manager at a software company that has contract employees in India and Japan. Communication among our staff used to be difficult to coordinate and very expensive. We had one phone meeting that cost $1,200. Now we use Skype to keep "the lines" open, and we can just talk while we work.

Leave Late-Night Messages

Skype's voice messaging allows users to leave a voice message without having to ring Skype. This feature works much like a text message, but listeners can hear the message with the intent and tones of the caller's voice.

My team works on different schedules, and I like to work late. At 3 a.m., I can leave a voice message of what I want done for the following day. I don't have to ring anybody's phone or be forced to have a conversation when I just want to leave a message. Voice messages work much better for me than e-mail. Somehow, when my staff hears my voice, we have fewer misunderstandings.

Reach Clients in Different Time Zones

The online-status indicator allows Skype users in different time zones to know when someone is online and might be available to communicate. Typically, Skype users in business situations send an instant message (IM) first to find out whether the other person is available to talk.

I work in Beijing. I have clients who can't keep track of the time difference but don't want to interrupt me during the night. I let them know they can always check my Skype status any time of day. If they see that I'm online, they can just IM me with something like "Are you available for a 2-minute call?" With Skype, they get their answers quickly, without having to wait for an e-mail.

Do Business at 35,000 Feet

Airlines like Lufthansa, Japan Airlines, SAS, ANA, and Singapore Airlines now offer Wi-Fi service on their international flights. Korean Air, El Al, China, and Asiana airlines expect to have Wi-Fi within the coming year.

With a Wi-Fi connection, business travelers on long flights can hold Skype meetings, have conference calls, send documents back and forth, and IM colleagues and friends back home. Wi-Fi is significantly cheaper than in-flight phone connections, which cost $8 to $12 per minute.

I spoke this afternoon with my CEO, who was high over the Atlantic flying home from Eastern Europe. He paid $20 for a Wi-Fi connection for the duration of the flight. The sound quality was as good as ever, and he was just using the built-in microphone on his Mac.

Host International Conferences

Skype enables conference calls with up to five people on the same call.

We recently held our first international panel discussion with university delegates from Sao Paulo, Milan, Dusseldorf, and Cairo. We also had 13 delegates "in attendance" from several universities in the United States via Skype. We set up three laptops with computer speakers and omnidirectional microphones. Each voice came through loudly and clearly, and no one had to strain to hear.

Take Meeting Minutes

"Skypecasting" has become a way to share meeting minutes.

When we have an important Skype conference call, I record the meeting, convert it to an MP3 file, and then send it to my co-workers. For meetings such as requirements sessions, we get an authentic record of what the client actually said.

Reach New Educational Audiences

Skype connects teachers with learners even when they are thousands of miles apart.

Extend Classrooms

When a Skype call is amplified using computer speakers, the volume of a call can be adjusted to fit the size of the room.

I teach high school students throughout the world how to use software like Photoshop and Dreamweaver via Webconference. I use a Webconferencing tool to provide the visuals. I used to use a speakerphone for the audio, but the speakerphone connection was unreliable, and students often had trouble hearing me. With Skype, students get high-quality sound from their computer speakers, whether I'm teaching a small group or presenting to an audience of 200 kids. And if they need to hear better, they can just turn up the speaker volume.

Teach and Mentor

Skype is being used to coordinate long-distance learning.

I have teachers in local schools in 17 U.S. states. When I'm mentoring a new group, I send out a PowerPoint presentation to each teacher, and we go through it page by page as a group while using Skype to talk through issues and questions.

Build Student Communities

Skype is linking long-distance learners.

We teach online audio engineering courses to students all over the country. Because our students are often isolated from one another, we have implemented Skype to help build a better sense of community. One student in Topeka, Kansas, can interact with another student in Buffalo, New York, who can give advice to a yet another student in Madison, Wisconsin.

Connect with People in Remote Places

Skype allows people to talk from places that used to require special communications gear.

On an island

I have been visiting a tiny island in the Caribbean regularly for many years now. Until a decade ago, the only connection to the world was a two-way radio. Cell phone service arrived recently, but most island natives can't afford the $4- to $5-per-minute rates. Curiously, the island has broadband Internet access, so I brought Skype to their attention. Island natives can talk freely to their relatives on the mainland for the first time in history.

On a mountaintop

Skype solved the latest of the many challenges I have had getting voice to and from the Sherpas on the slopes of Mount Everest in Nepal. My most recent conversationat 13,000 feet in Namche, Nepalwas an hour long, clear as a bell, and as loud as when I was up there in person a year ago.

In the middle of the ocean

I work for a telecommunication company in Asia. We provide TCP/IP connections via satellite to ships and shipping companies for low-bandwidth communication (such as e-mail). We decided to test Skype via our shared 64KB global satellite link. Apart from the slight delay that comes with some satelliteearth relay stations, it worked perfectly and was absolutely clear. I was outside in my yard talking to people in the middle of the ocean 1,000 miles away.

In a tropical rainforest

I am writing this by candlelight. The nearest town from here is 3 hours away in the dry season and 3 days away in the wet. I have been working here for a week, and my "officemates" have included monkeys, crocodiles, piranhas, and venomous snakes. There is no telephone here; there is no running water; there is no main electricity. But surprisingly, there is broadband Internet access. My host set it up using a satellite dish, a series of solar panels, and a current inverter. He is an avid Skype user, and just yesterday he talked with the veterinarians at the Jacksonville Zoo.

In a war zone

I'm a director for an international news bureau. Three weeks ago, we were interviewing a reporter in Iraq but were unable to establish a connection via our usual comm links (VPN, satphone, landline, and mobile). I had the reporter initiate a SkypeOut call to us, and it worked really well. The sound was usable, so we aired it to hundreds of radio stations in the United States and millions of listeners nationwide.

Stay in Touch During Emergencies

Skype provides an alternative way to stay in touch when communicating is difficult or dangerous.

Locate Family and Friends

Skype has helped families locate their loved ones when the traditional telephone systems are bogged down and don't work.

I live in Auckland, New Zealand. My parents, brother, and sister all live in London. The minute I saw the London bombing footage on TV, I desperately tried to reach my parents to find out whether they were all right. I just kept getting the busy signal or the ever-frustrating "Please try again later."

I hooked up my headphones, and in seconds, I was talking to my dad with Skype. I tried my brother and sister, and reached my brother at work. He had just spoken with my sister. Everyone was fine.

Bypass Congested Networks

Having a SkypeIn number in another country also helps bypass congested networks.

I was in Paris at the time of the London bombings, but I have clients in Finland who didn't know I was away from the office. They tried my office number in London but couldn't get through. Luckily, I also have a SkypeIn number (in Finland), so they were able to call it and reach me right away.

Communicate During Wartime

Skype is being used for communications in war-torn areas where making traditional calls can be dangerous.

My father is overseas as a member of the UN peacekeeping organization. The situation is very tense. He says it is dangerous to use the phone, but yesterday we spoke for nearly two hours using Skype. I feel better knowing what is really going on there (not just what I see on TV), and I felt safer knowing that our conversation was secure and couldn't be tapped.

Meet People from Other Countries

Skype makes it easy to reach out and talk to new people. The SkypeMe feature connects strangers from across the globe.

I like to set my online status to SkypeMe just to see who might contact me. Two months ago, I got a call from a retired engineer in Sydney, Australia, who was planning a summer cruise with his wife through Alaska's Passage region. He wanted to know everything from how much American money he should carry to what the weather would be to what side trips he had to take. Now I know who to call when I'm ready to travel to Australia.

SkypeMe connections can also lead to discoveries that cross geographic boundaries and generational barriers. The following was excerpted with permission from John Perry Barlow's online journal BarlowsFriendz:

I was sitting at my desk in New York on Wednesday night, when Skype started to emit the old-fashioned bell tone that signals a request for a call. The name of the caller was "Kitty." There was also a text chat box on the screen, also from Kitty which read, "I need a friend." I was skeptical. I figured that "Kitty," or whomever, was probably looking for "friends" to come see her "relax" in her Web cam equipped "bedroom." But I took the call.

A delicate Asian-sounding voice came from someplace in cyberspace. "Will you talk to me?" she said. "Why?" "I want to practice my English." "Why me?" "Because your name is John. I think that anybody named John speaks English." I remained skeptical, but further conversation convinced me that she was telling the truth. Kitty turned out to be a 22-year-old girl from Hanoi, who, like her father, works for the state-owned oil company. She had managed to get five of her neighbors in the Hanoi suburb where she lives to go in on a DSL line and WiFi which she had set up herself. Her boyfriend is off in Korea getting a master's degree in telecommunications. She has three sisters and sent me a picture of her family.

We talked for a long time, in voice, text, photographs, and URLs. I sent her to my home page, so that she could find out more about me. Then I helped her set up an account on Tribe.net, so that people could find out more about her. She sent me a picture of her boyfriend and talked about the dreams they had together. Her spoken English did indeed need practice, but she wrote English with correct lucidity.

We talked a lot about politics and economics in Vietnam. She said she made the equivalent of about 100 dollars a month, that her family was very poor but middle-class by Vietnamese standards, and that they love each other so much that they feel very lucky anyway. Her father had been in the army, making me think that, had things gone a different way, I might have been put in a position to kill him, thus eliminating the possibility of this conversation. I reflected that there are some who visit this blog who even now would think me cowardly and unpatriotic for having refused to be put in that position.

Toward the end of this conversation, I got another invitation to converse. This time, the initiator was "Christine." I answered in text, while continuing my conversation with "Kitty." As soon as Kitty and I signed off, I "rang" "Christine." She was, believe it or not, also a twenty-two year-old from Asia who wanted to practice English. My suspicion that this might be some kind of a scam had dissipated somewhat. Still, I began to think my name might be on some list of easily-distracted English speakers, possibly with a penchant for young Asian women, but they both swore to me that there was no such list and that they had parachuted onto my desktop entirely at random. I believe them. They both seem utterly without guile, and they gave every evidence of being genuinely surprised at what their random troll through Skype's waters had fetched up.

Christine is a business student in university in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, just north of Hong Kong. Christine speaks extraordinarily clear English, though her writing needs some practice. We went through the same rapid process of getting to know each other. She told me that she dreams to go to Harvard Business School, which she thought was a long shot for someone from a provincial Chinese university. It didn't seem so ridiculous to me. She is obviously very smart and possesses a subtle understanding of the economic epoch in which she and others like her will ascend into global predominance. She was delighted to hear that she'd happened on someone who might actually be able to help her realize this ambition. Lord knows she sounds qualified.

We also had a wonderful dialogue in several simultaneous media. This included an experiment to test Chinese filtration. I sent her to check on a number of Web sites that I thought might be banned in China. None of them were. Nor did she sound like someone who was glancing over her shoulder. She had her own point of view, and she wasn't afraid to state it.

Now, of course, I know what you're thinking. "Poor old fool doesn't even know when he's being exploited by beautiful young Asian women." If they'd been hunting for rich saviors, they could easily have found better candidates than me. (Listening to Kitty rhapsodize about her boyfriend, of whom she also sent me a picture, makes it very clear that she's not looking for a husband.) Also, neither of them particularly needs saving.

The bottom line is this: both of these people reached out at random into the Datacloud and found a real friend. And I feel like I have been graced with a real friend in both of them. Given the fact that I've been getting interesting messages from distant strangers since 1985, why do I think this is a big deal? Why is this different?

Because these strangers have voices. There's a lot more emotional bandwidth in the human voice. I'm always surprised by the real version of someone I've only encountered in ASCII. I'm rarely surprised by someone I've only met on the phone. But one doesn't get random phone calls from Vietnam or China, or at least one never could before. Skype changes all that. Now anybody can talk to anybody, anywhere. At zero cost. This changes everything. When we can talk, really talk, to one another, we can connect at the heart.

Develop New Hobbies and Skills

Skype creates new ways to collaborate with other people.

Learn a Language

SkypeMe allows language learners to find native tutors.

I've already found a couple of new friends to help me practice my Japanese by using the SkypeMe feature with the Japan/Japanese options. I've been studying Japanese for only a year, so when there is a word I don't understand, my tutor friend will just IM the word to me and then I'll look it up.

Make Music Online

Skype is helping artists and musicians collaborate.

I am a beat boxer. I make music and rhythms with my mouth. I've had trouble meeting other beat boxers because I live in a small town in Germany, and the nearest big city is too far for my parents to drive. With Skype, I can meet and jam with beat boxers for hours and never have to leave my room.

Play Online

Online gamers use Skype to do "table talk."

I play online backgammon. I love being able to play whenever I want, but there is something missing when I can't talk to my opponent. I started a Yahoo! group so gamers can get together with Skype. It's made playing online much more action-packed.

Rehearse

Actors and comedians rehearse remotely on Skype.

I had a scene for class I had to rehearse with two other people. I didn't want to miss a weekend getaway with my family just to run lines, so I set up a conference call on Skype. It worked perfectly, and we were able to rehearse the scene many times. I was at the farm with my husband; one woman was on a cell phone at a restaurant in Hollywood; and the other was on a cell phone at the beach, watching her kids.

Share Music

Friends far away share their favorite local bands.

I had my laptop with me at the pub when I suddenly realized that Crazy Cow was getting ready to perform. I immediately Skyped my friend in Taiwan, cranked up the mic, and enjoyed the whole live concert with her. We had a 16-hour difference between us, and she was literally at the other end of the world, but we enjoyed the music togetherlivewith commentary and a little IM too.

Find Love

People use Skype to find love, but even with Skype, love can be tricky.

I met a woman online who lives in Nevada. We traded e-mails for a while and then I asked her to try Skype. She didn't have a headset at first, so initially, our "conversations" consisted of me talking with her text-messaging me back! Then she got a headset, and we talked for hours at a time. After a month, we decided to meet. I flew to Las Vegas, and in person . . . let's just say that she must have sent me some very old photos. There was no chemistry at all. What a disappointment. Next time, I'm using video calling.

Keep Families Connected over Long Distances (and Short Ones, Too)

Skype helps keep long-distance relationships vibrant and alive.

Share the Small Stuff

Skype allows people to share the sounds of a new place.

I bought a SkypeIn number in the United States for my sister, and now she calls me frequently. We mainly talk about the small things that happen every day. Yesterday, I sat in a rickshaw with my cellular data connection and allowed her to listen in on the street sounds of Bangalore. It's amazing how the thousands of miles between us can just vanish.

Date Long-Distance

Skype helps people who are separated by geography stay close.

My boyfriend and I used to live 3,000 miles apart. We used to e-mail each other every day, but neither of us could afford the phone. Then I heard that Skype would work with my university's firewall, so I tried it. We started Skyping all the time. We would Skype each other when we woke up, Skype to help each other with homework during the day, and Skype to say good night each night before going to bed. That was a year ago. We decided to move in together, so now I use Skype to call my family.

Stop Yelling

Getting through to teenagers is also easier with Skype.

My son is fond of playing on his computer. His room is in the far end of the house, and he can't hear me when I'm in the kitchen. I don't like yelling (especially when he doesn't answer), so I downloaded Skype onto his computer. Now I just call or send an IM when I need to let him know it's time to set the table.

Cook Traditional Family Recipes

Food tastes better.

My wife uses Skype to make desserts. For baklava:

Ingredients:

1 pound phyllo pastry

1 cup melted butter

2 cups finely chopped walnuts or blanched almonds

For the syrup:

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup honey

1 cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions:

  1. Spread pastry out in a pan.

  2. Open Skype on the laptop in the kitchen.

  3. Call grandmother in Athens to ask what comes next.

Help Grandpa Hear

Skype calls received through a pair of computer speakers help older relatives hear.

My hearing is not very good. Even at the loudest setting, most phones don't amplify enough for me. With Skype, I can turn up the volume on my computer speakers and hear everything my grandkids have to say! Plus they think it's pretty neat that their grandad knows how to use a computer.

Skype is being used in variety of ways to improve daily communication and bring the world closer together. New Skype features are being added continually, so the ways people use Skype will continue to expand.




Skype. The Definitive Guide
Skype: The Definitive Guide
ISBN: 032140940X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 130

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