Skype Pretty Much Rules
Every now and again, I'll run accross something that just absolutely captures my imagination. I become immediately addicted to it and mildly (and occasionally completely) obsessed with it.
One thing like this for me was Geocaching. It only took one time out to get completely hooked on it and I haven't stopped since. I think everyone can think back and remember the feeling as they approached their first cache. 100 feet now... 75... 60... 35... I don't see it... AH! THERE IT IS!
The feeling from that first cache was just infectuous. You wanted that excitement again.
I hadn't felt that way in a long time. Recently I had that experience when I began to dig into Skype, a free Internet telephony service, and all that it could do.
Skype (www.skype.com) is a free program to download and use. Calling computer to computer is free as well and for a small fee, you can actually call land lines using it. The price per minute to use it for calling the United States, Australia and many parts of Europe is just 1.7 Euro per minute. That's about $.02 US.
You can also get voicemail on Skype for 15 Euro per year. It's in beta but I took the chance and love it. Additionally you can get a phone number assigned to your Skype account and people can call you from a land line! Pretty cool stuff.
With a new API to interface to the deepest inner workings, and making it freely available to developers, I think we're going to see a Skype explosion in the next year. The people at the forefront of the development effort are the same guys who pioneered Kazaa, the file sharing service.
Except this time, it's legit. No banner ads. No spyware. No hinkey stuff. Just great Internet Telephony that Just Works (TM).
I put up a beta site for Geocachers who want to make themselves available to other Geocachers who Skype. You can list your Skype ID and find others at
http://www.wunderware.com/geoskypers/
One thing like this for me was Geocaching. It only took one time out to get completely hooked on it and I haven't stopped since. I think everyone can think back and remember the feeling as they approached their first cache. 100 feet now... 75... 60... 35... I don't see it... AH! THERE IT IS!
The feeling from that first cache was just infectuous. You wanted that excitement again.
I hadn't felt that way in a long time. Recently I had that experience when I began to dig into Skype, a free Internet telephony service, and all that it could do.
Skype (www.skype.com) is a free program to download and use. Calling computer to computer is free as well and for a small fee, you can actually call land lines using it. The price per minute to use it for calling the United States, Australia and many parts of Europe is just 1.7 Euro per minute. That's about $.02 US.
You can also get voicemail on Skype for 15 Euro per year. It's in beta but I took the chance and love it. Additionally you can get a phone number assigned to your Skype account and people can call you from a land line! Pretty cool stuff.
With a new API to interface to the deepest inner workings, and making it freely available to developers, I think we're going to see a Skype explosion in the next year. The people at the forefront of the development effort are the same guys who pioneered Kazaa, the file sharing service.
Except this time, it's legit. No banner ads. No spyware. No hinkey stuff. Just great Internet Telephony that Just Works (TM).
I put up a beta site for Geocachers who want to make themselves available to other Geocachers who Skype. You can list your Skype ID and find others at
http://www.wunderware.com/geoskypers/
posted by Mike @ 9:54 AM
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