skypeout

Sometime last year I was reading Skype Journal and came across an article by Stuart Henshall (I think, can't find the article because their search doesn't seem to be working), regarding people with large Skype buddy lists. He was wondering why certain people had massive Skype buddy lists and was also interested in the composition of such lists. Ever since then, I too have been intrigued by the subject. Who uses Skype? Who are they calling? What types of calls are taking place? What do people use Skype for? These questions and others I still ponder. Clearly people use Skype to make all conceivable types of calls, but I'm more interested in the larger trends and I believe I've noticed one in particular.

I use Skype everyday to talk to coworkers and others I have dealings with via EQO. Since I leave my Skype client running on my work computer all day every day, I've had quite the opportunity to rack up an interesting contact list. I have 148 contacts and the breakdown is as such:

5 Friends

9 Random dudes who added me

17 Colleagues, people who don't work at EQO that I converse with pertaining to EQO

18 Demo/Test, for further EQO purposes

23 Work, assorted EQO employees

24 EQO Users

52 Random girls who added me

Which brings me to the revelation (that I've clearly been learning slowly over time, but revelation! sounds much more exciting), 52 random girls added me to Skype last year and called me to talk to me in person without knowing me or having seen a picture of me, merely based on my age, sex, and location statistics! I'm not saying I'm some kind of ladies man, since these girls had no idea who I was (and 9 random dudes added me, what does that tell you?). These ladies were just bored and looking for a Canadian guy to talk to, this blows my mind! They are all between the ages of 17 and 24, save one 44 year old out-lier (what did she have in mind?), and are based randomly throughout the world. In fact, only one is from Canada! It seems that the internet and very large distances have removed the fear from internet savvy, lonely girls world wide. I assume its a two way street, that surely these girls are solicited with Skype add requests by random dudes much more often than I.

Therefore, it seems that one of the primary uses of Skype is international flirting, who knew? I know I don't have the nerve to call random people and strike up a conversation...

You may wonder why I accept these random add requests? Well, it's because I'm curious as to what a random person might have to say to me, notwithstanding that they may be EQO users, which happens. Don't worry bosses, I don't talk to these lonely girls! In fact, I only use Skype at work for work; I wouldn't blog myself into trouble!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

VoIP spam or what is commonly referred to as "SPIT" (Spam over Internet Telephony) has been discussed extensively in the press but the problem appears completely contained. If you do a search on Google for "VoIP spam", all of the top ranked articles are of 2004 vintage. Is it simply that there is far greater economic incentive for a spammer to spend a few seconds to spam millions of people using email than to waste several seconds to annoy just one person using VoIP? If that is the case, voice communications has inherent anti-spamming characteristics.

The number one support question we get here at EQO always has to do with data network errors. EQO Mobile requires that your phone have a data internet connection that allows tcp connections. For help setting up a connection, check out this forum topic dedicated to the issue:

http://community.eqo.com/forum/data_network_errors_0

Also, these two sites are great for setting up connections on Sony Ericsson and Nokia phones.

EQO now supports the Sony Ericsson K300, K790, K800, and Z1010! We'll hopefully be adding more phone support next week thanks to some of the excellent users who responded to my previous post. Thank you to those who helped us get EQO onto these phones. Keep your eye out for new products and more phone support coming from EQO very soon!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

EQO users, we want to know if you use Standby Mode with EQO Mobile. If you are unsure as to what Standby Mode is or does, let me explain. When in Standby Mode, EQO Mobile does not maintain the internet connection on your phone, which means that you use less data and less battery power. EQO Mobile goes into Standby Mode after a period of inactivity, the length of which is set via the “Standby Timer” window found in the Settings menu. We want to know if this functionality is important to you. In the month or two that Standby capability has been deployed, no user has ever mentioned standby mode. I’m wondering if anyone uses it. What do you think? Please tell me by commenting in this forum thread.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

We need some help testing EQO on these phones. What’s in it for you? For one, you get to be the first to use EQO on your phone. And in addition to the inherent glory and honor, we are offering EQO T-Shirts and SkypeOut credit to helpful testers.

Thanks to our fairly new Forum Nokia Pro membership we were able to borrow a Nokia 6230i and get EQO running on it. We've signed up to borrow a few E and N series Nokia phones as well, so hopefully we'll be able to get EQO going on these devices pretty quick here. But getting EQO on to the 6230i will have to be good enough news for today, and great news it is seeing as this is one of our most requested phones. Keep in mind folks that the 6230i is totally different than the 6230, which is another popular one. If you are looking to get EQO onto your 6230, you'll have to wait a bit longer:)

EQO 0.92.3 for the PC and Mac was released today. You can grab the latest version of EQO for your computer via the upgrade link on the www.eqo.com main page. There are two major changes in EQO 0.92.3, the first being that the Skype 2.5 incoming call problem has been fixed. Second, Skype on your computer will now be started if it’s not running when you begin using EQO. EQO will also restart Skype in the event of a crash, which happens fairly often in Skype 2.5 at the moment. However, you must set Skype to “Sign me in when Skype starts”, which you can do by checking the box of the same name on the Skype startup screen, so that you are signed in when Skype starts, other wise this feature is a bit useless.

EQO has also changed its authentication scheme. We’ve done this because we felt we had to in order to improve our service in the long run. What this means is that you need to change your password if you signed up for EQO on April 10th or earlier. To change your password please go to www.eqo.com and sign in using your EQO ID and current password at the top right corner of the page. Then click on “Change My Password” on the left to update your password. Your new password can be the same as your old password; we just need to have an updated record in our database.

If you want to take EQO on the road for an extended period of time then you aren’t going to have access to your computer. This is why we at EQO have enabled EQO to auto start Skype. When you sign in to EQO Mobile, EQO will start Skype on your computer if it’s not running already. EQO will also restart Skype if it crashes, which happens more often than we’d like in Skype 2.5. One catch is that you must check the box that says “Sign me in when Skype starts” that is shown in the Skype startup window. EQO is now Skype crash proof, letting you take your buddies with you with greater certainty.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

I need a few testers to give the latest EQO Mobile pre-beta for CDMA Treo 650 a try. I had many a month or two ago and those I've emailed recently haven't replied back to me yet. This is fairly urgent as we'd like to release immediately if our latest attempts proves sucessful. If you have a Treo 650 on the Sprint or Verizon network and you don't mind taking part in a fairly complicated process please let me know as soon as possible. Just to let you know that my requests for testers sometimes result in my receiving an enormous and unmanagable number of responses, so don't be upset if I turn your down. T-shirts, SkypeOut credit, fame and fortune, honour and prestige are the spoils that go to the chosen few testers. Email me, chris@eqo.com, if you are up for the challenge.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist