Walter's Weblog

1:08:00 AM On the awesomeness of Skype

I remember, years ago... back in the days when USENET actually had decent conversations, back before the days of home broadband, back when the first "voice over ip" programs started to arrive. I remember how cool it was to chat with random strangers over the internet, how everyone was just so nice and courteous because pretty much everyone was just so pleased to be experimenting with an exciting new technology.

Fast forward 11 years later and now we have programs like Skype. Amazingly the voice quality is still the same! At first I ignored the whole thing, why would I want to skype? I've got Trillian and every major IM network at my fingertips in one program AND I'd have to setup microphones and stuff. Well, now that I'm podcasting I've got mics setup- 2 mics on stands actually and one of them actually looks like a real microphone too :)

So I had no more excuses and then one day, Skype-fate came knocking: A producer of a major podcast emailed me asking for help with enhanced podcasts and asked if we could Skype about it. Of course, I replied, not actually having Skype installed, but wanting to help none-the-less. Installing Skype was a snap and I had a really great time using it! I was hooked.

But then, I started hearing my iPal Oblivion's podcast where he was playing voicemails he got through Skype. It was then that I realized Skype's true power: asynchronous voice communication. HOT! But how was he doing voicemessages with Skype? I didn't see the little "Skype Voicemail" indicator next to his name... and then I realized, there must a program for it! Here's one I found that you may like. Now I've got my voicemail setup for some AVC and I'm now ready to give out my Skype address which is celerityfm, btw :). Though because I am paranoid I have taken small measures to thwart the specter of skype address harvesters with this excellent tool. I use it on my email addresses too. Interestingly enough you can use the "callto://" links to REAL phone numbers as well.

But back to the topic of AVC, I think it was George Carlin who joked that in the age of answer machines we don't call to talk to people anymore but call to talk to the machine! And the reason it's true is because asynchronous communication rocks! Be it voicemail, email, instant messaging, text messaging, irc, blogging[hi!], postal mail, etc. I've always been a HUGE fan of asynchronous communication because of the level of attention it requires, which is to say "barely any"-- I can have dozens of conversations going on at once. For example with this one I'm having with you right now I've also got an IM window open with my brother plus incoming emails from a few others.

And for the record I don't think there's anything wrong with calling to speak to the machine really- sometimes you just need to "vmail" something to someone :) So feel free to "vmail me"!

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