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The whole world can talk for free. Skype.com |
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“Plug in to Skype”–Skype Developer Program Newsletter |
Thanks for developing for Skype. We are pleased to share with you: |
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| Voxlib Mobile Plug-In |
Guest writer – Niklas Zennström
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“Merry Christmas to all our software partners”
I am delighted to welcome you to the Skype Developers Program (SDP) Christmas newsletter. Paul has asked me to drop you all a note – not just to wish you all "Merry Christmas" but also to tell you a bit more about what’s in store for Skype next year.
But before I do, I wanted to say that for so long, we’ve been really keen to bring our developer community closer to Skype. Why? Well, we see you as key partners for us to take Skype further on its journey of becoming the world’s greatest internet communications offering. And we mean it!
Your contributions and innovation skills are incredibly important to us. I mean that. Innovation and change will always define Skype. And I really believe that when it comes to innovating, only the fast beat the slow. The quicker we are to market with great new features, the more people will talk about us to their friends and family and the power of viral marketing will take over.
We don’t claim to have all the greatest ideas in the world. We need you to help us with that. And we want to help your products succeed. We need each other. Our vision is to take internet communications well beyond the computer. Talk to us, make Skype an even better internet communications experience and together we’ll continue to change the way the world communicates forever.
Thank you for all your efforts so far,
Niklas
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Extras: Concept to cash
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Overview
For a while now, Skype has been working closely with 3rd party developers to enable Skype as a distribution platform for value added applications and services. With the release of Skype 3.0, we are happy to announce that with your help we have achieved that goal. 'Extras for Skype' (3rd party apps) and Extras Manager (the client side publishing engine) are now in place. Extras can be published as one of various promotional levels:
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So how does it work?
Many of our partners working on the Early Adopter Program have the scars and smiles to show for an intensive development process, but we've made it. So how does it work? Let me explain: 1. Download Publishing Studio and Extras documentation. Take a look in the client (Do More/Get More) and the Extras Gallery to get an idea of what is current available, and how developers pitch their apps. 2. Develop your app or service. Publish to the Skype Gallery via the Publishing Studio. For games, you will need to have a specific discussion with us about pricing, promotion and publishing. 3. Decide what promotional level you want to be (premium, featured or listed) and sales/pricing policy (unless freeware). For Premium Extras promotional level, enage with us, using the link at the bottom of this article. 4. Sales takes 2 forms. Either you use the Skype DRM and payment engine (on portal), or you use your own (off portal). 5. If your Extra is premium, it will need to be certified. If not, you can request it, but premium takes preference. Download and read the certification specs to be sure what the benchmark is. 6. Skype will generally standardise on a 12 week cycle for Premium Extras, 4 week for Featured, and regular updates for all others. SDP and E-commerce work together to agree the publishing cycle for Premium extras. 7. Your app goes live |
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Share the revenue
8. After a defined trial period (by you), the end user may purchase the app. Until end of Q1 2007 trial period, Skype will manage the revenue share as: 75% for the developer, 25% for Skype. We are exploring other rev share options, and may revise this rate; but for now we want to keep it simple. Check the Publishing agreement for current revenue share details. 9. Via the Gallery BackOffice, you will have access to sales and statistics 10. Do it all again ! Full details can be found under the Concept to Cash wiki page. |
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What are the benefits? (WebDialogs™ example)
Skype/Unyte Comment by WebDialogs Since the release of Skype 3.0 in beta, adoption of Unyte 2.1 has soared, with usage increasing at a rate of 4.4x over the already four-fold increase that Unyte saw with its own recent Unyte 2.1 upgrade release. This is a direct result of the seamless integration of WebDialogs' Unyte Web Conferencing plug-in within Skype 3.0 PM. WebDialogs also attributes this to the growing business user base of Skype, the ease of use and the full featured collaboration functionality that the combination of Skype and Unyte offer the global user base which both solutions benefit. |
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Business interview: Jeremy Hague with Paul-André of OFS Canada (a Skype & Skylook user)
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Jeremy Hague is an Australian software entrepreneur who co-founded Skylook 18 months ago, well before eBay’s acquisition of Skype. His background is in Corporate IT and believes unified messaging (VoIP, Instant Messaging, Email, Contacts, & Calendaring all in one) is the key for business collaboration in today’s digitally connected world.
"Here, Jeremy holds a Q&A session with Paul-André of OFS Canada, a heavy Skype user in business who uses Skylook to leverage the most out of Microsoft Outlook combined with Skype."
Jeremy: Before we begin, I would like to give the readers a little background on Skylook if they have not used it before. Skylook allows you to use Skype from within Outlook. With Skylook, you can call your Outlook contacts over Skype, you can record your Skype calls & IMs and neatly archive them into Outlook, you can have Skylook answer calls for you when you are away from your desk on the Skylook answering machine, plus more.
Please visit the Skylook Website and download 
Business case: Developing a Skype "plug-in" that empowers mobile users
Our team wanted to launch an application that would help Skype users around the world free themselves up from their PC while still being able to get all the benefits of Skype. Our developers really found it simple to work with the Skype API. Compared to all other API’s we have looked at, the Skype low level API is the most complete API available.
With Voxlib, you can harness the power of Skype on your mobile. Any mobile! Directly from your mobile or any other phone you can:
- Call Skype contacts on their PC.
- Call anyone using SkypeOut.
- Know, at anytime, who is online.
- Access your Skype voicemail
- Get information on your missed calls.
- Be notified of missed calls and new voicemails through SM
Paul and the rest of the people at Skype
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