New Skype includes more video
Millions of people around the world already use Skype for making effectively free phone calls over the Internet. This is also known as VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol.
Internet phonecalls work adequately with dial-up connections, unless they don’t, but broadband is a very definite advantage. Add in video though, even at small sizes, and broadband becomes a necessity.
Now, in the next version of the Skype software, currently being tested by users, the video is going to be even bigger and better. Meanwhile, the makers of Skype are trying to make the software easier to use too, according to the NZ Herald:
Skype version 4.0 would begin making video a more integral part of the service.
The 4.0 test version invites users to post bigger photos of themselves, instead of just thumbnail images, to encourage callers to see and be seen.
It also incorporates features for non-technical users that detect computer settings, available bandwidth and connected audio or video devices to make getting started easier.
Skype lets users make international computer-to-computer calls to other users in most countries for free, and calls from Skype-equipped computers or phones to landlines or cell phones at low rates.
Have you tried Skype, either for yourself or your organisation? Do you use it regularly? Please share your thoughts and findings with other readers in the Comments area.
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
June 23, 2008 No Comments
How to set up on Facebook
Wild Apricot Blog not only has an excellent beginner’s guide to Facebook for non-profits:
This powerful networking service is not just for individuals like me to keep in touch with friends. It’s a very effective networking tool for nonprofits to create awareness and connect with their community. In this post, I’ll take you through a beginner’s guide to get your non-profit on Facebook and ways to effectively use this tool. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of features, but it may help get you started.
but also useful information on How to Set Up a Non-Profit Facebook Page:
How do you tell Facebook that you want to make a Page for a nonprofit organization, not for a commercial business?
If you’re even thinking about Facebook — and you should be at least thinking about it — visit for clear, helpful instructions.
June 21, 2008 No Comments
WordPress, Utterz, Flickr, YouTube and the Red Cross
Josh Catone reports:
… while the Central United States recovers from a spate of storms that has ravaged towns with tornadoes and flooding, the American Red Cross is relying on a number of web 2.0 technologies to spread information to the press and people affected by the severe weather. The online newsroom that the organization has set up relies on a number of web 2.0 widgets.
The newsroom site runs off of Wordpress, and it’s being used to push out press releases, media, and information about shelters. The Red Cross is using Utterz to post audio reports from the field, Flickr for photos and YouTube for videos, as well as a Slide-powered slideshow widget that allows anyone to upload photos of disaster areas. The site also features a Google Maps mashup that depicts the surprisingly large number of relief operations currently being run by the American Red Cross
[Via Read/WriteWeb: Social Media Used to Keep Flood Victims Informed.]
June 19, 2008 No Comments
New communicators transform our relationships
Our relationships are no longer the same, thanks to modern communications:
Beam me up, Scotty — before he could utter those immortal words, Captain James T Kirk first had to pull a small device called a ‘communicator’ from his pocket. He’d flip it open, it would chirrup, and communication was established.
In the 1960’s when the Star Trek TV show was created, such a device was the stuff of wildest dreams. Now, in 2008, we wonder why the only thing the ‘communicator’ could do was make what amounted to phonecalls.
Almost everyone now carries a ‘communicator’: a tiny cellphone and/or a tiny MP3 music player. Their capabilities are amazing: phones take photos and MP3 players play videos; keep address books and calendars on both, or either. …
Where you can connect to a wireless network you can use an iPod touch to check email and RSS feeds, browse web pages, Twitter, Facebook and pretty much anything else on the Internet, along with accessing YouTube and the iTunes Store with all its podcasts. Oh, and don’t forget Google Maps that can not only show you where a location is and how it looks, but also give you turn by turn driving directions.
Read more about how we’re caught up in a web of ongoing communications at: iPod touch and iPhone transform our relationships.
February 19, 2008 No Comments
Twitter: a practical device for practical use
Twitter is one of those things that seems just inherently trivial and silly. It’s known as a micro-blogging tool — people write extremely brief ‘updates’ on what’s going on. Updates span a scale from ‘eating Weetbix for breakfast’ to ‘a huge earthquake just took down my house’.
It’s a bit like the early days of the telephone really: people didn’t know yet what it would be able to do, and were concerned about how it might be used:
… [in] the period between 1880 and 1920 … speculation about the telephone was that it would speed up life, eliminate regional accents, create a greater democracy and have people working out of their homes. … The people who developed the telephone had a clear sense of what the device would be used for. “It was emphasized as a practical device for practical use in business,” Fischer explained. “People, particularly women, were discouraged from using the telephone for ‘mere idle gossip.”
[Via: How the Telephone Brought Societal Change.]
Now we know that sometimes that ‘idle gossip’ is the lifeline that can help those who are housebound and isolated, and that the phone is an invaluable business tool.
Similarly with Twitter, which is another, increasingly popular, communications tool.
It can fulfil that role of simply connecting people, as Maria Langer explains:
Twitter is my virtual water cooler, where I keep track of the lives of other geeks like me. I might work alone in a home-based office, but my Twitter friends are always just a mouse click away with links, jokes, and comments to share.
And it can be much more meaningful, as Josh Catone describes in The Rise of Twitter as a Platform for Serious Discourse:
Twitter … is being used as a first alert mechanism for the dissemination of news and for immediate discussion surrounding that news. …
Why Twitter Works for News
It’s fast. Increasingly mainstream news reporters and bloggers are utilizing Twitter to put up news tid bits as they happen, and commentary as it pops into their heads. …
It’s two-way. Unlike TV or newspaper, Twitter allows for a conversation. …
It fills a void. As Ruffini points out, Twitter is built for the new news cycle. “Traditional news operated on a 24-hour cycle. Blogs shortened this to minutes and hours. Twitter shortens it further to seconds,” …
Twitter is being used more and more for mainstream news coverage. KPBS News San Diego uses Twitter to put out updates about stories, for example, and during the California wildfires last fall it was a must read. The potential for Twitter to be used for news dissemination is something the site’s founders realized early on during an earthquake.
[Via Read/WriteWeb: The Rise of Twitter as a Platform for Serious Discourse.]
It was very hard to abbreviate what Josh wrote — you really should read his whole article as there’s excellent content in there.
I’m not convinced that ‘news’ in itself is such an important thing, but I see two differences from traditional TV, radio or newspaper news headlines:
- Anyone who can access the Internet can use Twitter. That means that real people who are experiencing events can give an immediate and direct account of what’s going on. We don’t need to rely on journalists deciding whether or not we’re important, mangling the names, the events, the activities, filtering our words. We the public have direct access to the rest of the world. We can also directly receive immediate feedback and commentary.
- The ‘news’ is generally about someone else somewhere else. Twitter gives a real voice to real people, to our friends, family and acquaintance. It’s very specific.
Have you explored Twitter yet? If not, sign up and make a start with the ‘eating breakfast’ style of tweet. Get a feel for it. Then you can start to use it for ’serious’ purposes.
January 31, 2008 No Comments
