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Stowe Boyd is a well-known media subversive, and an internationally recognized authority on real-time, collaborative and social technologies. His new blog is Message.

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January 06, 2006

OpenBC Integrates Skype, Sort Of

Posted by Stowe Boyd

OpenBC, the professional social networking solution, today announced that Skype is now integrated into each user's contact page, if they have created a Skype account and entered that information into their profile. This mechanism enables all Skype communication: IM, voice, but not video as far as I can see.

However, I couldn't get the Skype call to work. I even reinstalled the most recent version of Skype for Mac OS X. Everytime I hit the 'chat' or 'call' button I was taken to a download page within OpenBC, and when I clicked to download the 'Skype Setup' file, it turned out to be a MS DOS exec. Obvious Windows bias, but I presume it works for Windows users.

Looks like this is major theme: the integration of real-time communication capabilities into social platforms. I just wrote about the Newsvine blogging community that includes real-time chat on every blog post. Expect to see more of this.

[update: Only a few minutes later, I am reading about Nuvvo, a new AJAX-based learning management system, and it has announced Skype integration as of 4 Jan. Wow. It's happening everywhere. tags: nuvvo]

[Update: 7 Jan 2006 -- Bill Liao of OpenBC left this comment:

Hi Stowe,
Couple of points;

We love macs and I am a MAC user and we have a mac in the devcentre.

Skypes Mac Client is behind the PC one so there will be updates to the site for mac once we lay our hands on a later version and figure out how the mac client works for external calls.

The video for skype video is automatic once you are in a voice call there is no separate video call call function that is in the skype: call.

The video does not yet work for the skype Mac or Linux builds and I am told it is coming soon.

Hope that clarifies what is going on.

Bill

My point is that OpenBC should clearly state the situation re: Mac users, so other won't go through the fruitless attempt to try to use Mac Skype with OpenBC.]

tags: skype, openbc, newsvine, chat, instant+messaging, voip

Comments (40) + TrackBacks (1) | Category: Technology

COMMENTS

1. Bill Liao on January 7, 2006 04:34 AM writes...

Hi Stowe,

Couple of points;

We love macs and I am a MAC user and we have a mac in the devcentre.

Skypes Mac Client is behind the PC one so there will be updates to the site for mac once we lay our hands on a later version and figure out how the mac client works for external calls.

The video for skype video is automatic once you are in a voice call there is no separate video call call function that is in the skype: call.

The video does not yet work for the skype Mac or Linux builds and I am told it is coming soon.

Hope that clarifies what is going on.

Bill

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January 06, 2006

OpenBC Integrates Skype, Sort Of

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