My friend Stuart Henshall is one of the most 'Skype Saavy' folks I know, and so if you want more history, info, etc on Skype please visit Stuart's 'Unbound Spiral' weblog. I do know that Stuart's 'Skype Bloggers Roll' is a most impressive 'Social Networking Rolodex.'
Meanwhile, here is today's news on Skype's infusion of $18.8M as reported on Reuters:
AMSTERDAM, March 15 (Reuters) - Luxembourg-based Skype, which has signed up over eight million users for its free Internet telephone service, said on Monday it raised $18.8 million in a second round of financing from two venture firms.
U.S.-based Draper Fisher Jurvetson and European Index Ventures invested in the company only three months after Skype received its first, undisclosed, investment, a Skype spokeswoman said. Skype's service has been available since August 2003. Skype, run from London, was set up by the people who established Internet file sharing service KaZaA, which allows its users around the world to swap songs and films between their computers.
Skype users download a piece of free software on their personal computer and then use their Internet connection for voice conversations with other Skype users.
"Skype is amazing. The Skype team boasts some of the world's great corporate innovators and is the hottest viral marketing phenomenon since Hotmail," said Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson in a statement.
1. I am not interested in Skype per se, since I believe most organizations are already beset with too much talk and too little effective action. Indeed, even when organizations do act effectively, all-too-often such actions are based upon talk (and even unspoken understandings) rather than high-quality records (explicit knowledge) that fosters transparency and accountability (i.e., auditablity) to stakeholders. However, I am very interested in the use of XML to enable folks to interact openly and efficiently by whatever means they choose. And in that respect, I would welcome suggestions concerning proposed standard XML schema that may be worthy of consideration by the xmlWG -- particularly those that may help to realize the concept of "citizen-centered" eGovernment.
Posted at 8:04PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Owen Ambur