After our first full year in San Francisco, the iSkoot HQ has packed up and moved on. Two blocks on, to be exact. We’ve trudged up the hill from the 4th floor of 4th and Bryant to the 2nd floor of 2nd and Bryant (continuity is key), and while this might not rival the epic cross country exoduses of yore, things definitely look and feel better than ever in the latest space we call home. Check it out:
It’s amazing what a professional paint job and some corrugated sheet metal can do to a place, no?
The new pad is still a work in progress, of course, with walls still to be decorated and lights yet to be hung, but visions of a proper office-warming party (really - this time we’re doing it!) are keeping us sufficiently motivated.
We’re thinking late June…drinks in the lounge room, cigars on the terrace? Ahhh summer.
Last week, our friends at mobile carrier 3 - purveyors of the Skype-enabled X-Series handset line and needs-no-introduction 3 Skypephone - announced their newest plan to mobilize the Skype Nation. They’ve opened up their network to allow all 3 customers with a compatible 3 handset to make unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls - for free.
“From 1 May, there will be no data charges or top-up fees for either contract or pay-as-you-go customers who use Skype on 3’s network. Anyone with a 3 handset will be able to buy a 3 SIM with Skype enabled and talk as much as they want to other Skype users without ever having to pay another penny.”
This is what we like to think of as a win-win (and, well…-win ) situation: 3 customers can bask in the veritable free calling bonanza, Skype’s user base will fatten-up, and 3 should lure some new users onto their network as well (not such a bad thing for 3’s revenue-sharing partners either!)
VentureBeat posted a piece last week which credited 3 UK as reporting that Skype pre-pay users give the operator 20% higher margins than ordinary pre-pay users, and that the Skype offering is driving user uptake, with 79% of all of 3’s Skype users new to the network.
VentureBeat speculates that “[t]he higher margins may very well boil down to the use of iSkoot, which routes Skype on to the voice circuit-switch rather than the more expensive data network. This, argues the company, makes the service less of a data hog than operators traditionally fear VoIP to be.”
While this blogger doesn’t Skype and tell, I WILL go on the record with this: Skype + circuit switch is, as always, the flag we’re proud to fly.
We are delighted to report that, after several months of diligent polishing in the iSkoot workshop, we’ve got a shiny new Notifier 1.2 on our hands- and we think you should get your hands on it too.
Notifier 1.2’s got most of the same features as 1.1, but with a swanky new user interface and an improved navigation scheme you can drive it like a Benz with one hand on the wheel.
Here’s a peek at the demo so you can see for yourself:
Notifier 1.2 is available for download today exclusively from the AT&T MEdia Mall.
Get the latest news from iSkoot as it happens, send us your questions, feedback, whatever - it’s an open forum, and another really great way for us to get to know our users. ‘Cause isn’t real time connectivity what we’re all about?
Walt Mossberg and Katie Boehret, the Wall Street Journal duo known for delivering the definitive word on new “gadgets, web services and consumer technologies” recently got their hands on iSkoot’s newest mobile app, the iSkoot Notifier.
Katie and Notifier (running on a Samsung Propel from AT&T) spent the week getting to know one another, and yesterday she delivered her full report in WSJ’s “The Mossberg Solution.” You can also check it out in the Personal Journal section of today’s print edition of WSJ. We know we did. And true to form, Team Mossberg’s once-over was a tough but fair one.
Katie definitely gets what we’re up to. Notifier integrates Facebook, Twitter, email, IM, and news feeds into a single application that updates in real time and is built for ordinary mobile phones rather than souped-up PDAs or smartphones. The app is deliberately engineered to give low-cost cell phones, as Katie puts it, a “smart-phone-like shot in the arm.”
After a week’s worth of poking and prodding, Katie confirms that Notifier offers a worthwhile way to “stay plugged in and notified of the latest goings-on with friends and email” and “an economical alternative” to more costly smart phones. Though she does point to some of Notifier’s yet-to-be-rectified kinks–a handful of snags in the UI (getting smoothed out as we speak) and its house arrest in the phone’s “Applications” folder (currently accepting offers for pre-load )–she affirms that for the many people out there who want to stay connected without investing in the high-profile hardware, iSkoot’s Notifier is a workable solution.
Many thanks and much gratitude go out to Katie, and to the Wall Street Journal for the thorough review our newest release. We’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity and for your insight!
What the judges had to say:
“The INQ represents a significant step towards the mobile device as a social networking hub and also represents superb value for money. Its approach to the deep integration of services such as Facebook outshines that of much costlier smartphones, and it presents a compelling proposition by treating the phonebook as the focal point of the device. With its ingenious ability to transform from phone to 3G modem by simply plugging it into your USB port, the INQ¹ delivers data services to the mass market and for an affordable price.”
This also happens to be the second year running that a handset featuring the iSkoot-powered Skype solution nabbed the industry’s highest international accolades. Coincidence?! C’mon now…In fact, INQ Mobile was kind enough to give iSkoot a ‘lil gratitude shout out on the company site. Thanks for the nod guys!
Of course, INQ Mobile’s award-winning handset happens to rock for a sweet set of features in addition to mobile Skype - this mighty little phone also has Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Last FM and mobile email built right in. The phone is on the market today in the UK, Ireland and Australia, and INQ Mobile promises to start stocking more shelves throughout Europe and Asia soon. Keep an eye out!
And a big congrats to INQ Mobile. Job well done, guys.
iSkoot has just gone and gotten ourselves one rock star of a sales guy. As we announced in our press release on Tuesday, industry veteran Alan Coad just signed on as our new Senior VP of Global Carrier Sales.
Alan’s been in the business of growing telecoms-oriented software/IT services companies for over 18 years, doing both the start-up thing (Aldiscon back in the day, SpinVox most recently) and bigger multinational corporate gigs (he founded Logica’s South American operations, headed worldwide Sales & Operations for its Global Telecoms products division, and eventually took over Logica’s worldwide Communications sector P&L).
He’s got a track record that’s tailor-made to deliver success for iSkoot, and our team is incredibly excited to have Alan aboard - So much so that we just unleashed him on the industry at Mobile World Congress. Perhaps you spotted our newest all-star executive in the wild?
iSkoot for Skype got a sweet little nod from Mashable a few weeks back, earning rank as one of the top “15 Free Tools to Turn Your BlackBerry into a Communications Powerhouse.”
That’s right. Powerhouse. Nice!
Mashable’s Sean Aune points out that BlackBerry isn’t just the province of hardcore enterprise users anymore. It’s more accessible than ever, and with new users gravitating towards the handiest PDA around for pure and simple personal use, the biggest trend on the device, Sean explains, has been “easing communication.”
So what other communication tools does Sean list along iSkoot signature mobile Skype solution for BlackBerry? AIM, GoogleTalk, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitterberry to name a few.
For the complete list, check out Sean’s post here.
Last month TechRadar did a side-by-side comparison of The Big 4 in mobile app stores: iPhone, Nokia, BlackBerry and Android. It was a pretty comprehensive size-up.
Zooming past Nokia and BlackBerry, iPhone and Android came out as the front runners in what TechRadar’s Miriam Brent calls “a two-horse race.”
Earning points for the iPhone: an intuitive interface that’s “unmistakeably Apple” and a browsing experience described as “a joy.”
Earning points for Android: Downloading is simple; navigation, a breeze. And as Miriam spotted:
“Currently all apps in the Android Market are freebies…That doesn’t mean there’s any lack of quality, though, with plenty of genuinely handy apps available like iSkoot for Skype access, MySpace Mobile and the ShopSavvy barcode scanner price comparison app.”
Nice! It’s good to be a selling point - especially where Android’s concerned. Miriam concluded what we suspected long ago: “the Android Market is certainly one to get excited about for the future.”
Mark Jacobstein is heading to International CES and Digital Hollywood in Las Vegas this Thursday, January 8 to sit on not one but TWO discussion panels. The details:
Alongside panelists from AT&T Mobility, Qualcomm, Mozilla and The New York Times, Mark will explore the fate of the basic telephone in an age where the feature-rich Smartphone dominates.
Mark joins panelists from Motorola, Nokia, Lenovo and more to discuss how mobile technology has ascended from the realm of functional convenience to an out-and-out lifestyle, and has become a consumer identity symbol in the process.
)–she affirms that for the many people out there who want to stay connected without investing in the high-profile hardware, iSkoot’s Notifier is a workable solution. 
