OK, it's official - I'm a Skype believer. If you offer phone service, you should be terrified of this technology. And by terrified, I mean extremely motivated to do something about it, and not ignore it.
Shira's in a far away land as I type this and I just got done talking with her. Not instant messaging, but actually talking. In the past, I would have busted out the AT&T dialing card, dialed 45 digits, talked to an operator, and if I was lucky, actually get connected to her.
Instead, this time I started up Skype, "dialed her," she answered, and we started talking. As a bonus, we even got to see each other because of the video capability Skype offers.
The service is totally free, and the only equipment it took was a pair of $30 webcams.
I'm not ready to ditch my home service for Skype, but I have to say, for unusual circumstances like this, it can't be beat.
If you're making international calls, trust me, you need to give this a shot.
one of my favorite parts about Skype is the conference calling, and for $3 a month, that includes conferencing with traditional phone service uses. As for the camera, thanks for the tip/recommendation, the camera I got was a really cheap one, and the quality shows.
ReplyDeleteI have just gotten into skype as well. We use it at work all of the time now for design meetings and status meetings. I just picked up a camera from woot.com and can't wait till it arrives.
ReplyDeleteWhat I will tell you is that there are very big differences in web cameras. My friend's built-in webcam on his macbook pro looks absolutely stunning. I had purchased a logitech live or something and returned it because the picture quality was so incredibly bad.
Now we'll see how the Phillips is when it gets here.