Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

Skype has become the de facto standard for internets based VOIP (voice over IP) and even in the last few years when others have come to the table, it doesn’t seem like they even make a mark. Skype can do something that most others can’t. That is to offer free Skype-Skype calling and then offer paid Skype to telephone calling at a competitive rate.

Google Voice and Video Chat

The question is – Is that what you need? Skype is great if that’s what you are looking for but it’s heavy compared to other solutions. One of my favorite alternatives is Google’s Voice and Video chat. By going to Google’s Voice and Video Chat page you can download a small web browser plugin to allow you to check through Google Chat. More and more people are using Google Chat so this is a very quick way to keep in touch.

The video algorithm seems very good and I have had luck with this in the past when even Skype seemed to have trouble maintaining a reliable connection.

As you can see from the image, this simply puts the option into your Google Chat window so using it is no harder than clicking on the video button while you are chatting with a friend. When you are done, close the window and the communication is stopped and you are back to what you were doing before.

To be honest sometimes I feel Skype to be a bit of a system hog so when I travel at the beginning of June, this is most likely what I will be using to call back home and talk to the kiddies. They love to see dad on the computer, it’s a huge step in the right direction for them when I am away. w00t!

Make sure to use a headset with video chat like this though. Skype can do an ok job at separating what is coming from your speakers and going into your mic to avoid feedback but most of the other video chats such as this are just better off with earphones.

Geek on!

Looks like Ebay won’t be tying Skype into their site – ever. I remember when they purchased Skype some time ago and also remember it being a bit of a strange buy in my mind. But I was willing to keep an eye on things and see what genius they had in store for us. To me it really feels like both Ebay and Skype have been stagnant for quite some time. I don’t know many people who run to Ebay anymore to buy a new gadget or find a deal on something. It is definitely not the buzz it once was unless you are looking for cell phone accessories. I am still not sure how anyone makes money off those insane prices.

I have read a couple of articles on this and from what they are saying, they sold for 2.75 billion which means they only lost ~$300+ on the deal. Not too bad according to those same articles. Can I have some of that please? I have a mortgage I would love to pay off :)

This is some of what wired.com had to say about the deal:

But the underlying technology has been widely accepted and is no longer a geeky novelty. Skype is now the largest provider of international calls in the world. It has apps for the Blackberry and iPhone, and the world’s largest handset maker, Nokia, announced in February that it would preload Skype software into some of its new smartphones starting from the third quarter of this year. And in March Skype made a bid to enter the enterprise space with “Skype for Sip.”

So an interesting turn of events for something that still feels like a geeky novelty for me. I think that it is mostly to do with the fact that North Americans don’t need the service as much as the rest of the world unless you are calling the somewhere out there. Americans and Canadians benifit from pretty cheap phone service and so the people I know who use it are Europeans who have family still in their home country.

That being said – I hope we don’t lose Skype due to financial problems. We need someone to keep our phone companies in check and services such as these that are free will do just that.

Geek on!