Internet telephony hasn t put phone companies out of business the way it was supposed to. But there s now evidence that Web calling is making it hard for at least international phone companies to continue doing business as usual. A TeleGeography Research survey has found that, for the first time in several decades, the growth rate for total international voice minutes is falling. Volume growth is a crucial factor in international carriers survival strategies.
Dec
20
For the more talkative members of MySpace, the last two months must have seemed like an eternity. In mid-October 2007, the social network and Skype announced that they had agreed to integrate the latter s Internet-calling capabilities with the former s IM (instant messaging) functions. The integrated service has finally gone live, adding 110 million MySpace members to the 245 million registered Skype users who can potentially call each other for free.
Dec
20
RipIt RingIt breaks new ground, enabling free ringtones for Skype. The ringtone maker allows users to record their own ringtones that can be assigned to individual callers or, for greater impact, sent to each of their contacts. The ringtones can be simple voice announcements or anything that users can record, limited only by the user s creativity. RipIt RingIt offers a completely new mode of personal expression, even branding.