The Unintended Consequences Of Skype
from the and-so-it-goes dept
It appears that the NY Times has finally discovered Skype, but their article does make a few interesting observations concerning not just the purpose of Skype but how it's been used in unexpected ways -- mainly for strangers to call each about just about anything. Calls from foreigners to Americans for the sake of English practice are apparently quite common. There's also a story of people looking for local info for a vacation they were planning. It's always fascinating to see how these sorts of unintended uses become more popular -- but, as the article notes, many are likely to go away as the service gets more and more popular, and the spammers and scammers move in (which is already happening). While I've been skeptical of Skype in the past, the ease of use of the service has won over many. It seems to have really touched a nerve for the ability to build a community. Still, there are plenty of challenges for the company going forward -- and business models may be the biggest.
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Practice English, fuck
The bane of English-speaking residents who live in Asia: strangers that want to start boring conversations with them to practice English. They have no common sense about America, so you have to explain the basics to them over and over.
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Reminds me of the olden days
I don't even remember which VoIP system it was that came out years and years ago, way back in the pre-broadband days, but I remember me and a friend prank-calling people in Tokyo and screaming "Ahhhhh! Godzilla!" into our headset microphones...
Was I really that young, foolish and racially insensitive?
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Re: Practice English, fuck
You couldn't pay me to have a conversation with you dorpus, in any language.
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