Sunday, March 24, 2013

Microsoft Merging Windows Messenger With Skype

Within weeks of my interview with Steve Gallinger, Director of Technology at Friendoozle, Microsoft has begun the migration of Windows Messenger users onto Skype.  Did the folks over at Friendoozle know this was coming?  It seems rather timely to say the least that Friendoozle.com decided on the integration of Skype instead of Yahoo Messenger or some other service.

Steve Gallinger remarked that "We were pleased with Microsoft's purchase of Skype. With Microsoft's backing Skype will benefit from their vast pool of talent and capital that will provide for continued enhancements and developments of the Skype software. The added stability they will bring should benefit Skype's robust user base with a record 10 plus million concurrent sessions - a record set not too long ago."

It is true that bringing the loyal users of Windows Messenger into the Skype fold should increase the user base of Skype.  It only stands to reason that Steve Gallinger and the Friendoozle team called this one right.  They have made a very good decision to offer their members the ability to use Skype within their membership.  Watch Friendoozle in the future I feel they are ready to expand.

Friday, February 15, 2013

A Skype Interview With Steve Gallinger - The Technology Director at Friendoozle

Friendoozle.com is a social networking website that has been around for approximately seven years. We wanted to talk with their development team about their decision to integrate support for Skype in their service. We met with Steve Gallinger, Technology Director, to explore Friendoozle and discuss what is in the development pipeline at Friendoozle. Steve met with us on Skype aboard his beautiful sailboat near his home on Lake Ontario.

 Lynn: Steve it is a pleasure to finally get to meet you. I have been aware of your influence in the technology sector for sometime. Tell me how did you come to partner with Friendoozle?

Steve: Well, let's see. I have been working in the technology sector a really long time. I was living on the West Coast and leading a team in development for an enterprise level Voip system that would enable multiuser open microphone conferencing without the "push to talk" type that we were all accustomed to at that time. I met the president of Friendoozle through our beta test program. He was a beta tester for the service that we were working on and we just hit it off.

Lynn: So did you know that the president of Friendoozle was working on a type of social networking service back then? Was there anything like that at the time?

Steve: There was nothing out there at the time that he was talking about his ideas. This was way before Facebook.

Lynn: So what type of service was he talking to you about?

Steve: Well what peaked my interest was his desire to integrate some version of our Voip system into a web portal service as an offering to our military families as a way to communicate from wherever they had access to the internet and offer it as a free service to them.

 Lynn: That was a noble gesture how was he going to fund the operation with offering a service for free? Wasn't that unheard of at the time?

Steve: Yes and I told him as much. But he insisted and I was intrigued at his business model. He would fund it with corporate donations and advertising space. I was hooked and the rest is history. That began a friendship that has endured from late 2002 to present.

Lynn: OK lets fast forward to present, here we are in 2013 and you guys have released a total redesign of Friendoozle. What is new and fresh in this total revamping of Friendoozle.com

Steve: Well, at my insistence, we abandoned the idea of offering several ways for our users to connect. We had experience with voice and video applications that were available back then. Many of our integrations had used software like CUSeeMe, iVisit, Userplane and the older releases of popular instant messenger programs like MSN messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and AIM. We had built support for our users to choose which messengers they preferred to use within our service.

Lynn: That sounds really confusing to me. I think it would be hard to manage all those services as a member. It seems having too many options might be a detriment.

Steve: You want a job? That is exactly what we discovered after testing this model. Our members were not successful in making connections because there were too many options. We have since scaled our offering to utilize just four points of contact.

Lynn: Your website describes chat rooms, on-site instant messaging, and on-site mail. What is the fourth?

Steve: We have just finished the integration of Skype into our website. We take advantage of the Skype feature, "Skype me". It allows our members to add their Skype username into our database and we in turn publish the online status available through the Skype API. When you are online with Skype your friends on Friendoozle can click to call you from within Friendoozle.

Lynn: Why did you choose Skype to integrate instead of something else like Yahoo messenger?

Steve: Well we took a real hard look at Yahoo's messenger and it works great by the way. Probably the most compelling reason we chose Skype is that Skype had around 700 million registered users where Yahoo was around 250 million at the time we finished our analysis.

 Lynn: Are you suggesting some sort of partnership arrangement with Skype?

Steve: Not at this time but we are certainly open to any conversation to that effect. We were pleased with Microsoft's purchase of Skype. With Microsoft's backing Skype will benefit from their vast pool of talent and capital that will provide for continued enhancements and developments of the Skype software. The added stability they will bring should benefit Skype's robust user base with a record 10 plus million concurrent sessions - a record set not too long ago. For those who have never experienced Skype it is certainly a formidable and deserving video calling solution plus more.

Lynn: So what is on the drawing boards for Friendoozle moving ahead? Are there any new features that you can share with my readers at this time?

Steve: Well, I can't discuss specifically what we are working on but we are very interested in enhanced native apps for I-phone and Android phones to supplement our current mobile website. Beyond that I am unable to share anything just yet.

Lynn: We sure appreciate your time and for providing my readers with a little insight to Friendoozle.com

Steve: It was a pleasure talking to you.

Friendoozle.com grew out of a desire to provide a family portal specifically aimed at providing our military families a central place to gather and stay in touch during long deployments. You can check them out at http://www.friendoozle.com.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Friendoozle Announces Skype Integration

Friendoozle announced that Skype is now integrated among the social networking site's other methods of contact. We will attempt to speak with a representative of Friendoozle's technology department for further comment. Check back for the update or subscribe to this blog to receive further notifications as updates are posted.
"We are excited to announce that we have added support for Skype within Friendoozle. Now your friends can call you directly from your profile when you are online with Skype. We are really happy about being able to providing a new and exciting user experience with our Skype integration"
Copied from the website's blog section today.