Thank You Skype

There have been few inventions that have caused my life ease over the past year than Skype. What is Skype you might ask? Well, according to that ever so clever Wikipedia;

"Skype ( /ˈskaɪp/) is a proprietary voice-over-Internet Protocol service and software application originally created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis in 2003, and owned by Microsoft since 2011". 


Well, that is true, what Skype has done for my industry, is to allow thousands of people to work from where they want to, primarily their homes. 


This has been a big year for me. Me and two of my friends started a web design business together. It was a lot of hard work, but we managed to move into an office, where all three of us can work together. The thing is, that there are usually only one, maybe two of us there. One of the guys has never lived in London, spending half the year in Toronto before moving to Forest. However, thanks to Skype, he is basically in the office with us. 

Which of These Guys Looks like a Scientist to You? 

It is hardly fair to say that Skype invented the technology they use. What they did was make it easy to use, fairly reliable, and pretty. Sure it is built on the century old ideas of the telephone (allegedly invented by Alexander Graham Bell, but that too is up for debate), and film (evolving from Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope... who may or may not have invented it... starting to see a bit of a trend) but like any great invention, it's not about creating an idea out of nowhere, but of consilience; the unity of knowledge. 


Literally right now as I'm writing this, I have my two colleagues on a Skype call as we work through the night on a website. Not sure if you are doing something wrong on your end? Why not just share your computer screen with a developer and have them tell you that, yes, you in fact are doing it wrong on your end.


I know that there are other alternatives out there (Google + Hangouts are actually pretty amazing), but until the next ride starts, I just wanted to express my thanks to such a great invention.  

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What I'm Listening to This Week:

Singles - Kiven