Skype

Skype - A brief history on Skype

Skype is not the first P2P software to be made widely available via the Internet and to achieve mainstream status. Indeed, the people who founded Skype, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, are the same people who created the P2P file sharing program Kazaa, which is the most downloaded (at 363 million as of September 2004) software In the history of the Internet. Skype clearly has something of a\ pedigree.
Skype was founded in 2002, but the domain names Skype.com and Skype.net weren’t registered until April 2003. August 2003 saw the release of the first public beta, or trial, version of the Skype softphone (often also referred to as the Skype client). In June 2004, Skype introduced its first fee-based service, SkypeOut, which enables Skype users to call regular phone numbers all over the world at very low rates (as low as $0.021 per minute). SkypeIn, which is a fee-based service that allows people to call Skype users from regular phones, debuted in March 2005. Skype continues to add new features and services at a rapid pace.


Skype - Chat and group chat

Instant Messaging (IM) or chat allows you to communicate with other users with text messages. In many cases, chat may be useful for communicating with other users instead of, or in addition to, voice communication. For example, if you are discussing a website you visited recently, it may be easier to copy and paste a website address into the chat window instead of trying to spell this out during a call.
There are several ways to chat with a contact:
Select a Skype Name from your Contact list and then click the blue chat button.
Select a Skype Name and control-click or right-click the Skype Name in your Contact List or search result and select “Start Chat”. You can also click the drop down menu button and select “Start Chat”.
Select a Skype Name from your Contact list and select “Start Chat” under the “Contacts” menu.
A chat window will appear when you start the IM. Simply type a message and press return to send an instant message. You can chat with several contacts at the same time in individual chat sessions or as a group chat. To keep track of who you are currently in a chat session with there is a chat drawer.
To switch between the different chat sessions just click on the contact in the drawer.
When you send and receive an instant message, you will hear an audio indication – a ping.
Emoticons
A picture tells a thousand words and with Skype you can send emoticons or small pictures in chats to show how you’re feeling. You can send emoticons by typing in a shortcut such as “J” or (y) or by selecting the drop down menu labelled emoticons to select the picture you’d like to send. For example, if you write (y) your friend will see a picture showing "thumbs up".
Using Chat with Groups
With Skype you can chat with up to 100 people in a group chat.
Select the participants you would like to invite from your Contacts List by holding the Shift key and clicking each contact.
Once you have selected the participants, click the drop down menu button and select “Start Chat”.
A chat window will open with all of the participants.