Skype turns video

From now on, Skype users will be able to download a plug-in allowing them to establish videoconferences supported by Skype's own Peer-to-Peer engine.

Thus, by using the Spontania Video4skype application and a webcam, users connected to the Internet by means of a broadband solution can make video calls based on the Skype client.

The Spontania video plug-in developed by Dialcom has been designed for integration into a third party VoIP system, and Skype represents the first solution to fulfill these requirements.

Lately Skype was reported to have some flaws, the Beta 1.3 version of the program being too unstable, even for a beta version. In fact, the Skype development team is quite aware of the situation, thus introducing in the help menu the "current problems" section, which contains information regarding the most frequent bugs discovered for that respective version.

Beside other problems, we can mention the impossibility to authorize and identify the user, the increase of the processor usage level to 100%, the application's breakdown while receiving voice mail messages, problems regarding the deletion and playback of such messages.

However, beside this troublesome version, Skype's doing great, and the ever increasing number of sites associating with the brand Skype and promoting its services has already reached 1,800. The financial interest obviously plays its part, each Skype partner site receiving a 10% interest of the income generated by an user which turns to Skype after visiting the respective site.

The Skype VoIP system already has over 39 million registered users, and the growth rate is of about 150,000 each day.