Before I left Skype just over a year ago, I had the pleasure of working with Skyecandy Pty Ltd in Australia who had great idea for a speed dating application that worked over Skype and was looking at turning it into a Skype Extra. Now I’m pleased to say that the application is in beta and looks really sweet.

Apart from being one of the few really polished applications available for Skype, what I really like about it is the care that went into producing the introduction video. Anyone who has ever released a product should take note, this sets the bench mark in product teaser videos.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLkGREScPnQ

So if you’re looking to meet new people or just want to try it out, you’ll find it in the Skype Extras menu, or visit their website for more info.

A couple of days back I blogged about some predictions on where smartphones would be in the next 5 years. I just noticed that Microsoft have released a video on where they see the world in the next 10 years, in their 2019 future vision video.

For sure this falls into the over estimate the short term future category as everything is integrated, powered, and paper thin. I think we’ll need to invent a new form of power before this becomes a reality. But still it looks good and is a hell of a lot better than nuclear waste land.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq3EeZz-W3A

For example a year ago our developers were getting around 1000 downloads a month, after we introduced the extras manager that figure went up to just under a million downloads a month. A pretty significant increase by anyone standard. I was just in the process of getting a new extras manager redesigned to make it even easier for users to find applications and much more compiling, as well as getting better exposure for extras in the client. I also just retuned from Asia working with one of our partners so we could publish extras to more places. I just hope that the focus on extras continues and Skype continues to support the developer community.

While its sad to leave, I have been around with developer programs for long enough to know that re-orgs happen, sometimes the guy sitting next to you goes, you come into the office only to find your friends and colleagues have gone, and sometimes its you.

I remember my first day at Skype back in our old office, we were so small in those days that I had to work out the kitchen a few times as there were no desks free. After spending 10 years at Microsoft joining Skype was an eye opener. It gave me lots of exposure to non Microsoft products (I now use Firefox as standard) and a new way of thinking. At Microsoft I had the mentality that Windows was the best, Microsoft make the best software and users will always upgrade to the latest version. You can imagine how long I believed that after joining a company full of Linux users, and a company that gives away its software for free. So all in all the last 2 years I have leaned a lot about the real world.

Now of course I have to turn my head to the future, I haven’t decided what I am going to do yet, being this close to Christmas does limit your options and opportunities to become involved with developer programs are few and far between, so I need to spend a few days evaluating my options.

Incidentally, after my brush with the open man hole in Tallinn on Wednesday, my leg became infected. When I got home on Friday night I ended up in casualty having the cut cleaned, a series of injections and a couple of stitches to boot. It hurts like hell.