At the end of last week my Skype-client have told me that there’s a new BETA version (for Windows users) available… I was too busy that time to download and look at it but now time have come! So, what’s inside Skype 3.0 (Beta version)? First of all there are lots on new and very interesting functions (like skypecasts (which were available in the 2.6 Beta already), public chats etc.).

So, lets start with those skypecasts:

In Skype 3.0, you can browse the current Skypecasts straight in Skype on the Live tab. When you decide to join or host one, the Skypecast itself will run within a separate tab where you have all the host or participant controls to ask for mike, see who’s the host and do all those other things you need to do in a Skypecast. So there won’t be no more of those clunky pop-up browser windows. To join Skypecast just click the link and talk (or just listen to the conversation). Every Skypecast have all ‘statistic’ you need to know (subject, who’s hosting it, number of participants right now). One more thing about the host: one who organized the whole talk have more rights and can vary a few things, for ex. They can cut somebody short so you won’t be able to talk, just listening to the conversation. Also he can set a chat time (how long the conversation will take place). There’s a 5 hours limit (maximum). For that time chat will be available even if there’s no one is talking. After that chat will be deleted (only if there’s no one inside, if there’s at least one person it still will ‘live’).

Of course there’re some minuses of this new possibility. First of all it’s some troubles hearing others (there always lots of illegitimate noises so it’s difficult just to talk). For example I was chatting with a guy from Australia and Egypt and there was one hell of an echo. It’s fun for first 30 seconds, than it’s real pain ‘you know where’: ) Next thing is that it’s always difficult to tell who are you talking right now. Since all Skypecast rooms are open for everybody and anyone is free to leave there’ll be lots of misunderstandings. And finally, there’s no possibility to use a web-cam… (yep, I think that’s bad!). Still, it’s more than just interesting feature and I hope that guys will work on it till the final version is out.

Some word about public chats:

In short they’re text chats that anyone can create, host and join. They’re similar to the current private text chats but with new updated looks and some new possibilities. Now, you can moderate crated chat, you can put a link to your chat on a web-page or email so your friends can easily find and talk to you or just to let the whole world know who are you. And the last (but not least) feature that caught my attention is you always get the full chat history, even if you’re not permanently connected so everyone can see the whole picture.

The public chat system is pretty versatile. You can have chats with wildly different policies. You can have open watercooler chats where anyone can come and talk, or you can have press-conference-style chats with lots of listeners but few talkers, or entirely closed chats where you will approve each joiner before they can even read the messages or topic. You can remove messages and remove unwanted folks from chats (…)

New version of Skype has browser extensions for Internet Explorer and Firefox. So you can choose at install time if you want to install these or not. They automatically convert phone numbers on web pages into Skype links. You can simply click them and Skype starts a SkypeOut call to that number.

There’re also available some Extras just for those of you who love to play some simple games with friends online and some other cool stuff that you can see on the picture. It’s going to be an interesting release when it’s ready. And for now just use older version, cause new one is under construction yet and have lots of undone things.

Learn more about Skype 3.0 BETA you can here.

Ps: As I’ve told you there were some pretty bad bugs in Beta so after I was done writing this review I found this update at Skype Blog:

UPDATE: this was available for a while today but we had to pull it since we got reports of some potentially pretty disastrous bugs. If you managed to download the update and it works for you, no need to worry, but for others, we’ll post another beta update when we have more info on this.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 at 8:29 am and is filed under Freeware, Internet, Main, Multimedia, Social Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.