Brad Feld

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Skype for Outlook

Jul 06, 2005
Category Technology

I woke up one day (yesterday) and all of a sudden I’m using Skype all the time (including SkypeOut).  What changed?  First, I’m at my house in Alaska and my habits got shaken up.  Second, I installed my Vonage phone so I could have a 303 area code while I’m up here (and just to play around with Vonage) so I decided that while I was at it, I should try Skype as a phone and see how it compared.  But – most importantly – the Skype for Outlook plug-in hit beta. 

Holy shit – this is cool.  It works exactly as you’d want it to.  I hate talking on the phone, but it’s a side effect of being a VC.  I live in two apps – Outlook (on the left monitor) and Firefox (on the right monitor).  Suddenly I’ve got a little magic toolbar that lets me call people via Skype by looking up their info in Outlook.  Perfect.  And – it works.  $12 from Paypal (10 euros) and I’m set with long distance for a long time.

Now – all I need is a headset with a microphone that integrates with my fancy speakers.