Skype recently launched skySpace, the only media-centric social networking software. skySpace will multiply the volume and quality of information shared among Skype's 136 million users, creating a new market category.

skySpace empowers Skype users to tell stories by sharing their photos, video, audio, and documents via their skySpace homepage-either privately or to the community at large. Users personalize their skySpace homepage with backgrounds, images, layouts, borders, and fonts-eliciting a torrent of conversations from anyone who visits their home. skySpace users are rewarded with feedback on the number of visitors and their identities.

NexTone has been selected as one of IT Week’s Top 50 Technology Innovators of 2006. This marks the second edition of IT Week's annual Top 50 Technology Innovators list. NexTone was also named a Technology Innovator winner in 2005.

The Top 50 Technology Innovators list is compiled by IT Week’s editors from feedback from readers and independent research. It recognizes vendors of products and services for IT Professionals who are the top in their field. These awards are given out to companies whose products IT Week's editors feel demonstrate quality and excellence in their respective fields making them the best.

Switch-Mobile announces that all new and current subscribers to the company’s flagship product - Globe Dialer - will receive half-priced international holiday calling to all nations in its worldwide network in addition to the eighty percent savings already provided to customers.

Globe Dialer is a proprietary software application that is downloaded directly onto mobile phones running on virtually any network that allows the user to make convenient, low-cost, “one click” international calls. By routing international phone calls onto Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) networks, Switch-Mobile is able to reduce the cost of mobile, international calls by up to eighty percent, while only using the domestic minutes of each user’s plan. For the holiday season when travel and international calls to loved ones spike significantly, the company will provide its subscribers with a 50% worldwide calling discount on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) continues to gain users in the residential telephone service market, according to In-Stat. According to data from the high-tech market research firm’s newly launched Residential VoIP Tracker Service, more than 9 million US households now have at least one active VoIP user, with many households reporting the use of more than one VoIP service.

The firm’s new service utilizes a combination of end-user research and market analysis to estimate usage and market share among all of the major service providers, both facilities-based providers like Vonage and client-based providers like Skype, on an ongoing basis. Recent research from the service also revealed that:

Esna Technologies announced it has added Skype support to its market leading Telephony Office-LinX unified communication platform version 7.5. As part of its ongoing goal for interoperability and to offer the most integrations in the market, Telephony Office-LinX will integrate Microsoft's Outlook Calendar with the popular SKYPE desktop VoIP application. Users of the Telephony Office-LinX platform will have their live Skype status tied into their Microsoft Exchange schedule, enabling other Skype users to see if they are available or not on their office telephone, or off the network. It will bridge the Skype Voip world with Enterprise telephony and Groupware status.

LignUp Corporation announces that Color Broadband has expanded its wireless voice-over-IP (VoIP) services, which are powered by the LignUp Communications Application Server.

Color Broadband, Southern California’s leading business VoIP and wireless broadband provider, offers a full suite of solutions for delivering data and voice over a hybrid WiMax and WireLine Broadband network. Based on its retail success providing LignUp-powered VoIP services direct to business customers, the company is now offering wholesale VoIP services to building management firms (eSmart program) and service providers (eVoice program). The services create new revenue streams for both Color Broadband and its wholesale partners.

VariTalk and VoIP announce the launch of a personalized messaging campaign for the new hit show 30 Rock, which premiered Wednesday, Oct. 11 on NBC and features famous actor and Golden Globe nominee Alec Baldwin and Saturday Night Live cast members Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan. The messaging campaign allows fans to send personalized phone and e-mail messages from 30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin through the website: http://30rock.nbc.com.

VariTalk is best known for the highly successful personalized phone message marketing campaigns for "Snakes On a Plane" featuring the voice of Samuel L. Jackson and for “Americas Next Top Model” featuring personalized voice messages from Tyra Banks. VoIP, Inc. is VariTalk’s preferred VoIP (Voice over IP) service provider for these campaigns.

Lingo and American Telecom Services announce the launch of a program to sell Lingo's broadband phone service bundled with American Telecom Services' Digital Clear Internet phones through office superstores and mass market retail channels.

Lingo offers several competitive and high quality Internet phone service rates plans for consumers and small businesses. The first bundle to be offered through leading national retailers will be the new and recently Lingo certified ATS X10001P Digital Clear DECT 6.0 Internet phones and the X10002P extensions. The combination of ATS' Digital Clear Internet phone and Lingo's broadband phone service plans offer consumers the ability to save hundreds of dollars a year on their total phone expense using interference-free cordless technology. Lingo and ATS intend to expand their service offerings and Digital Clear telephones to provide consumers and small businesses with a wide selection of offers and savings.

Pando Networks has been selected by Skype as a featured partner in the new Skype 3.0, to be released today. With the new Pando Extra, Skype users not only have enhanced file and folder transfer functionality but also the ability to subscribe to video RSS feeds from directly within Skype.

With the Pando Extra, Skype users can:

• Transfer large files and entire folders (up to 1GB) to Skype contacts and/or any email address
• Send to and receive from offline contacts or contacts away from their computers
• Enjoy super-fast, reliable and firewall-friendly file transfers with full auto-resume support
• Send multiple files to multiple recipients, simultaneously
• Post files (e.g. videos, photos, etc) to any web site, blog, MySpace etc.
• Subscribe to high quality Media RSS feeds

MediaRing is gifting consumers with an incredible promotion this Christmas and New Year. MediaRing is offering free calls to five key destinations -- Singapore, USA, Canada, China and the United Kingdom -- when one signs-up for its soft-phone based VoIP service at www.mediaringtalk.com. Sign-up is absolutely free!

Over and above free PC-to-PC calls worldwide, this new promotion from MediaRing will allow new users to make unlimited free calls on fixed and mobile lines to USA, Canada, China and Singapore; and unlimited free calls on fixed lines to the United Kingdom from 20 December 2006 till 6 January 2006.

New World Brands announces a strategic alliance between its IP Gear Connect services division and NewGen Technologies for the launch of the first of four innovative retail VoIP offerings. The test version of an unlimited-use, low-cost retail VoIP service from Jamaica to the US, Canada and the UK hits the market before the end of Q4, 2006. The venture with NewGen enables New World Brands’ VoIP services division, IP Gear Connect, to extend its superior quality VoIP offering further into the expanding consumer marketplace.

New World Brands and NewGen are committed to situating VoIP in the hands of consumers using methods that follow the traditional sales model for retail calling products. As of early 2006, at least 73% of consumers that switched to VoIP were unaware of the technological shift, research firm In-Stat stated in a report predicting that in 2009, the number of worldwide VoIP subscribers will have grown to more than 55 million. Analyst firm Point Topic reports that VoIP subscribers increased 83% in 2005, from 10.3 million subscribers to 18.7 million subscribers worldwide.

Malware spreading over the Skype network Tuesday raised flags across the internet. Websense has since posted a reclassification of the threat as a Trojan horse and its overall impact is declining.

Websense was among the first to post an alert about a possible Skype worm. However, after talking with the Skype security team, which is based in Estonia, Hubbard said he had reclassified the threat as a Trojan horse. "A user with Skype will get a message to download a program from a URL included in a chat message," says Hubbard. "If they click on that, a program runs in the background, then injects itself into the Explorer process. It looks like the Trojan is designed to grab forms and passwords from the browser."

"This is either spreading very slowly, and only regionally, or it's dead by now," Hubbard says.

China VoIP & Digital Telecom announced that the expansion plans of its wholly owned subsidiary, Jinan Yinquan Technology in China call for a cooperative venture with one of China’s premier licensed telecom providers. Through China Tie Tong, one of only six licensed providers in the country, Jinan Yinquan has formed a strategic alliance that will allow the company to rapidly deploy its VoIP technology throughout the world’s most populous country.

Jinan Yinquan, a technology company offering VoIP services in the People’s Republic of China, has been developing telecommunication solutions for China’s burgeoning Internet industry for more than half a decade.

Linksys unveiles its iPhone family of Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions. The iPhone family of handheld devices harnesses the power of the Internet to enhance voice communications, integrate compelling information services, and deliver access to multimedia. In short, Linksys iPhones voice solutions and products give consumers the ability to do more with their phone than talk.

"As the next generation of handheld devices, Linksys iPhone voice solutions and products are changing the way people communicate with their friends, family and colleagues. They enable compelling internet services, allow consumers to know when their contacts are available for calls, and offer access to personal content like music, movies and live video cameras." said Mike Pocock, Linksys senior vice president and general manager. "The development of the iPhone family demonstrates our flexibility in selecting the right partnerships, feature sets, and product designs to exceed the demands of even our most connected customers to whom the Internet is no longer a destination, but an inextricable part of their lives."

SIPBox announced it has become a certified Polycom reseller. SIPBox recommends the use of Polycom VoIP phones in all of its telephony deployments, specializing in Asterisk, the industry’s first open source telephony platform.

“We are eager to continue our growth in the open source market through our relationship with SIPBox,” said Jim Kruger, Vice President, Voice Marketing at Polycom. “As a value-added-reseller, SIPBox is making significant progress in the VoIP market and together we hope to bring our customers the total VoIP solution and support needed in a fast growing enterprise.”