Despite the world economy downturn, Skype appears to be bouncing from one high to another and bucking the trend to become more profitable than ever before. This appears to be partly led by users looking for the most cost effective methods for communicating, and not just consumers – businesses too are looking for cost cuts and are turning to Skype.

Today Skype hit the milestone of 15 million users logged on concurrently. In his speech at CES, Skype CFO Scott Durchslag said Skype has been growing about 50% compared to the previous year in almost every metric from minutes, to new users, to revenues.

Skype have also just had their seventh straight quarter of profitability and are pushing ahead with new products which for 2009 include Skype for MAC OS X, the 3 Skypephone, Skype for the iPhone, Skype for Google Android phones and Skype for Window Mobile Devices.

While other technology companies are shedding staff and reining in spending Skype is expanding their portfolio and making money. It’s an impressive performance from the black sheep of eBay’s portfolio of companies.

A host of new features including the ability to group contacts, for those with a large number of messages coming through Skype say there’s better notifications and alerts. There’s also the ability to resize the Skype window, and any section within Skype to give more space e.g. for video or chat messages.

It’s not just on Windows that Skype is changing, the Skypephone from 3 is getting SkypeOut enabled from today. 3 will be pushing software upgrades to all of their Skype enabled handsets today with new calling packages, (the most expensive of which costs £7.99) allowing users to call mobiles or landlines anywhere in the world via Skype.

This is a huge step forward, with other mobile providers attempting to limit VOIP on mobiles, even over WiFi, 3 have taken a brave step in fully embracing Skype.

The big question is do you really need a land line for running an eBay business any more? With Skype on your desktop and on your Skypephone you’ll be able to make or receive free calls anywhere there is mobile coverage.

I use the Skypephone as a secondary handset as I still have a Vodafone contract, but it’s invaluable for Skype calls/chats when out and about and a very cost effective way to access the Internet. Increasing the Skype cover to 90 days for each top up is a smart move and can only make the phone more attractive.

Pricing is £69.99 on PAYG or free on a contract and a minimum spend of £10 a month gets you access to Skype for free.

For all those mourning the loss of SMS Twitter messages you’ll be pleased to know you get up to 10,000 free Skype chats and using a service such as twitterforskype or Twitt’d will hook you back up to Twitter. The Skype chats and any Skype calls you make are free.

I’m still waiting for the new Skypephone to arrive, but if you’ve already got one let us know what you think of it compared to the original.

Apart from the normal operating system (WinXP – I refuse to go to Vista), Office (MS again), AV (AVG from Grisoft), Turbolister and printer drivers (I use the HP Universal driver which works for any HP printer so you never need another) these are my top five essential apps:

Fluid Mask

Fluid Mask is the ultimate photo editing sofware enabling you to cut out unwanted or cluttered backgrounds and produce professional looking product shots. It’s a tad expensive and made more so by virtue of the fact it’s a Photoshop plugin – Photoshop itself isn’t cheap.

However there is a budget version in the form of Bling! It which is in some ways even better for producing product shots. No where near as complex as navigating your way through Photoshop, it uses the same technology and is highly recommended.

Google Store Connector

Top tip for getting your products listed on Google Product searches is to use the Google Store Connector. This will extract your fixed price listings from eBay and post them to Google Product, and includes all BIN and SIF listings compared to the eBay prepared Google Feed which only exports SIF listings.

Google Store Connector costs nothing and there is no fee for listing your eBay items on Google Product (which is essentially a shopping comparison site). If you’re not already using it install and run it today.

uConnect USB Skype Adapter

I don’t know how I’d cope without Skype and my USB Skype Adapter which enables me to make and accept Skype calls and connects them to my normal landline handset.

The uConnect adapter turns my phone into both a land line and a Skype phone in one, and because it’s permanently connected to my docking station as soon as I turn my laptop on either at home or in the office Skype is up, running and connected to my landline handset.

CutePDF

What do you do when a buyer asks for an invoice? SMP invoice printing enables you to simply print invoices and printing to CutePDF creates a PDF document you can email to the buyer.

Although I enclose a VAT invoice with all shipments, often an accounts department won’t receive them. CutePDF enables me to quickly and easily provide them with duplicate copies by email.

3G Broadband

There are few locations that a mobile phone signal can’t be accessed in the UK, and 3G broadband enables you to connect to the Internet when you’re away from home or office.

Currently I’ve two 3G devices – the 3 Broadband dongle and the Skypephone. Both work equally well and although the 3 Broadband dongle self installs the Skypephone needs you to run the install disk before you can use it as a 3G modem.

Those are my essential apps for keeping my eBay business running smoothly. What applications or products make your life easier and that you wouldn’t be without?

Built into the phone are a host of new upgrades. The main physical changes from the original Skypephone are the larger screen which is upgraded to 2.2 inch QVGA (upgraded from 2 inch QCIF) and the 3.2 megapixel camera (upgraded from 2MP), there’s also the welcome addition of Bluetooth.

It’s the applications that make the difference though – the new Skypephone S2 has RSS feed capability and a facebook application built in but the killer new app will be email.

3 are introducing email on their entire range of handsets from highest spec gizmo down to the most bog standard mobile. Cost will be from just £2.50 per month and it’ll work with any POP3 or IMAP email account (even Hotmail or Gmail). Email on the Skypephone S2 won’t be available on launch date, but is expected to be available within a few weeks of the first phones shipping.

Now email on the Skypephone will make it a true business tool for eBay sellers. Not only can you keep in contact with customers with Skype chats and Skype calls, but you’ll even be able to respond to email from your mobile handset.

Of course you won’t *have* to use a Skypephone to access email, 3 have a whole range of handsets right up to the Nokia E71 and even a Blackberry due out in the next few weeks. The Skypephone however is the only handset in the world that has Skype as a built in as an “always on” embedded tool rather than as an add on application. That means it doesn’t eat into your data allowance and 3 allow a generous 4,000 Skype minutes and 10,000 Skype chat messages a month for free on the Skypephone.

The Skypephone S2 has 3G mobile broadband capabilities with HSDPA speeds of up to 3.6Mbps and comes with the drivers built into the phone so you won’t need an installation disk. It can be used either with a USB cable to your laptop or via Bluetooth.

The cost is expected to be £69.99 on PAYG, and free for contract customers. Delivery of the first handsets is expected to the the 18th August. I can’t wait to get my hands on one that I can keep – email to my mobile at a reasonable cost will save me carrying a laptop around.

They’re short on detail but have confirmed that it’ll be again be a 3G model with an upgraded 3.2 megapixel camera instead of the old 2 megapixel. Sadly the camera is still on the rear of the phone meaning no video conferencing capability. RSS looks like a great feature that may be available on the new Skypephone, the screen shows an RSS symbol so it may be possible to get your favourite feeds (like TameBay) direct to your handset.

The part number will be WMA8709 and the phone when released will be the IMP2. The manufacturer of the original Skypephone, AMOI will again build the new one.

It appears that the new Skypephone has been approved by the FCC and some are speculating this indicates a quad band Skypephone meaning it could be used in the US.

I’m looking forward to the release of the new phone, I’ll be first in line to grab one when it becomes available.

3 have a choice of 3 modems for 1Gb, 3GB or 7GB data allowances per month. The modems are supplied free on a contract starting from just £5/mth and are also available on PAYG plans. There are a range of discounts for both new and existing 3 customers ranging from half price mobile broadband to free phones and unlimited text messages.

The model I’m testing is the Huawei E169G USB Modem. Installation was easy, taking just a couple of minutes. No need for any intallation disk as all the drivers are installed on the USB stick as a virtual CD-ROM drive. Simply connect the modem and it installs itself.

Once installed it gives a dashboard showing the connection, transfer rate, and totals for data sent/received. That’s important as there are three different price plans so you can keep track of your useage.

  It was slightly disappointing that the promised 3 meg speeds weren’t available at home, in fact the modem struggles to get more than 565Kpbs. In fairness I ran speed tests on my ADSL line and an NTL Cable connection which came out at 400Kpbs and 600Kbps – in comparison the 3 Mobile Broadband stacks up quite well. I’ll be interested to see the speeds available in London compared to out in the country. I guess I should point out that 3 are upgrading their network and expect to have Turbo Network rolled out to more areas by June to enable faster speeds.

One other useful feature is the ability to send text messages direct from your PC, it’s so much easier than typing on a mobile phone number pad. Admitedly your PC has to be turned on to receive replies, but it’s invaluable for the likes of updating or receiving updates from twitter.

I’ve turned the wireless card off on my laptop and for the next few weeks I’m going to test the 3 mobile broadband full time. I’m currently paying for two business ADSL lines for home and office costing around £50/mth so there could be real savings to make. The big question I’ll be hoping to answer is can you run an eBay business purely on mobile broadband?