Middle East: Migrant Exodus: Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber light way to Europe for Syrian refugees - by Serene Assir

“Our phones and power banks are more important for our journey than anything, even more important than food,” said Wael, a 32-year-old from the devastated Syrian city Homs who reached the Greek resort island of Kos on Thursday morning.

Refugees are using Facebook groups with tens of thousands of members to share photographs and experiences, find smugglers’ phone numbers, map their route from Turkey to Greece and onward to northern Europe, and to calculate expenses.

They use WhatsApp to help the coast guard pinpoint their location once their boats have reached Greek waters, and Viber to let their families know they have landed safely.

“We couldn’t take anything with us on the boat, we were all so crammed. But these phones are our most precious belongings,” said Wael, who fled Syria with his bright green-eyed wife and 12 relatives, including three children.

They are among more than 135,000 refugees and migrants who have arrived in Greece this year, amid Europe’s biggest migration crisis since World War II.

“I wrapped my phone up in a resealable plastic bag to protect it from the water,” said the olive-skinned man.

In Kos, Syrians can be seen taking photographs of each other on the beach using their smartphones, and ordering coffee at local cafes where they can connect to Internet.

Note EU-Digest: As millions of refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya and Sudan are swarming into Turkey and the EU it is amazing to see that our "good friends" on the other side of the Atlantic. who's Middle East policies created all this mess, remain deadly silent when it comes to also offering some of these refugees some assistance or a new future in the US.

Read more: Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber light way to Europe for Syrian refugees | The Times of Israel

EU telecoms reform to address competition from WhatsApp, Skype - by Julia Fioretti

The European Commission will take into account increased competition from cable operators and alternative services such as WhatsApp (FB.O) when it overhauls Europe's telecoms rules next year, a move that will be cheered by the telecoms industry.

A draft seen by Reuters of the Commission's strategy for creating a digital single market says telecom operators compete with "over-the-top" services "without being subject to the same regulatory regime".
"It is necessary to design a fair and future-proof regulatory environment for all services," the document says.

The bloc's telecom firms such as Orange (ORAN.PA) and Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) have long called for lighter-touch regulation, after years of declining revenues and competition from new entrants, to enable them to invest in network upgrades.

Telecom companies point to increased competition from services such as Skype (owned by Microsoft (MSFT.O)) and online messaging as a reason for easing the regulatory burden.

Considering Skype, or any other "voice-over-IP" application, as a substitute for traditional phone services could lead to those companies being subject to the same obligations as traditional operators, such as offering emergency calls.

The new European executive, which took office in November, has made investment in superfast broadband a priority. But incumbent telecom operators say the current set of rules does not provide incentives to invest in their networks. The Commission will unveil its proposals for an overhaul of the telecoms framework in 2016, the document states. Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip is expected to unveil his digital single market strategy on May 6.


Read more: EU telecoms reform to address competition from WhatsApp, Skype | Reuters

VoIP service provider Viber: 200.000.000 mobile users, for starters – Q&A with Viber CEO Talmon Marco

Free mobile messaging and VoIP service provider Viber recently made a slew of announcements, including reaching the milestone of 200 million users, the roll-out of Viber 3.0 on Android and iOS, and the launch of new apps for Windows and Mac desktop computers.

We had a chat with Viber founder and CEO Talmon Marco to go beyond the facts in the press release and see how the company is faring.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your entrepreneurial activities prior to Viber? 

Answ TM: I was born in Israel, spent most of my adult life in the US. I started a few companies before Viber, most notably iMesh, a file-sharing service".

Q: How, when and why did you co-found Viber Media?

Answ: "Viber was started in March of 2010 with a few friends from my iMesh days. We recognized the need for a messaging and voice application centered around the mobile experience and the phone book as your “social graph” or “contact list”.

"We wanted something that would be “super easy to use”. It would be the app you love and your grandpa can use without your help. We figured it was going to attract people because of the price but it had to be a great experience if people were to stay on board."

Q: Can you give us some basic facts about the company?
What size is your staff, where are the offices located, and has the company ever raised funding?
  
Answ: "Viber is pretty small given the scope of what we do. We are a little over 100 people, developing on about a dozen platforms. The company is based in Cyprus with development centers in Belarus, Israel and China. Funding is still “friends and family”. We never did an institutional round of financing. Maybe someday".

Q: The first Viber app for iOS was launched back in December 2010.
How has the mobile messaging landscape evolved since then, both to your advantage and negatively?

Answ: "At the time mobile messaging was a novelty. Since then it has become, in many countries, mainstream. This is good as less and less education is needed, but at the same time competition is fiercer than ever as more and more companies, big and small, realize the promise of mobile messaging".

"It’s an exciting time, but one with few hours of sleep".

 Read more: 200.000.000 mobile users, for starters – Q&A with Viber CEO Talmon Marco - The Next Web

Internet: Skype still calling the shots – but competitors are gaining

On August 29, 2003, a small Estonian start-up called Skype was born. Ten years later, the internet phone service has become one of the most downloaded software programs ever released.

Fans laud it as the only truly successful European tech start-up of the last decade.

The company, founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, has thrived because it brings the world closer together in an age when globalisation and intercontinental travel is pulling more families apart than at perhaps any other time in history.

In a blog post released last week to commemorate its 10th birthday, Skype said that a cumulative 1.4 trillion minutes of voice and video calls had been made using its service.

The company also highlighted some of the most incredible moments captured by people using Skype, including the story of a soldier witnessing the birth of his child from Iraq and a call from the top of Mount Everest. Famous Skype users include Britain's royal family, Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga.

Owner Microsoft claims that one-third of all international telephone calls now go through Skype. And in the surest sign of success, its brand name has become a verb – a rare distinction shared by the likes of Xerox and Google.

But though the service is incredibly popular, there are plenty of others snapping at its heels. Skype's most prominent competitor is Apple's FaceTime, available on iPhone and iPads.

Viber, an app popular with smartphone users, is also a direct competitor, as is messaging service WhatsApp. But Skype is still by far the market leader when it comes to calls rather than messaging. Its speed, simplicity and flexibility on multiple platforms have managed to keep users coming back.

It was sold to eBay in 2005 for about $2.5bn, and then to a group of venture capital firms in 2009.

In 2011, Microsoft bought the company for an impressive $8.5bn. Since then it has been busy integrating the service into several of its products, including Outlook.com.

So what's next? Technology companies live and die by their ability to innovate, and Skype is no different.

The company is currently developing a way to make and receive 3D video calls.

In an interview with the BBC, Skype's corporate vice-president Mark Gillett said the process was possible but difficult to replicate outside of a lab.

Read more: Skype still calling the shots – but competitors are gaining - Independent.ie