APSense Network

TE owner, affiliate marketer
The good thing about Skype is people can only call you if you've accepted them as a contact, so you're not in danger of receiving sales calls. I use it to keep in contact with my friends and family, and occasionally for text chat with other business owners, but no more than that. I don't see it as a marketing tool. If people do spam me through IM, they get blocked and reported. (Having said that, if my connection was better, I might use Skype more. Voice chat is difficult on my connection - video chat would be impossible - which is why I only have live calls with my friends and family because they don't mind just sitting on the line for a couple of minutes waiting for it to stop breaking up we can understand each other again!)
Oct 24th 2010 06:19

Hosting and Backup Service provider
@webmiep not if you set it up correctly i will show you if you want.
Oct 24th 2010 06:30

James Bonham

tweetsmaster
Skype is a great way to brand yourself online by the user name you choose. Thousands of business use it daily.
Oct 24th 2010 06:35

Paula van Dun

Retired
@bjantiques Thanks for your offer. Skype is on my list to investigate but I think I will wait to get it till we move to Turkey.
Oct 24th 2010 06:40

Dave Williams

Affiliate Marketer, Design
Its a great way to connect to people on a personal level if you get the idiots it`s quite easy to delete them i think this would work fine
Oct 25th 2010 15:20

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
I have my Skype set up with the privacy setting enabled which keeps me from getting spam garbage. The problem is that even with the privacy enabled, anyone who has my Skype ID can bypass those settings.

It's not hard at all if you want everyone to have your Skype info to choose to post it on your profile. I prefer to NOT give my info to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the internet and see no reason why (Since anyone who wishes Tom, Dick and Harry to have it can plaster it on their profile) I or anyone else should be asked or required to post information that we prefer to keep private.
Oct 25th 2010 15:28

TE owner, affiliate marketer
I don't see a problem at all with having a space for it. Just because there's a space doesn't mean you have to provide it. My Skype ID is easy for anyone to guess, but I don't get much SPAM, maybe one message every 2 weeks or so on average. People can't actually call you unless you've accepted them into your contact list (at least with the settings I have on my account), so you don't get any unwelcome calls.
Oct 25th 2010 15:33

Philippe Moisan

Tutorial videos, sci-fi writer
Not sure about giving my skype ID. I don't use skype very much, cause I'm afraid it might turn out to be too much small talk, and time is limited. Learning about someone's interests in his/her profile and/or posts and comments everywhere at ApSense is a good way to start building a relationship. Then, when I sense a good connection with someone, I mention skype. But I'm more a lab rat than a party guy. :) Last night, someone tried to contact me through skype, I had no idea who it was, she said she had searched and had found my profile interesting and wanted to talk. I asked her a question, got no response, so ignored it. This gives me further reserves about skype.
Oct 25th 2010 15:42

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Yes you do have to accept but I also don't want 3 dozen contact requests cluttering up my conversation box. I am not a fan of posting IM IDs on social networks. Possibly because my field is identity theft risk management. And plastering that information all over the place accessible to anyone is a risky practice.

There are programs out there that are designed to identify passwords and I'm pretty mush positive that no one on this site with exception perhaps of Bill Brown has a password of sufficient strength to keep that software from discovering their passwords.

All of us need to start being more security conscious of what we do and post online.
Oct 25th 2010 15:47

Hosting and Backup Service provider
Thanks for the compliment Cheryl yes I use crazy passwords but although they are it is not 100% guarantee but it will take a lot of time and effort to crack them.
Oct 25th 2010 16:20

Jeune Taylor

Wordpress Specialist
I have been using Skype in personal and business for a number of years... couldn't live or work without it.

J
Oct 29th 2010 12:59

TE owner, affiliate marketer
What's the link between passwords and IM IDs? Sorry if I'm being a bit thick here, but I can't see it.
Oct 29th 2010 13:31

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
It's like your email address and your password, they can gain access to your account and hijack it. There was quite a lot of that going on a few years ago with Yahoo messenger. Hijackers taking over people's accounts and using them to send spam, scams and viruses to everyone on that contact list.

All they need is your ID to hijack your account, take it over AND lock YOU out of your own account. Those friends and contact now respond to messages supposedly from you being sent by scammers and spammers. Not to mention what viruses have they downloaded to YOUR computer in the process.
Oct 29th 2010 14:00

TE owner, affiliate marketer
So you're saying anyone who knows your ID for anything can access your account IF they can find out your password. But if you want to communicate with people through a particular method, you have to share your ID. Am I still missing something?
Oct 29th 2010 14:16

Hosting and Backup Service provider
anyone can know your id - id they didn't then how would they know who they are communicating with. Do not get paranoid about this.

You can reduce the chances of a hacker getting into your accounts (any accounts i mean) if you use your head and create difficult passwords.
examples are
@$Mo%wW1P3!tb3loB59D
NSRMBAquCO@a6teKywoz
I!IZNgz%34u3p#5BrGys.

What do they have in common?
capital letters small letters numbers and characters

these are 20 long although you can in my opinion go down to 15 long or any in between, just remember the longer the better.

Do not use the same password on multiple sites 1 site - 1 password.

another tip to make things harder - when you install scripts very often the user for the administration area is admin - change it to something else you could even make it another password as above. That then means a hacker must not just break one password they have to break two.

I use evil passwords (evil as above) and so ar i am keeping my self out of the fire.
Oct 29th 2010 17:09

Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
The thing is about people you do not know having your ID and passwords. You shouldn't be giving them out except to people you know and trust. In other words getting to know someone on the site and wanting to contact them go ahead, just posting it for public consumption where anyone and everyone has access to them, no.
Oct 29th 2010 17:18

Hosting and Backup Service provider
you should not give your password to anyone unless they are someone you really know and trust for example my clients trust me to have access to various things so I can help them in correcting errors looking for problems that need solving and so on. But they would not give it to anyone else.
Oct 29th 2010 18:47