Skype® for Dummies®

Chapter 13. Exploring Skype Communities

In This Chapter

• Finding online social communities using Skype

• Discovering a new way to learn languages with Skype

• Finding out how to search for skypers with common interests

• Taking classes using Skype

Not even Gulliver in his travels could hold bragging rights over the variety of scenes, pursuits, opportunities, and enterprises populating the new Skype landscape. Every existing endeavor, as well as every endeavor made possible by the Skype peer-to-peer technology, appears redesigned as a Skype community. The speed at which new connections are made between people of like minds and interests is astonishing. As fast as you can read this chapter is as fast as Skype communities assemble. This chapter opens the door, just a crack, to an array of social, education, commerce, and special interest communities for you to explore.

The people we meet, do business with, socialize with, and learn with are no longer limited to random acts of luck (or misfortune). We can pick communities to join, leave communities we dislike, and start our own communities if there are none out there representing our obscure passion for playing the Hawaiian nose flute. In this chapter, you find out how to take a class or join a book club using Skype, where to find a Skype partner to learn a new language, how to use Skype to kindle new friendships (and romances), and what hot new Web communities are adopting Skype at their core so that their members can start to talk to one another. ...