Disruptive Telephony

On Ellen Degeneres' TV show today (Friday, March 20, 2009):

Ellen:(very excitedly) How is this happening? Are you Skype-ing in? What's happening?

Oprah: Skype-ing in - that's exactly what I'm doing!

I learned of this in a Skype public chat where someone passed along the link to the Huffington Post article: Oprah Invites Ellen To Share O Magazine Cover. Having not seen either of the shows, I had no clue as to the backstory where apparently Ellen has been campaigning to get on the cover of Oprah's "O" magazine. Oprah was surprising (apparently) Ellen with a call via Skype video to ask her to be on the magazine's cover.

For me the most interesting part was that first little bit where Oprah and Ellen had the dialogue above about "Skype-ing".

Now I don't know if the mention of Skype is related to the sponsorship of Oprah that Skype began last year although that would seem reasonable. If it is, I'd have to say that Skype is getting some great mentions for whatever they are paying. If they aren't paying, it's perhaps even more powerful in that Oprah and Ellen are using the tool and mentioning it on their own.

UPDATE: Phil Wolff from Skype Journal tells me that Skype says that they did NOT pay for product placement. Oprah and her production team just like the tool.

Regardless, it's interesting to see. (And I want to know what kind of camera Oprah is using to get that great video quality!)

Here is the segment of the show:

Now of course the really "important" issue for us pedantic language types is... how do you spell "Skype-ing"? Is it:

1. Skype-ing
2. Skypeing
3. Skyping

#1 looks funny with the hyphen, but #2 looks really wrong with the "e" next to the "ing". #3 would probably be the most proper, but of course the brand name is "Skype".

What do you think? :-)

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Technorati Tags: skype, oprah, ellen