The new Skype for Windows 4 beta consolidates all the elements of a chat into one vertical pane on the right side of the main Skype window.

The upper half shows an alphabetic list of participants in a multiparty chat or conference call. People in the room. What else can we know or do with people in a room?

You can hide the list, but what else could you do with that space?

Sorting compares/contrasts people in the room. Sort by:

• Most recently contributed to the chat/call
• Freshness/aging by participation
• Mutual Availability 
• Of the times I’m online, what percentage is this other person also online?
• Time zone, relative to yours
• When are the Australians waking up, rejoining the conversation?  
• Contacts vs. strangers
• Which of these people have I yet to befriend?
• Provocateurs, Amplifiers, Lurkers
• Who triggers threads vs. who jumps in? Look at Marc A. Smith’s research on mining Usenet for social network and relationship data. You can look at time gaps in conversation, followed by responses.
• Visualize participation volume
• Who has been most/least active? Show a chart (pie chart?) or meter of the number of words contributed to the chat or seconds spoken in the conference call. Acknowledge contribution, encourage the quiet to jump in.
• Other profiled demographics: country, age, gender.

What other info would be useful if I move my mouse over someone’s name in the panel? Hover information:

• Faces
• Mood text
• Last text contribution to the chat
• Show the contextual menu now shown by option/right-mouse clicks.

Other options:

• Slide show of profiles, rotating through the participants
• Highlight the last contributor
• Animated moodgeist of those in the room
• Highlight people who contributed recently in other chats in which we are both members

Help those in the room make the most of being in that room. Help us with the metawork of scheduling, the facilitation and moderation of the conversation, launching sidebar talk, building reputation through social grooming and participation.

Thanks.

P.S. I miss drag and drop in 4b.

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