I did something kind of cool with my Dutch publisher Unieboek a couple weeks go.  We did a Skype interview.

For those who don’t know what Skype is, (Don’t pretend, okay: I can see that Sarah Palin look in your eyes,) it is a service or software . . . okay a service and a software . . . that allow you to communicate by picture phone.

Fine, clearly I don’t really know what it is, either, but I know this: I can use it to hook up by two-way video link with anyone similarly equipped. (Yes, that last is really an unfortunate sentence, isn’t it? Editors? A little help.?) Through my computer.

I get the account name of another Skype person. (Or, Skypester.) I click on their name. A window opens on my computer. They answer, and lo! Their picture appears to me, as mine does to them. And we see each other. In real time. Plus or minus three seconds.

This is almost always a better deal for me than it is for them.

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