Skype recently announced it was launching two new premium services: SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail.

Forbes has the scoop:

Software maker Skype said Friday that it was launching two more premium services as the number of downloads of its popular program neared 100 million.

The company also said it was launching SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail, two premium services available in the latest download versions of Skype software for Linux, MAC OS X, Pocket PC and Windows platforms.

Skype’s signature program lets computer users call each other online for free anywhere in the world.

The new SkypeIn offers users personal numbers and lets them receive inbound calls from the Skype program from land lines or mobile phones without having to pay roaming charges.

Skype Voicemail lets users manage incoming messages.

“Skype is setting new standards for modern communications by expanding premium services that extend Skype portability, mobility and ubiquity across a variety of platforms, including the traditional phone network,” said Niklas Zennstreom, the company’s chief executive and co-founder.

And The Internet Stock Blog’s take:

Voice over IP company Skype announced that its free software had been downloaded 100 million times, and that it was launching two new premium (ie. paid) products: SkypeIn, which offers users personal numbers and lets them receive inbound calls from the Skype program from land lines or mobile phones without having to pay roaming charges, and Skype Voicemail. SkypeIn will cost $13 for three months or $39 for 12-months, and Skype Voicemail $7 for 3 months or $19 for 12 months. Comment: Skype matters to Internet investors for three reasons: (1) VoIP is a killer Internet application; (2) Skype effectively competes with the leading providers of instant messaging software - AOL (owned by Time Warner, ticker: TWX), Yahoo and Microsoft; (3) As communication and personal publishing become tied together, for example with Yahoo 360, instant messaging, video conferencing and VoIP will be an intregral part of the bundle. The upshot? Skype will eventually be acquired by a leading Internet company.

Read more here and here.

That’s what The Internet Stock Blog is wondering:

Yahoo (ticker: YHOO) is aggressively implementing Really Simple Syndication (RSS) across its network, with the recent upgrade to Yahoo News and the introduction of RSS feeds for Yahoo Shopping. Geeks are beginning to argue that Google (ticker: GOOG) is becoming a technology laggard, behind Yahoo and (gasp!) Microsoft (ticker: MSFT).

The data is all over the board these days when it comes to the US economy. Reuters is reporting:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Industrial production and consumer sentiment reports came in on the weak side on Friday, the latest data to support the view that higher oil prices could lead to slower U.S. growth in the second quarter.

The Federal Reserve said U.S. industrial production rose 0.3 percent in March, as expected, but February’s output was revised down to a 0.2 percent increase from the 0.3 percent gain previously reported.

The latest measure of April consumer confidence also bespoke a more uncertain economic outlook as energy costs soared. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index slid to 88.7 from 92.6 in March, according to market sources who saw the subscription-only report.

Read more here

Another great piece from Capital Spectator:

The U.S. balance of trade slipped to another all-time deficit in February–$61 billion vs. $59 billion in January, reports the U.S. Census Bureau. If you thought the news would take a hefty bite out of the dollar, you were mistaken. By the close of Wall Street trading today, the dollar gained ground against the euro and yen.

If that counters forex logic, think again, say the buck’s bulls. The catalyst for that corner of optimism stems from trade between U.S. and China, goes one school of thought. Although America’s trade deficit with China remains firmly negative, February’s level of red ink with the Middle Kingdom actually slipped in February from January, reports CBC.

In another instance of China’s sway over the markets, the International Energy Agency advised that demand growth for oil recently took a breather in the world’s most-populous nation. “Chinese demand growth slowed to 5.4% in the first two months of 2005, well below the 20.8% growth seen a year ago,” IEA reports. The news helped slash the price of a barrel of crude in New York today by almost $2.

Read more here

The Capital Spectator has a great piece on Consumption Economics & the Energy Crisis:

CONSUMPTION ECONOMICS
In the good old days of energy shocks, consumers cut back when prices jumped. But cutting back is no longer popular sport in the current bull market for oil.

Long gone are the days in the 1970s, when higher oil prices eventually convinced Joe Sixpack to drive less, buy cars with more fuel-efficient engines, turn down the heat, and otherwise curtail the more-egregious energy-sapping activities. A chart in the oil chapter in new World Economic Outlook from the IMF (Figure 4.2) shows the collective result of that mindset of yesteryear: global oil demand fell sharply in the wake of the rise in the real (inflation-adjusted) rise in oil prices in the era when incumbent presidents went by the name of Nixon, Ford and Carter.

In the Bush II era, the rising price of energy has yet to materially lower global demand. Or, as Rodrigo de Rato, managing director of IMF explained in speech earlier this month, “So far, the effects of higher oil prices on global growth and inflation have been manageable….”

Meanwhile, the demand train rolls on. World oil consumption was recently averaging 82.2 million barrels a day, the International Energy Agency says. That’s up from less than 80 million barrels a day in 2003. Overall, demand growth is advancing at the fastest pace in 24 years, IEA advises via BBC News. The cause? Bubbling economies in China, India along and the U.S. (the world’s largest oil consumer), to name the primary suspects.

Economic growth, to restate the obvious, is a beast that’s still largely fed by oil. Yet the global economy appears to be less sensitive to oil’s price. Indeed, crude oil has been in a bull market since the end of 1998, but the trend’s having little effect on the consumer mindset. Is this because of a cultural shift that minimizes, if not dismisses the notion of sacrifice and conservation in favor of consumption at all costs? Or perhaps the explanation is that oil prices are still well below their real (inflation-adjusted) peaks that harassed the decade of the seventies. Maybe it’s because real interest rates have been artificially low. Then there’s the point about how economies are much less energy intensive these days: raising gross domestic product takes fewer barrels of oil today compared with 30 years previous.

Whatever the answer, it seems clear that oil demand will only drop materially with the arrival of recession in the U.S. and/or other leading economies. Indeed, a world that’s inured to high prices is necessarily a world that can afford to pay up.

Even better is the prospect of slower demand growth without recession. If that’s a sweet spot, the markets got a taste of it with yesterday’s news from the IEA that China’s thirst for oil slowed in the first two months of this year. That’s helped take some of the froth out of crude oil’s price.

Adding to the selling momentum of late in the oil futures trading pits is news from the Energy Information Administration that U.S. inventories of crude are rising fast, having reached their highest in several years in recent weeks. America’s oil stocks totaled 317.1 million barrels as of April 1, up nearly 5% since early March and almost 9% higher relative to mid-January. More of the same was on view today when the EIA released its weekly storage numbers and reported that crude inventories rose again for the week through April 8. The news triggered a wave of selling in oil futures, bringing prices below $51 a barrel intraday for the first time since March 1.

Read more here

As stock investing becomes more and more mainstream (everyone from Aunt Thelma to little Suzie down the street seems to have a portfolio these days), how many people actually take their morals into consideration when selecting stocks?

For example, Reuters’ Company of the Day today is Abercrombie and Fitch(”A&F”). However, there are several independent campaigns out there boycotting A&F for everything from promoting underage drinking and pornography to the sweatshop-like conditions its clothing line is manufactured under.

I guess it comes down to questioning your ultimate goal… is it to make as much money as you can, or to make money while supporting humane treatment and good corporate values?

According to a recent Reuters article, Goldman Sachs is predicting that oil prices “could ultimately surge all the way above $100 a barrel.” The company says this “super-spike” period may last for years as prices reflect the increasing demand for oil worldwide (and especially in the emerging economies of China and India). Oil prices have averaged just about $50 per barrel so far this year — up by about eight and a half dollars from last year’s record $41.48 per barrel.

Oil in high demand might not be helpful to the economy, but you never know–maybe it will finally compel the U.S. to think seriously about developing renewable, alternative energy sources…