Patti Blagojevich Phones Home with Skype

Patti Blagojevich may be thousands of miles away on a Costa Rican jungle, but she still managed to check in on her family with the help of Skype, an online videoconferencing service.

 

The wife of ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich chatted with her husband and two daughters during an episode of NBC's "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!” that aired on Thursday. Viewers tuned in as Blagojevich reunited with her family using the Internet-based calling service for the first time since appearing on the reality show.

 

Skype (News - Alert) lets users make telephone calls over the Internet. Calls made to other users of the service are free. While there is a fee to make calls to landlines and mobile phones, the free service is catching on.

 

During the show, Annie, the Blagojevichs’ 6-year-old daughter, had one important question to ask.

"Did you like the tarantula?" she asked referring to a challenge on the show in which Blagojevich had to eat a spider.

 

It was the first time that Rod Blagojevich appeared on the reality show, thanks to Skype’s technology. He planned to be on the show, but a judge ruled he couldn't leave the U.S. because of his pending court case. Rod Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to charges that he schemed to sell or trade President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat and used the influence of the governor's office to get campaign donations. He was impeached from office in January.

 

The effort is the latest example of how people are using online services to communicate in real-time. Last month, talk show diva Oprah Winfrey took viewers and her studio audience on a worldwide tour using the online video conferencing service. As TMC (News - Alert) reported, Winfrey dedicated a full episode entitled on Skype, an eBay-owned VOIP service, to showcase its service.

 Despite its popularity, eBay (News - Alert) announced last month it plans to sell the Internet calling service within a year. As TMC (News - Alert) reported, Skype doesn’t align closely enough with eBay and PayPal’s models and would work better as a stand-alone business.

 

 Beyond Internet calling, Skype also recently announced its Skype for iPhone (News - Alert) application, which brings the service’s calling and instant messaging to any iPhone, TMC reported.