LotusLive: Level 1 on the Skype Journal Site Skypification Maturity Model

I first documented the Skype Journal Site Skypification Maturity Model in November 2007. Skype Journal's Jim Courtney analyzed IBM's Lotusphere announcements. LotusLive services have a maturity of 1 on the SJSSMM scale of zero/zed to 4.

Here's what I mean.

Skype Journal Site Skypification Maturity Model

Level 0: None
What's Skype?

Level 1: Static
Storing Skype names and Skype-linking Phone Numbers

Storing and linking people’s Skype names is one part. The other is to offer SkypeOut links for PSTN phone numbers.

Tech: Skype’s “skype:” html protocol to launch Skype from a browser link.

Level 2: Dynamic
Integrating Skype Presence

Is this person available for a call now? You can show a person’s Skype presence in a web page.

You can also use presence information to inform other site behavior. For example, you might aggregate presence data for a team to create collective presence scores.

Tech: Polling Skype’s web presence services

Level 3: Peering
Syncing Skype Profile, Social Graph, and History Data

Skype clients are information rich. You can use that data to enrich profiles, enhance your site’s social graph (who knows whom, how, and how they interact), collect communication histories (who talked to whom, when, for how long), and import chat archives.

You can keep your site's data synced with Skype's by refreshing active connections with your Skype client.

Tech: Using Skype’s client APIs to log in on behalf of a user. With that access you can both read and write to the client, and trigger conversations. At large scale, you will need to operate a Skype client farm.

Level 4: Transactional
Integrating Skype Business/Commerce Services

Skype offers some access to its payment services. PamFax is an example of this, where customers pay with Skype credits for sent faxes.

Tech: Skype publishing and DRM client and web service APIs.

The LotusLive product falls smack dab into Level 1: Static. Just to be clear, although you can associate a Skype name with a colleague, partner, or customer within LotusLive, and while you can launch a Skype call from a LotusLive web page, LotusLive and Skype are not integrated. Repeat: Not Integrated.

• The Skype call happens outside of LotusLive.
• You cannot add people to an ongoing call from LotusLive.
• You cannot trigger a LotusLive session from within a Skype call.
• You cannot mix LotusLive callers and Skype callers.
• If you want a Skype call, all users must have downloaded Skype, created Skype accounts (not the same as your LotusLive account), and be logged in to the Skype network.
• You cannot use LotusLive media assets (presentations, documents) within a Skype call.
• LotusLive has no record that the conversation occurred. No institutional memory, unlike conversations that use LotusLive tools and channels.

It is excellent that you can launch a Skype call or conference call from a LotusLive web page. That's enormously useful, a great first step. But that click passes call-starting data to desktop Skype clients; it's a one way trigger.

We'll have to rewrite the model to include new capabilities Skype Journal expects to emerge from the Skype platform by 2010 year end, including elements of the Social Stack.

• Login Interop. So you can log in to LotusLive using your Skype ID/password (think OpenID).
• IM and file transfer Gateways. So you can participate in a Skype chat even if you don't have Skype installed.
• Voice Gateway – Low Def and Hi Def. So Skype users can talk with non-Skype users.
• Voice Conferencing Gateway – Low Def and Hi Def. Multiparty, using Skype and non-Skype experiences
• Video Conferencing Gateway. So Skype users can join video conferences with people using LotusLive.
• Video Messaging Interop. So you can use Skype video to record messages to people in a LotusLive directory.
• Contact (address book) data sharing, syncing, creation - bidirectional
• Contact Group (team list) data sharing, syncing, creation – bidirectional
• Calendar/Schedule Sync. 

The SJ SSMM helps us assess current Skype readiness and plan a Skype strategic roadmap for our consulting clients.

tags: skype, lotosphere, lotusphere09, ls09, lotusphere2009, lotuslive, skypejournal, sjssmm, interoperability, interop, integration

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