Should Skype clients be Wave containers?
Last week Google announced Wave, a pre-alpha browser application project. The experience is like instant messaging but with the extensibility and variety you might find in facebook or OpenSocial applications. Wave can be highly decentralized, like email, with Wave servers hosted by any person or company that cares to. 
Wave clients run in browsers. (Good to know: Skype desktop clients have tiny browsers inside.)
Extensibility makes a container useful in more ways. Like adding new tools to your Swiss Army knife or multitool. Apps could change what goes on inside the chat. We will be able to combine them in interesting ways. To surround chat with useful information about people. To enrich ways we discover people to talk with, to initiate conversations, to conduct those conversations using the right tools for that conversation, and to use the history of those conversations meaningfully.
Wave solves several Skype problems:
- One size doesn't fit all. People are diverse. So are the ways we want to talk. Skype is mastering the middle ground, ignoring the long tail of experience demand.
- Skype is closed. Promoting the Skype namespace so non-Skype users can chat with Skypers should increase demand for access to Skype services. New blood to boost the number of people in the Skype network.
- Skype isn't developer-bait. Skype might siphon off Wave talent. Opening up Skype to developers gives them immediate access to a world market, a great opportunity to bring them in to the Skype developer program. Done well, you might do without giving up control of Skype's added value.
- Skype doesn't run in browsers. Waving the Skype desktop client could lead to a browser-based rich Internet application, a Skype that runs in a browser without a 20MB download.
The flip side is opportunity:
- Skype meets more needs (lock-in in more markets).
- Skype attracts new customers (faster word of mouth).
- Skype attracts developers (lighter platform, bigger market).
- Skype runs everywhere (not just in Skype clients).
What would you like to see Skype become?
tags: skype, google, wave, ebay, design, im, chat, voip, voim
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Labels: design, developers, google, IM, skype, technology, voip
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3 Comments:
I was wondering when you would do a post on Wave, happy to see your views. Love to hear more of your perspective both with and without the Skype context. If you think of voice (as I know you do) as just an element of a given conversation, then voice in a Wave is a natural and we should expect to see it soon. hopefully Skype sees the opportunity as well.
skype/wave combinations would be a brilliantly usable tool that i personally would very much like to see.
I think that's a great idea from the user's end; linking Skype into presence/chat from other media is a great idea.
However, I'm not sure I'd feel as positively if I were on the other side (i.e. the product designer). Embedding a Wave into Skype dilutes the product; it's no longer Skype, it's some Google system with Skype calling layered over the top. From a marketing perspective, I think that would be a tough pill to swallow. Particularly as Skype is positioning itself for a big transition onto mobile devices, as IP connectivity becomes prevalent on them.
On the other hand, a move to some kind of "Web 2.0" social networking model could be the missing link in Skype's design; it's currently more like a utility, where people make calls from point to point. If it adopted a stronger social aspect, it could take some mindshare from Facebook et. al.
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