Vonage thinks of itself as a phone company. Others do too. Google does not. While being thought of as a telco simplifies your positioning and marcom plans, there are tradeoffs. For one, you don't have a portfolio of other services and activities to leverage.

For example, Google can easily GTalk-enable its email, social network, and blogging services. They are already building on their digital identity (gmail accounts). Tribal search ("hey, team, let's find who leaked the story.") can't be far behind.

Yahoo! can deliver movie previews and Microsoft can let you know of updates to your blog.

Vonage and Skype don't have other assets to leverage. At minimum, they can be more reliable (apparently the Vonage approach) or add more features (the Skype approach). At best, they can partner through alliances and through turning their networks into open application platforms.

Can the landed gentry of telecommunications change their self image and their brands?