Over the past three weeks I have had the opportunity to attend the Skype sessions at the eBay-Skype Developers Conference, to meet with and/or interview several Skype Software Business Solution Partners (product reviews forthcoming), and to spend a day at eBay Live – especially in the exhibit area.

Out in the blogosphere, especially via posts from the mesh 2007 and Enterprise 2.0 conferences, we have also seen a few observations about how social networking tools and, in particular, Skype, are penetrating the small enterprise market. The combination of these activities has helped bring into clearer focus what it takes to be a successful Skype Business Solution Partner, not from a technology perspective, but rather an approach to building a sustainable business.

First and foremost – bring along some experience in a vertical market or solution:

• Unyte has been providing desktop sharing services for several years;
• Real Allusion brings expertise in graphic enhancement and animation to Crazy Talk
• The OnState team brings over twenty years’ experience in developing successful Call Center solutions to its OnState ACD product,
• VAPPS brings carrier grade conferencing technology and experience to HighSpeedConferencing.com
• The Convenos team brings several years’ experience in building virtual meeting solutions
• Evoca had been developing a call recording, messaging and transcription web service business around any telephony service for academics, media companies and political campaigns

Second: Be prepared to be a persistent, patient pioneer.

• The Unyte story, initially presented here in an interview with Unyte's CTO, Gershon Goren , but also articulated so well by Unyte's CEO Lou Guercia at the Skype “Concepts to Cash” presentation, describes how the Unyte developer team had to work with Skype personnel as both the API set and the developer program evolved over the past two plus years.
• But I also heard about how incorporating Skype into Evoca’s product offering required supportive assistance from Skype personnel to bring on board the first web service involving Skype.
• The OnState ACD solution required patience until Skype could offer full call transfer capability; in the interim they built a Skype chat solution accessible from any website.

The evolution to the current Skype Software Developer Program removes some of the obstacles encountered by these pioneers; on the other hand they have been trail blazers contributing towards what is offered today.

• But the most important advice comes from Dick Schiferli at Pamela: “Nurture your Skype relationship and maintain an appropriate level of engagement by building good lines of two-way communication with Skype”.
• And don’t forget about Skype Software certification whose goal is to provide standards for quality assuance. As of July 2, Skype Software Certification will be required to become a Skype Partner.

Third: Ensure you have a value add product or service, not simply a feature

However, when you dig deeper you will find that call recording is a feature within each of these products/services. It is the value add proposition incorporating the call recording feature that differentiates each of the offerings. For instance:

• Pamela offers (MP3) call recording/voice mail as one feature of a set of personal assistant utilities that enhance your overall Skype experience;
• Skylook logs call recordings/voice mails into Outlook for individual PC archival purposes, integrated along with archiving of chat messages and call history within Outlook. In fact, with Skylook, you can manage all your Skype real time communications activity from Outlook and leave the Skype client in the System Tray
• Evoca offers online archiving with web access and RSS feeds for website, weblog and podcast reference along with transcription and translation services but no voice mail service.

And if you investigate the respective pricing models for each, you will find they represent various approaches to providing business-driven value-add.

Fourth: follow Lou’s Rules. From Lou Guercia’s presentation at the “Concepts to Cash” seminar:

• Rule #1: Develop a product that you’d like to use with Skype .. Something that enhances the user experience.
• Rule #2: Don’t forget Rule #1 (when you get into the actual development cycle)
• Rule #3: Keep It Simple Stupid (make implementation and operation intuitive)
• Rule #4: Offer free and paid solutions
• Rule #5: (not stated but implicit in his presentation) Bring your solution to Skype’s global user base in a way that requires no (or minimal) real-time tech support

Fifth: Use Web 2.0 tools and social networking to build your customer base:

While traditional SMB marketing programs will certainly bring results, a profitable business model for selling Skype Partner software involves leveraging Web 2.0 tools wherever feasible. Social networking has become a key business tool:

• From Alec Saunders’ Enterprise 2.0 Reflections: We’re onto something BIG!:

… the business of being an enterprise solution provider just got a lot harder. Over and over we heard repeated that the young bring their own networks and applications to business. And because these are mostly web based applications, not much can be done to contain them. Within a short period of time, we should expect millions upon millions of GMail, Facebook, and Skype users within every enterprise globally.

• Unyte grew its registered user base from 250,000 to 500,000 in six months simply through the visibility provided by Skype Extras
• “Staff increasingly dictating the corporate IT agenda”. This forum entry is consistent with a story I heard while having lunch at eBay Live about a Fortune 500 company that blocked Skype internally but all their field agents use Skype to communicate externally.
• Obtain third party reviews, especially in the blogosphere.

And from several comments heard at the developer conference:

• Employees start using Skype and bring it into the business
• Skype becomes a key communications tool for building business presence worldwide for small to medium businesses
• Business investigates Skype Business Partner Solution and adopts one or more solutions
• According to Unyte, each license drives four more Skype user registrations as the product infiltrates the business’s best practices

Skype’s introduction into (initially small-medium) businesses via products such as Convenos, Unyte and OnState is demonstrating that Skype Partner Solutions will be a primary driver for building the Skype user base going forward. When you hear of 100 license sales for Unyte and 200 to 400 license deals for Convenos, and leverage those into additional Skype user registrations, you start to recognize that business solutions incorporating Skype will become a key differentiator for Skype from other VoIP players and a key driver of new user adoption in what is becoming an otherwise very competitive market space.

Tags: Skype, Skype Software Developer Program, Pamela, Skylook, Unyte, Convenos, OnState, HighSpeedConferencing.com, VAPPS, Skype Extras, Evoca, Real Allusion, Crazy Talk, mesh07, Enterprise 2.0, SaundersLog, Alec Saunders

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few months ago, in a post titled "Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, Just Add Skype and We're Set", I wrote about my experience with the N800 and how I found it quite suitable for "casual computing" where I do not need the full functionality of a PC but need something for casual web browsing, reviewing weblogs and even some communication.

Ken Camp has gone to the "geek extreme" and loaded a wide range of programs onto his N800 (including a weblog editor); the installation process for any of these is not what I would call "Install Shield"-friendly. Ken has successfully taken it along with a Nokia N95 on his frequent camping trips to keep connected.

I would love to have the time and resources to take an extended road trip and document the whole thing with my N95, N800 and Nikon D50. Since work keeps me plenty busy, that will simply be the trips that come. We’re headed back to Cannon Beach for another round in four weeks. That will include serious time at the tidepools and some horseback riding on the beach. Then in late September we’re off on an eight day cruise to Alaska. I won’t take a laptop along for that trip either.

Casual computing isn’t just about work. It’s more than doing your email when you’re on a day off. Casual computing is about the hyper-connected lifestyle, maintaining relationships, and sharing life events.

Yesterday Kevin Tofel at jkOnTheRun reported sighting a N800 running Skype in the Nokia booth at the Digiital Experience show in NYC. Seems like it will be available for download later in July.

The big news there wasn't a new device, it was a service, and that service is Skype! It's been a long time coming, but Skype support for the Nokia N800 is right around the corner. I got a chance to see it, but it won't be available as a download until some time in July. The Nokia N800 already supports Gizmo for VoIP, but the addition of Skype adds more choice to make a good mobile device an even better one.

Kevin also noted the absence of video on Skype for the N800. Given the lackluster quality of the N800's video when using its GTalk, its video quality may simply not meet Skype standards for video performance.

Ken has also determined that Skype is not relevant to him -- and rightfully so. He is looking for enterprise solutions but Skype is not targeting larger enterprises. Initially Skype was targeted to the consumer market. As a result of finding that 30% of their users were using Skype for their business activities (as confirmed by many whom I have encountered using Skype in their business), Skype is currently developing services and programs for the small business market. However, it now appears that Ken's admiration for the N800 is causing him to rethink this decision. Just can't miss the excitement!

I would argue his statement "Skype on a PC doesn’t add value for me today". In my case Skype has become my primary real time conversation tool, whether voice, IM, file transfer, video. All my day-to-day frequent contacts are on Skype ... as well as over 100 others. And, when I go to Ken's weblog on Firefox or Internet Explorer, I find his mobile and Grand Central numbers are Skype-activated. Click-to-Call via Skype. I don't dial phone numbers. No callbacks, no "minute stealing" involved. Two clicks -- one to trigger the call, followed by a courtesy one to confirm that you may be charged for using SkypeOut. And now I access my Skype contacts from my Blackberry. I had an excellent quality Blackberry-to-Blackberry call using IM+ for Skype Software this morning. I'm looking forward to the return of Ken's SkypeMe button.

Welcome back to the world of Skype, Ken. To paraphrase a certain sporting equipment company: "Just use it!".

And I'm looking forward to reviewing Skype on the N800 when it becomes available next month. (Hat tip to Andy for pointing to Kevin's post.)

Tags: Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, Nokia N800, N800, Skype, Ken Camp, Kevin Tofel, Digital Experience, casual computing, IM+ for Skype Software, Blackberry

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In a press release issued yesterday, an agreement between Skype and Bigmouthmedia was announced whereby Bigmouthmedia's services will be used to facilitate Skype promotion through search engine marketing activities.

Bigmouthmedia will work with Skype to manage its comprehensive organic search offering across the major search engines, initially within 8 geographic locations worldwide including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Japan. The appointment comes at an exciting time for both companies with each expanding quickly worldwide.

Garrett Smith posted has some observations on this announcement in a section titled "How Can You Not Pay Attention to Search Engine Marketing"

Sure they have other concerns, but from my point of view (as an online marketer) what their site lacks is online marketing 101. For instance, something as simple as each product in their online “shop” having a unique title, has seemed to escape them, even though I told them how and why they need to do this … about 10 months ago … multiple times. I bet Skype has lost hundreds of thousands in sales over the past few years due to poor site structure and on page optimization.

I know a lot of people are critical, suspicious, and dismissive of search engine marketing, but i think that is foolish. It is like any other industry; it has its snake oil salesmen, but a solid, reputable search engine marketing agency, can do wonders for your business. If you are doing business online and have yet to reach out to an expert in the field, I implore you to do so. The results could take you from just another player, to the lead player in your industry.

Will this effort help to reinforce Skype's non-US market activities where Skype continues to find 85% of their user base?

Tags: SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Skype, Bigmouthmedia, Garrett Smith

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 01:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Hirosan caught this Japanese Coca Cola promotion.

Depending on whether you buy a Coca Cola Zero, No Calorie, or Classic (left to right), you'll enter to win a black, white or red headset for Skype. 17,000 BMH-E03 series analog headsets from Buffalo will go to the winners.

Coke's campaign puts 9.5 million Coke bottles (a million more than Tokyo's population) into 38600 nationwide convenience stores from June 4 to July 13. Chains carrying the Skype cokes include AM/PM, Circle K [sankusu], Three F, Seven-Eleven, deiriyamazaki, Natural Lawson, huamirimato, Poplar, Mini-Stop, and Lawson.

The campaign was initiated by Coca Cola Japan; Skype Japan just supports it.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow, lots of news to wrap up from the weekend.

eBay is back in bed with Google,  at least when it comes to advertising. Love-hate relationships are so difficult; isn't there an easier way?

eBay is moving back to China, now with Skype portal partner TOM Online.

Boingo Wireless is going flat rate for all its 100,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. All you can eat anywhere for €29 or $39 monthly. Hmmm. Responding to competition from Skype partner fon? Or from Starbucks?

TechCrunch is spreading the unconfirmed rumor that Google bought GrandCentral. Right. What would the office-of-the-future want with a web-centric telephone service? Can you imagine GrandCentral integrated with Gmail? With your calendar? What I don't understand is why haven't eBay/Skype bid for GC? GrandCentral at Skype Journal.

Fring came out for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. More market opportunity. See the story of the fring sign traveling the world. 

LinkedIn says it will open up to developers... Next Year! Power users and developers begged LinkedIn to open up APIs to third parties for years. It's been an ongoing theme on the LinkedInnovators list. So what's the delay? Is it conceptual? You can't figure out why anyone would want to add to or improve the LinkedIn user experience? Is it technical? Jay Deragon is calling for Social Network interop. 

In American politics, it's looking like Republican Senator John McCain will drop out of the race for President. Is it too early to start scoring candidate policies on telecommunications, intellectual property, censorship, trade, and other issues affecting Skype, its customers and its ecosystem?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the challenges of the emerging VoIP telephony market is building channel business models that are profitable in an industry where the market perception for VoIP is "free" services. For instance, the primary original draw to Skype was the non-existent tolls associated with long distance calls, especially overseas calls. Yet, as VoIP solutions migrate into the business environment, business managers are seeking "full business solutions" from what has become perceived as a "low cost" business space. This is providing significant challenges to VoIP resellers as they attempt to build a traditional VAR business when the market only allows very limited margins that cannot necessarily be made up in volume.

Andy Abramson at VoIP Watch threw up the gauntlet with his weekend post The Myth of VoIP Resellers:

There's one problem though. Lack of buyers.

I don't mean there isn't a ready made market. What I'm saying is these resellers for the most part still are marketing with a 1.0 mindset.

Garrett Smith, a VoIP reseller channel veteran at VoIP Supply, responds today in his blog, Smith on VoIP, with The Truth About VoIP Resellers:

While I applaud Andy for shedding light on the current state of the VoIP reseller marketplace, I do not agree with everything he mentions, and feel that, although many of his points/suggestions work from an ideological perspective, when it comes to the reality of being a VoIP reseller and growing a business in this marketplace, they just do not hold-up.

Garrett then goes on to provide point-by-point responses to Andy's observations. Check out both these posts for their respective perspectives on VAR opportunities in the VoIP market space.

Skype is looking for Value Added Resellers in Europe. One of the challenges I see is Skype's vendor partners' pricing of their products at a sufficiently high level that appropriately allows for support of the distribution channel. You can readily cut pricing to a level that may meet the market perception but where VAR's have no incentive to sell solutions. On the other hand web-based education and marketing can bring some of these solutions to smaller enterprises in a cost-efficient manner. Skype's participation in the distribution channel is going to require new business models not only for Skype but also for their partners such that both parties have successful and profitable businesses while delivering communications cost efficiencies to their end user business customers.

Innovation may bring "best-of-breed", cost effective technologies; however, it still takes top-notch people to deliver fully serviced "best-of-breed" solutions.

Tags: VoIP Resellers, VoIP Watch, Andy Abramson, Garret Smith, Smith on VoIP, Skype, Skype Resellers

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Andrew Keen is a snob.

Perhaps in a good way, but that's the point of The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy. I only respond to trolls like Keen to help myself debug(debunk?) sophomoric twaddle. Here goes.

Me: The rate of technology diffusion nearly always outpaces the rate of knowledge and cultural diffusion.

Books and the skills of writing and reading were concentrated in the hands of a few people who devoted their lives to religious institutions.

The printing press and public education changed that. Even little children could read and write, without becoming monks and taking vows of poverty and chastity (sorry, Keen). Most of the values and the hard won skills of the old technologists, like page illumination, were abandoned in favor of the minimal skills needed to use the new, disruptive technology.

60 years' ago there were about 44 thousand TV sets in the US (the 1947 DuMont Chatham pictured left). There were maybe a hundred television cameras, literally one in a million people were behind the camera. 1947 saw the introduction of kinescopes (picture on the right), which recorded television to film, the first time-shifting technology for television (think TiVo). A handful of television stations served major cities a few hours each week.

Commercialized technologies embed values in their designs.

In 2007, millions of television studios will be sold each month, most of them fitting in your pocket. You can shoot and store videos in your mobile phone, distribute them to a billion people. For lunch money.

When you whip out your phone to vid a party, you didn't have to study electronics, optics, signal analysis, camera sensor tuning, video composition, studio lighting, makeup for television, studio mixing, audio engineering, or dozens of other specialties that were first the province of lab rats, then union artists.

Nokia and other phone makers build these skills into phone chips and software. Click to turn on the video camera. Click to shooting. Point. Click to stop and preview. Click to upload. Done. Years of education and experience, careful rites of passage into clubs of skilled craftsmen, reduced to fewer than a dozen button clicks.

Keen whines that the unwashed masses who write, take photos, and shoot video (in other words: think, observe, opine, and share) are destroying the rarified institutions associated with artificial scarcity of the press, literature, the cinema, and academe. That you cannot find the good stuff for all the amateur swill. That all the wisdom of centuries, carefully filtered, tested and cultivated, fails to propagate along with the "democratizing" technologies now available to the poor, illiterate, and stupid.

Duh.

Of course.

And that's OK.

We'll get over it.

We live in a dynamic system. Feedback loops and all. So not only will the old institutions live on - albeit differently - but more people will discover that knowledge, those values, and embrace them. Thousands of people read or saw Shakespeare 400 years' ago vs. hundreds of millions today.   

The very mechanisms you decry are the ones that will preserve and reinvigorate those cultural and economic elements you prize, Andrew.

Have faith.

Notes:

1. The 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death is in April 2016.
2. The Klingon Hamlet.
3. The Keen Reader.
4. TVhistory.tv

Posted by Phil Wolff at 03:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Have it Your way: at home, in the office or mobile

So Jajah wants us to abandon our headsets and make headset-free phone calls. But I can come up with several ways to make headset free phone calls with Skype or alternative mobile handset-based services:

• With the Skype 3.2 client, Skype's new voice engine does a very good job of echo cancellation; I often run Skype on my laptop using my Logitech webcam's mic and my laptop seakers along with the Skype softphone client. Sound quality's much better than some of the echo boxes I occasionally have to listen to at the other end! No headset required.
• I can make a call using my evaluation Phillips 841 Dual Cordless phone (where "Dual" means Skype/SkypeOut or PSTN) with the option to (i) use the standard embedded speaker and hold it to my ear, (ii) put it on the speakerphone and listen anywhere in the room.or (iii) add a standard cordless phone earpiece or headset. Woops, the last option gets back into headsets -- sorry for the slip-up. Because it uses DECT cordless technology, I can actually take the call anywhere in the house. And for this type of call, I don't need to even start near my laptop -- only its base station needs to be near a cable/DSL router or connected Ethernet switch. Bottom line: Headset optional, calls taken anywhere in the house.
• I also have an option to make VoIP calls on Truphone from any of the Nokia N80i or N95 equipped with WiFi. Again there are three options for listening: embedded handset speaker, loudspeaker or Bluetooth earipiece (which gets close to a headset). Just as with calling over the GSM network, simply look up a number, select it, tell it you want to go over the Internet (as opposed to the GSM voice service) and you have established a call. Look Ma! No Callback! Headset optional but WiFi required -- calls taken anywhere within 100m. of an authenticated WiFi access point.

And over the past couple of weeks I have discovered ways to make Skype calls away from any WiFi or wired Ethernet connection:

• Mobivox allows one to use any wireless phone to make Skype calls with the proviso you call a local PoP number (as we used to do with dial-up Internet). Its servers then complete the call for you (as a Skype or SkypeOut call). You do have to pre-register Contact names (but it does import Skype Contact info readily), dictate names and type of termination (Skype or SkypeOut) but it works pretty effectively. In this case, no download required. And those mobile phones will have headset options but also at least a speaker phone option.
• IM+ Skype for Software allows me to call anyone on Skype or in my Blackberry address book at no/low cost from my Blackberry where I have the Bluetooth headset, speakerphone or embedded speaker/mic options. As a bonus I can text message and detect presence with this Skype client on the Blackbery. Work that into your Jajah phone call. One time download required but largely to manage the IM feature.
• And I am learning about Talk Plus which can provide a low cost underlying voice connection infrastructure in place to complement simply the IM component of Skype on a, say, Nokia N95.

So there are plenty of options but here's the clincher: When I moved to Los Angeles with Quarterdeck several years ago one of the first practices I adopted was to use a headset for handling phone calls. Two hands free for working on my PC or doodling; And being cordless I could wander around the office. I want headset options with all my phones.

As an additional point, what is one of the other principle benefits of headsets? Handsfree combined with Privacy, of course! I'm not always ready to let those around me listen to the other half of the conversation (and, showing some respect for those around me, they often don't want to hear it).

And, finally, what happened to the elements of IM - presence and text messaging? Nowhere to be found with Jajah. In some ways, Jajah appears to be the mobile version of a (minute stealing) legacy phone service replacement business. And we know how competitive these services have become along with low margins. Over the past two weeks, having the mobile IM benefits of IM+ for Skype Software has been a real benefit when away from my laptop -- in fact, more of a benefit sometimes than having mobile voice.

Before you decide you want to throw away your headset, make sure you know what other features you are throwing away with the bath water. I want my headset -- as an option!

Tags: Skype, Skype headset, Jajah, Philips 841, Truphone, Blackberry, IM+ for Skype Software, Mobivox, Talk Plus

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 02:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Innovation Alert: Challenging All MashUp Junkies!

Over the past couple of years the developer world has been challenged to innovate in a way that brings a higher degree of interactivity and more potential for web services such that we can envision being able to interconnect applications and data to serve a customized purpose whether for a large business audience or to satisfy an individual's desire to experiment. Mashups are appearing as buttons and hyperlinks on websites and blogs, linking applications and data across a wide range of vertical market sectors. In fact the Programmable Web's Mashup DashBoard is tracking mashups in real time and provides a daily view of the vertical markets served. (If you click on the diagram above to go to the Dashboard, you can click on each sector to find the mashups for the respective market sector.)

As preannounced at Skype DevCon last week, today marks the launch of Skype's Summer 2007 Mashup competition.. An example pointed out at the time was the then new Twitter4Skype mashup that brought your Twitter activity into into a Skype chat window. From the Mashup Competition wiki:

Ok, ok. So you're thinking "aren't mashups just another Web 2.0 bandwagon?"

Well hold your cynicism for a moment! We (in Skype Developer Program) think the time is right for a focused effort on Mashups. With professional mashup creator IDE's, hundreds of API programs and thousands of mashups available, the time has never been better for mashups to make life better for users. If you're in doubt about the number of opportunities for 'creative plumbing' check out: the Programmable Web Mashup website.

Skype hires smart people, but we don't profess to own every smart idea in the world. That is where you come in....

The ground rules include:

• Competition is open now and runs to August 31, 2007
• Mashup must include use of at least one Skype API call.
• {secret hint heard at Skype DevCon} Entering an eBay - Skype or a PayPal - Skype mashup may unduly influence the judges
• Third party reviews of MashUp contest entries are embargoed until 9:00 a.m. GMT Sept. 14, 2007

Both Phil and I are amongst the judges with the winners announced at Skype's Prague developer event September 12, 2007. The winner will be invited to attend in Prague with transportation reimbursed by Skype.The winner will also receive other promotional exposure while the ten runners-up will also receive marketing and promotional assistance from Skype after Sept. 13.

While I can't speak for Phil and the primary judging criteria are posted on the wiki, I will be looking for usability and value-add from either a consumer or business perspective, ease of implementation and operation, stability and "Is it a Purple Cow" within the Skype ecosystem? And I will add one more criteria: Is it a potential Voice 2.0 application?

Related links:

• Skype Mashup Competition Wiki (including details on how to enter)
• Skype Mashup Competition Public Chat
• Antoine's KickOff Post on Skype Developer Zone Blog
• Skype Mashups on Programmable Web

Looking forward to some innovative activity (especially with eBay, PayPal, Facebook, Google Maps, MySpace).

Tags: Skype, Skype Extras, Skype Mashup Competition, SkypeMashupCompetition2007, Skype Developer Zone, EBaySkypeMashUp, PayPalSkypeMashup

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Tim Poulus started this round of speculation that Yahoo!'s reorganization and Semel's departure leave the door for an eBay/Yahoo! merger not just open but likely.

It would be pretty amazing, actually, to see the two together. Very different office and leadership chemistries. Merging Skype/Y!Messenger would pool some amazing talents and extraordinarily large user communities. And who wouldn't want click-to-call integration all over the Yahoo! properties? Janet Driscoll Miller thinks bringing PayPal to Yahoo! and Yahoo! advertising to eBay sellers would be big business.

But I don't think it's going to happen. What would a merger produce that partnering agreements wouldn't?

Watch Mojo thinks it would be hard for Yahoo! shareholders to take the lower P/E and P/S multiples that come with eBay's transactional vs. advertising business. But Krish thinks this might be the best merger on Yahoo!'s horizon.

So how about it? eBaYahoo! anyone?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Their tagline might as well read "No Budget, No Breakthroughs, No Fear."  Jajah is targeting Skype's users with their new NoHeadset.com site. The headset is a symbol of connecting through your computer, of being chained to your desk. Join their "movement" by videotaping yourself creatively destroying your headset and sharing the video. Some of the entries are giggleworthy.

Jajah is branding itself against Skype with this new campaign.

• Jajah: lightweight. Skype: heavy.
• Jajah: for mobile phone users. Skype: for desktop users.
• Jajah: energetic, for the YouTube generation. Skype: not.

Jajah's messaging is a great frame for Jajah. It'll be interesting to see if Skype ignores it or counters with a frame that subverts Jajah.

The silver lining for Skype? At least they're big enough to draw this kind of attention.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Meet Joost van der Vleuten, a senior policy advisor at the Netherlands' Ministry of Economic Affairs.

No relation to the company or the singer, but Joost's mailbox was full with congratulations from friends when "his" startup launched. His mother is so proud!

Posted by Phil Wolff at 09:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Phil Wolff at 02:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A Guest Post by Joe Thornley, Partner with Ottawa/Toronto-based Thornley-Fallis, whose ProPR blog explores social media and public relations. Joe is also coordinator of the monthly Third Monday/Tuesday events in Ottawa and Toronto where he brings together an audience interested in discussing social media from a PR perspective. Republished, with permission, from ProPR

The final morning session at Enterprise 2.0 that I attended focused on Skype and the issues its adoption raises within the Enterprise. Irwin Lazar moderated a panel of Rebecca Cavagnari, VP of Convenos, Lou Guercia, President of WebDialogs and Michael Jackson from Skype.

• Skype has become the most popular communications application, with 9.2 million users logged in at any time and hundreds of millions of downloads.
• The virtual workplace is here. Nemertes Research reports that 83% of enterprises reported in 2006 that they have incorporated virtual workplaces.
• Skype is the first unified messaging application. And it has taken off with individuals and small businesses.
• Individual employees have introduced Skype into the enterprise. Skype has developed a Skype for Business product geared to the Enterprise environment. However, adoption by the enterprise has lagged behind individual user adoption.
• Nemertes researched the views of enterprises about Skype. Almost half (46%) of their respondents have a policy to block it. (Note that the policy is not universally applied.) About one in ten - mostly nonprofit organizations - actively use it. Overall, there is not a great deal of acceptance by the highest levels in the enterprise, but there is broad usage by individuals.
• Corporate concerns include control of usage and security.
• Lou Guercia feels that the only element missing from Skype as a unified communications platform is data sharing. His company, WebDialogs, offers a Skype web conferencing plug in under the Unyte brand name.
• Skype’s Michael Jackson says that one third of Skype’s users claim that they use it in the workplace.
• Rebecca Cavagnari indicated that Convenos also provides a Skype web conferencing plug in.

How do they address the challenge of acceptance by enterprises?

• Michael Jackson indicated that Skype is paying attention to the concerns and issues raised by the enterprise market. As they refine the product, they are making changes to take these into account.
• Rebecca Cavagnari indicated that Convenos users include a large representation of people who are based outside of the United States. And they use Skype to establish presence and communicate prior to the beginning of the web conference.
• Lou Guercia indicated that the conferences that are routed through WebDialog’s Skype plugin tend to be smaller than through its other products.
• Skype’s Michael Jackson points out that Skype is never positioned as a replacement for phone service. Instead, they point to the greater capabilities, including video, that Skype enables. Skype uses its own internal uasge of Skype as a testbed.
• Lou Guercia feels that the biggest challenge for a consumer-based company like Skype faces is scale. As a B-to-C company, Skype does not have the support system that B-to-B customers demand. He expects that this will encourage Skype to continue to focus on individual users while peacefully co-existing with the enterprise.
• Cavagnari agrees that companies that partner with Skype should not expect Skype to change its focus to the Enterprise. Consequently, the partners must rely on their own efforts to ensure that their products that use Skype meet the needs of business users.

Bottom line for Guercia, Skype partners, not Skype, will have to meet the needs of business partners.

Skype’s Michael Jackson tackled the question of interoperability. He suggested that this has not been an issue for Skype’s end users, but more of an issue for analysts.

Skype has ventured into social applications with its Skypecast initiative. This is still very much in its formative stages. The company will wait for the community to develop applications rather than, with its limited size, try to itself push into the edge applications.

Why did Convenos and WebDialog integrate Skype into their products?

• Cavagnari indicated that Skype presented a superior substitute for the Codec that was in their product.
• Guercia indicated that they incorporated Skype for branding purposes. Skype gave them a brand awareness that they could not otherwise have achieved. Since December, they have done business in 47 countries - with no sales force and just an eCommerce site.

An interesting session for me. However, there seemed to be a lack of audience engagement. In fact, I had the impression that this session was trying to answer a question that nobody had asked.

Tags: Skype Enterprise, Unyte, Web Dialogs, Convenos, Lou Guercia, Rebecca Cavagnari, Joe Thornley, ProPR, Skype, Enterprise 2.0

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Posted by Guest Blogger at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Tie-Up Key Suppliers.
A business ecosystem attack.

Skype needs partners to make its back-end business work. A large competitor might threaten to remove their business (or threaten to enter the market directly) if a Skype supplier continues to do business with Skype or offer Skype favorable/reasonable terms.

For example, Skype's SkypeIn and SkypeOut rely on call termination service providers to touch the public telephone network. Skype also relies on router manufacturers. Some of their suppliers: Colt Telecom, Level3, iBasis, Teleglobe, Cable and Wireless, B3G Telecom, TDC Song, Mblox, mobile365.

This is a subtle attack. Stifling Skype's value chain will only show up when negotiations with partners go badly for no apparent reason. Terms become unreasonable, higher quality of service no longer available, phone calls not returned. This attack relies on Skype not being sufficiently diversified in each market and in some markets dominated by large players.

A successful attack could hurt Skype's product quality, increase operations costs, and slow Skype's build-out to meet growth.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lock up Intellectual Property.
A legal attack.

Throw big money at IP lawyers in major countries with strong patent enforcement, point them at Skype, see what happens.

Worst case, you force Skype to steal money from R&D and marketing budgets to pay for legal defense.

Best cases: disrupt operations, extract cash compensation, force market abandonment. 

As attacks go, this is high opportunity, small cost, small chance. It's fair to assume Skype's early investors and eBay performed IP due diligence. You never know, though; look at Verizon's attack on Vonage and several attacks on RIM, long after they were vetted.

An indirect version of this attack targets Skype's suppliers and partners, especially Joltid and Global IP Sound. Joltid provides the P2P parts of Skype's network; StreamCast Networks sued eBay based on connections to Grokster via Joltid. GIPS supplied audio software for Skype clients until recent releases.  

You can also attack Skype using a proxy. IDT subsidiary Net2Phone sued Skype in June 2006; it's still open. IDT's biggest suppliers are incumbent telcos.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Regulate Obstacles.
A political power attack.

BigCos have beefy political muscles. Small ones don't. If you're big you think of this as a benefit of size and experience. Small fry see this as an overwhelming, unfair advantage. 

Political muscle comes from big taxes and patronage. Local and long distance phone companies use their influence on regulators, like America's Federal Communications Commission and state and provincial agencies. They've also lobbied law makers for more nearly 150 years, going back to the telegraph. Samuel Morse worked with Maine Congressman F.O.J. Smith to lobby the U.S. congress for federal funding for his electric telegraph, back in the early 1840s. Did I mention they've mastered this by now?

Telcos use government to create new opportunities and to defend their turf from effective competition.

Some telcos convinced governments to outlaw Skype or legislate expensive technical barriers to operation. In the United States, incumbent telcos lobbied for emergency service (e911) to increase operational costs and complexity. The hope was to slow the entrance of Skype, Vonage and other VoIP providers and to raise cost and complexity for smaller, nimbler companies.

National carriers blocked or banned Skype in several countries (China, UAE, Mexico, Belize, Jordan, India), although this trend seems to be changing. In some cases, political power pushes regulatory agency attention away from an incumbent's aggressive tactics.

Three fronts affect Skype's future:

Net Neutrality for a Fair Playing Field.

Should your Internet carrier be able to charge you for VoIP minutes, above and beyond what you pay Skype? Or make your Skype calls slower than calls made with their own softphone products?

You don't want folks messing with your bits. Net neutrality is a policy: carriers should just carry traffic. No discrimination based on the content of that traffic. Neutrality advocates say government has a role in keeping the Internet fair, neutral, and open to all. 

eBay's government relations staff supports net neutrality as do nearly all web businesses.

Open Wireless (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max) Networks for Hybrid and Wi-Fi Skype Phones.

Net neutrality for wireless broadband. Google is lobbying congress for 'open' wireless networks. Susan Crawford's been following the Senate's hearings on the 700MHz auction. If your phone or laptop uses Wi-Fi, without this, Wi-Fi access providers can choose to block or cripple Skype.

Mobile Carterfone for Unlocked Access to the Mobile Phone Network.

As long as you're paying for mobile service, shouldn't you be able to use any gadget you like? Skype picked this fight with a brilliant petition to the US FCC earlier this year. Attach any device to the mobile network instead of only getting locked phones from carriers. The incumbents are lobbying hard against this.

Political power is real, complex, and not for the faint-of-heart. Political power can buy incumbents time to fight, to adapt and to change the battleground from disruption to status quo.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

The recognition that the right to offer a telephony service is a public trust is underlined by the existence of government agencies worldwide (such as FCC, OFCOM and CRTC) granting businesses the right to offer phone services. Included is a responsibility to provide access to any telephone number regardless of the underlying technology for that "last mile access". In turn, this means there is an inherent assumption that we can call any phone number from any service.

Truphone is a service that relies on WiFi connectivity for that last mile to WiFi-enabled handsets; each subscriber also obtains a phone number for what effectively amounts to a SkypeIn-type of service. For instance, the Nokia N95 and N80 provide wireless access via both the GSM and WiFi protocols. When I can get a WiFi connection, I have found Truphone to provide a high quality, easy-to-use service. At ceBit 2007 I was told to expect a new, more user-friendly version of Truphone by the summer; sounds like it is going into beta now.

There have been recent reports where Orange and Vodafone in the U.K. were crippling the WiFi feature prior to selling these handsets but they still would allow their customers to call a Truphone number from the underlying GSM wireless service even if the Truphone client could not work for outbound calls. According to reports late last week, T-Mobile in the UK has gone one step further and blocked all calls to Truphone numbers (07978 8xxxxx) in the UK. (North American users of Truphone end up with a number in the 360 Area Code.) This has generated a wealth of posts:

GigaOm: Mobile carriers are scared of one thing: becoming dumb pipes whose only utility is to carry voice and text. And it is one of the reasons why they are fighting tooth and nail with the mobile VoIP providers, using all sorts of tactics to make mobile VoIP a non-starter.

VoIP Watch (Andy): No, this means to me that we are seeing one more example of where the old guard is seeking to protect their turf and aiming to use every dirty trick in the book to keep their head counts and make their numbers. That is make their numbers work only to their own benefit.

SaundersLog: My prediction? As painful as this is for Truphone, they will ultimately prevail. Logically applications and pipes are separate, and open markets demand interoperability.

Smith on VoIP: Like it or not, mobile Internet access is still treated and viewed differently than regular Internet access. As I have stated before, the future of mobile VoIP lies in the hands of the cellular carriers. The cellular network is still considered “their network”. If they would like to ban the use of certain applications (remember VoIP is just another IP application?) on their network, then they are going to do it…and get away with it.One can not expect any business to let a competitor leverage their infrastructure in order to “steal” their customers.

Jon Arnold: At this point in time - as good as Truphone's offering is - and it's great - a full house beats a pair of 10s - which is about how this hand looks to me. T-Mobile will win this hand, but if Truphone can stay in the game long enough, things will go their way. Until the mobile carriers feel a lot more pain, the Truphones of the world - and there are a few - will have a tough go.

That's why it's so important for anyone following this space to be supportive and remind anyone who's listening that history repeats itself. What happened with landline VoIP will happen in the wireless world, and solutions like Truphone are the enablers. If they can find a way to hang in long enough, their turn will come.

My comments:

1. The Canadian Hotspot Network (Rogers, Bell, Telus) does not recognize the browser on the Nokia N-Series phones, that's a pretty effective block on WiFi access to Truphone. And a way to cut revenue since this is a paid service. (It does work with my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet but I'm still waiting for the long promised Skype for N800.)
2. Until mobile platforms have the resources to handle VoIP processing, 3G becomes widely available (to remove VoIP latency issues associated with 2.xG GSM) and we have unlimited data plans (which are not available at this time in Canada), we are a long way from having VoIP become a threat to GSM services.
3. The overall reliability and scalability of WiFi networks has yet to be proven. When I go to conferences and find a gaggle of WiFi connections I know I'll not get a sustainable connection. (One single high bandwidth WiFi network at eBay DevCon last week was a blessing.)

So it will be interesting to watch while this battle continues on both the technology and business fronts. The ultimate winner will be the protocols and technology that provide robust, scalable reliable service while minimizing user costs yet keeping it simple to make a call (no call back services, please). In the meantime we will pay a penalty while the Neanderthals try to sustain their drowning legacy business models as long as they can. And I'll continue to use Truphone at WiFi connections and IM+ for Skype Software and/or Mobivox from my Blackberry whenever feasible. At least Rogers still gets their $0.95/minute when I am roaming in the U.S.and using one of the latter two.

Tags: WiFi, Truphone, T-Mobile, VoIP Wireless, Mobile VoIP

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Rafe Needleman's Webware announced the winners of Webware 100 recognition with 10 winners in each of 10 categories:

There were more than 5,000 nominations for sites to be included in this awards program, which Webware's editors pruned to a list of 250 finalists. Users then voted on those finalists--there were 489,467 votes cast--to come up with these: The top 100 Webware sites for 2007.

With support from Skype users and Skype Journal readers amongst others, Skype was recognized in the Communications (person-to-person communications) category. Congratulations to the entire Skype team are due.

But also special congratulations are due to Craig Walker and his startup team at GrandCentral on receiving recognition in the same category for what has quickly become a very innovative and useful service for managing our participation in the world of multiple phone numbers.. (Now if they would just give out Canadian phone numbers as a GrandCentral number!)

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Spew is more than information overload.

It's too many contacts. (I have thousands when I add up my Skype, email, political and social network sites.)

Too many twitters/jaikus and other buddy updates. (I had 1000 in three days at this spring's web2.0 conference)

Too many mood message updates.

Too much email. (about a thousand per day)

Too many flickr images.

Too many upcoming events.

Too many blog and news feeds.

Too many video feeds.

Too many SMS.

Too many memes.

Too many music/TV/movie recommendations.

All the right stuff.

But in an overwhelming spew.

People desperate for sanity say to close down the inputs. Cancel subscriptions. Prune buddy lists. Turn off the TV.

That's wrong.

Nurture your instincts for what's useful, fun, meaningful. That impulse to befriend someone, or to subscribe to someone's blog reflects who you are at that moment. It's unique. It's your fingerprint.

Your reflex to bookmark people/ideas/products/events is a great use of your online time. It's a memory logger. And a context marker. A territory marker.

Your spew has the potential to build your social capital, save you money, build your career, find and keep true love, raise smarter kids, make a difference in the world and all those other reasons we live online.

But.

It's not living up to its promise.

Your spew is undifferentiated.

Not packaged right.

Impossible to navigate.

Barely/rarely searchable.

Scattered.

Pureed.

Worst...

It doesn't know me.

And it can.

There's tons of information you can gather just by observing.

How much time I spend reading a blog post vs. its length.

Key phrases that turn me on or turn me off.

Social proximity of an email's author.

Geographic proximity of a news item.

Regularity of contact with a friend.

Social clustering of contacts.

Did I keep previous blog entries like this from the same person?

 

I need tools that filter the spew.

Sort it.

Rank it.

Based on my behavior.

The way other tools infer from community behavior.

Google News, Techmeme

Buzz Index, Zeitgeist

More than social filtering, 
personal, behavioral, tacit filtering.

Datamine Me!  

Infer the heck out of me.

For starters...

Read about MIT Media Lab's Reality Project.  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 03:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today one of my contacts at a Skype Partner forwarded to me this email that he had received (and I have converted to a jpeg image):

The combination of a country-specific sender email address, bad grammar (account informations!, few additional information, etc.) along with the link actually going to an address starting with should be sufficient warning to not only be quite wary of, but also safely ignore, such a message. (To see the actual link in a phishing message in Outlook, simply run your cursor over the hyperlinked text and a box as shown here will appear; this is always a very final confirmation that an email is a phishing email.)

Skype would never send out such a request (as neither would a bank); all account activity is carried out by logging into your account via the Skype website. Any related PayPal activity also requires a PayPal login and password with one highly constrained exception (PayPal preapproved).

Which products can I buy using preapproved?

You can PayPal preapproved to buy Skype Credit, Skype Voicemail and SkypeIn numbers.

Preapproved can not be used for Personalize Skype, Skype Groups and purchases from accessories store.

Be wary of this and any similar phishing messages; usually I get them from non-Canadian banks where I obviously would not have accounts but it seems someone thinks there is a path to PayPal via Skype -- rest assured there is not. In doing a follow up tomorrow to Dan York's post last Friday I will be providing more details about the security surrounding your Skype account and associated financial security.

A copy of this email has been forwarded to Skype management to pass along to eBay's very experienced security operations that trace phishers and have them taken down.

Tags: Skype, phishing, PayPal

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

one point four beta
forwarding, smileys, bugs fixed
the great cucumber

Skype Version 1.4.0.74 for Linux, June 14, 2007
now with animated emoticons

telco lobbyists
abhor "subsidy treatment"
for anyone else

 MoveOn and others support Skype while the telecommunications industry lines up against Skype's Wireless Carterfone petition and Frontline Wireless's 700MHz wireless commons petition, being considered by the US Federal Communications Commission. 

no social lock-in
plus enterprise misfitness
ken camp unloads skype

Ken Camp, VoIP blogger and security expert says Skype is no longer relevant for him and strips Skype from his computers.

capture the phone box
defend your territory
call and play Boxr

At Yahoo! Hack Day London, Mike Jewell and friends whipped up Boxr, "a bit like Domination, but with phone boxes." Seize the phone booth by calling a SkypeIn number and giving your code. Get a point for each minute it's yours, until someone else claims it.

in poverty: now
in middle class: the future
in wealth: history

Susan Mernit summarizes lessons about diverse class attitudes and perceptions.

skype the disrupter 
prompts telco evolution
consumer driven

Niklas Zennström, Skype co-founder and CEO, opines for BBC Online.

Indian telcos
ask government to tame VoIP
xenophobia?

Internet Service Providers' Association of India seeks Chinese-style regulation of Google, Skype, Yahoo, Vonage, MSN; an end to "indulgence".

Gartner staff use Skype
despite IT banning it
IT's adapting

"I went to a seminar about [consumerization of IT] a few weeks back. The Gartner guy was complaining that their IT department didn't let them use Skype at work"
- on a ZGeek bulletin board.

mclaughlin and friends
public policy wonkage
blogging for googlers

Google's Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs unveils his team's blog.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 04:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An undercurrent of Skype awareness around eBay Live's opening day

I remained in Boston for the first day of eBay Live - eBay's annual event for its infrastructure players and Resellers - and found evidence of Skype awareness in various ways:

• The Cheerleader: a Skype Partner exhibits on the eBay Live show floor
• The User: an eBay-focused customs broker uses Skype to encourage prospective Buyers and Sellers to call for more information
• The Education, Part I: Skype 101 Computer Lab at eBay University
• The Education, Part II: Enhance Your Business with Skype
• The Quiet Revolution: How Skype is getting absorbed into a Fortune 500 company's field network.

The Cheerleader: Now that I have your attention.. My professional services client OnState, publisher of the OnState ACD Call Center for Skype, announced a partnership with eBay online services provider Seamless Development who were exhibiting at eBay Live. Simply the presence of the Skype logo in the Seamless Development booth drew attention from many attendees who wanted to know more about the basics of Skype itself. And of course for attendees interested in cost effectively reducing their customer service costs, OnState was able to provide a live demonstration of their ability to communicate in real time - via Voice and/or Chat - with any website visitor as well as manage the enquiries such that appropriately qualified agents responded, activity was evenly spread across agents and customer activity was logged for followup. Suffice it to say more than one prospect latched onto the potential for this service to save the six figure cost of a PBX to manage a small call center. And, as for those simply enquiring about Skype, there is still a large user base out there that expresses surprise when they find many basic Skype services, but especially video calls, are free.

The Skype User: I spent a lot of my time wandering the show floor talking largely with exhibitors to learn about what role they play in the eBay infrastructure and asking about Skype awareness. Many had heard of Skype; their ears perked up when I extended the discussion into business offerings of Skype partners, such as Convenos with their Webex-killer meeting center and its ability to reduce the voice component cost of online presentations worldwide , Unyte's desktop sharing conversation tool and OnState's solution discussed above. But when I stopped to talk with Jennifer Clarke at A&A Customs Brokers in Vancouver for a demo of their duty and tax calculator and Canadian shipping module for eBay listings she had told me about at lunch earlier in the week, she ended her demonstration by going to their eBay Motors web page where there are three SkypeMe buttons as shown above (and because I use the Skype Toolbar for Firefox, their 800 number for a SkypeOut call is also highlighted). Jennifer then expressed her desire to have a single button and to have the calls more professionally managed across multiple agents... {see above}.

eBay Education, Part I: Skype 101 Computer Lab. While wandering the floor I met up with Brianna Reynaud of Skype's North American Marketing Communications. She told me about a presentation earlier in the day in one of the eBay Computer Labs where Michael Kaiser , an eBay education specialist, had walked about 35 attendees through the process of downloading and installing Skype along with setting up a Skype account. While the participants were across a wide spectrum of PC expertise, the discussions quickly turned to how they could incorporate Skype into their business activities. A couple of attendees went so far as to place SkypeOut orders while at the session. Michael also introduced some anecdotes where Skype had been helpful in his personal life. But the most significant outcome was how the presentation had stimulated many of the attendees to consider how they could work Skype into their eBay activities.

eBay Education, Part II: Enhance Your Business with Skype. This session was led by eBay education specialist Steve Lindhorst who quickly found that he had an audience with various levels of experience with Skype. For instance, from a show of hands only 25% of the attendees had actually used Skype; for the remainder there was curiosity ranging from how to set up Skype (they had obviously missed the previous day's event) through to why Skype should be used in their eBay business activities. Steve quickly reviewed how to set up Skype but then moved onto introducing issues such as integrating a Skype button onto your eBay website, a review of Skype for Business and the Control Panel, international calling plans, personal anecdotes, conference calling, Skype Toolbars, sending money via PayPal, Pamela, Skylook and other third party business applications. Steve concluded with a demonstration of SkypeFind and how he had used it during his travels to locate restaurants. According to Brianna, many of the attendees had not been aware of (i) the "free" aspect of Skype and (ii) the wide range of features available in addition to basic voice and text chat. One eBay "wholesaler" realized that the Skype ecosystem provided a path for expanding her "call center" activity beyond her current four phone lines without the cost of a PBX.

The Quiet Revolution: I had gone up to the food court for lunch and ordered a hamburger and iced tea at a sit down bar. Along came an "newbie" eBay Reseller who was taking time off from his full time job at a Fortune 500 company to attend eBay Live and learn about selling on eBay. He started telling me how his employer would not let Skype cross their firewall (along with GMail amongst others) but how all their field personnel were using Skype to communicate amongst each other out in the field. Reminds me of the introduction of PC's in the early 1980's; the first ones were acquired by individual employees who quietly brought them into larger enterprises, without the acquiescence of IT managers, as personal tools to facilitate getting their job done. Skype is apparently quite relevant to these field personnel.

Bottom Line: it's obvious that there is a significant level of undeveloped business for Skype within the eBay ecosystem. For next year's eBay Live, I would recommend that Skype take not a booth but a "lab" classroom (they had neither this year) where they provide ongoing sessions where attendees could bring their own laptops or use in-room PC's to explore all aspects of Skype from initial installation to business applications under the tutelage of Skype specialists. Why do I suggest this? Because this approach worked for me at both AST and Quarterdeck in developing leading hardware and software businesses in Canada. In fact, training sessions for Resellers on QEMM when first brought to Canada in late 1990 resulted in a quadrupling of QEMM revenues within a six month period. The Skype ecosystem is now at the maturity and awareness level where these types of training sessions can pay off handsomely for both Skype and its Partners. Some aspects of developing technology business do not change over the decades. This is a proven route for eBay and Skype to follow in integrating Skype into eBay activities. Successful entrepreneurs are always hungry for (profit generating) knowledge.

Disclosure: OnState has become a consulting client; the author offers professional services based on previous experience with the implementation and operation of Live Chat services.

Tags: ebaydevcon07, ebaylive07, eBay Live, Skype for Business, OnState, Convenos, Pamela, Skylook, Unyte

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Experiencing the new era on the AlwaysOn world continues

Over the past few days I have been getting bytes of experience using IM+ for Skype Software introduced in an earlier post this week. In the end I found myself using IM+ to set up or make changes for a few meetings at Skype DevCon and eBay Live and I made a couple of Skype calls. My observations:

• The primary problem is sustaining the data connection for the IM+ Skype client on the Blackberry. Randomly (other than when entering a tunnel or a subway) the Contact list will go away and then re-establish itself. Sometime the data disappearance also coincides with the program shutting down (in one instance I had to "reboot" the Blackberry). So there are some sustainable data connectivity and program robustness issues.
• Another issue relates to seamlessness of the user interface. Yesterday I had someone, whom I could only reach via Skype IM, send me a phone number. Whereas other IM's would "underline" the phone number such that I could highlight it and dial the number, IM+ did not. On the other hand someone sent me an email address today and that gets highlighted such that I can launch a Blackberry email message. Small issues in some sense but these are the issues that drive user adoption -- or not.

• Of course, you do have to deal with the issue that every Skype IM message ends up pinging your Blackberry; fortunately I have it in "Vibrate" profile so it is not a loud noise. But you many want to close the program down on your Blackberry while at your laptop with the Skype client open, unless you're hooked on dual-thumb typing.
• And there is the question of to which Skype client do your contacts' IM chat messages go when you are logged in on both your Blackberry and a PC. I seem to be getting them on both although there is a time lag between receiving them.
• And, as Dan mentions in the post referenced below, there may be battery use issues although I suspect mine is coming to the end of its rechargeable life anyway.

Dan York asks where is the PC making the Conference Call? I made a call to Dan this afternoon and to the right is his Skype client during the call. Somewhere there is a Skype client which is logged into my Skype account as the Conference host; a SkypeOut call has been made to my Blackberry and a Skype call has been made to Dan's PC. During this call a couple of times I lost my IM+ connection to the network and the call dropped out. Brought it back up and made another call. After two shutdowns like this, we did a regular Skype to Skype call where the overall call quality, while acceptable for a mobile to Skype call, had the excellent call quality discussed in a post earlier today. Thinking about it, when making a call, you have two logins: one for the IM client on the Blackberry and "somewhere else" for the actual voice connection. (On the other hand I did have a 15 minute call from an Irish pub with Andy Abramson Wednesday that was Blackberry/IM+ to Skype.)

Keep in mind Shape Services caveat about IM+ for Skype Software: This product uses the Skype API but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise approved in any way by Skype

Jon Arnold says it's not quite a "Come here Watson" moment but still of significance. Russell Shaw on The Blackberry Beat,

Tags: Skype, IM+ for Skype Software, Blackberry, SkypeOut, Jon Arnold, Dan York, Skype IM, Skype on Blackberry, Russell Shaw

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

and, if on 3.2, to the latest build.

As mentioned in a previous post during the April/May beta period for Skype 3.2, Skype has introduced some new sound engine technology into the Skype for Windows client. As one example discussed in the post reference above, its echo cancellation feature allows you to make Skype calls using a laptop's inherent mic and speakers without a headset. It involves, amongst other features:

• Skype's own audio codec
• Skype improved conference mixer
• Skype Jitter Buffer and concealment
• Skype audio preprocessing components.

But Skype has also upgraded their backend for Skypecasts earlier this week and at this time, you need to have Skype for Windows 3.2 to participate in Skypecasts. (Note that the revamped Skypecasts feature can also work with Skype for Mac 2.6 once they fix a bug.) To quote Villu Arak (who has taken over Jaanus' role in communicating with the outside world):

Why do all that? As of June 13, older versions will simply no longer be compatible with Skypecasts. Sounds like a bummer, but it’s actually a good thing. The whole Skypecast experience will be better. And upgrading — even just for the hell of it — should make everyone feel good and fashionable anyway..

So it's "sound advice" to upgrade to Skype 3.2. Actually it's even more sound to upgrade to the latest build 163 released two days ago; alternatively access the upgrade via "Help | Check for Upgrades". That appears to fix also a minor crashing bug when participating in Group Chats amongst other small but annoying issues.

With each new release, Skype’s engineers improve sound and video quality. And because we’ve replaced our audio engine in our most recent releases — it’s now fully built in-house — it’s worth bearing in mind that you may run into some bumps when a call is placed from an older version of Skype to newer versions.

And all I can say to "it's now fully built in-house" is </end GIPS sound engine>.

Tags: Skype audio, GIPS Sound Engine, Skype for Windows, Skypecasts

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

From Boston, earlier this week.

"From Concept to Cash" by Lester Madden.

Promotion in the client: Pay 40% for premium placement, 30% for featured, and 25% for listing in the Extras manager.

WebDialogs' Lou Guercia shares his rules for being successful with the extras program. A few of them: "Develop a product you'd like to use with Skype... something that enhances your experience", "Keep it Simple Stupid", "Offer free and paid solutions"

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

And demystifying North Americans' need for SkypePro

With the launch of Skype 3.5 beta yesterday, Skype beta users are introduced to the ability to perform Call Transfer within the Skype client. Don "ZOverLord" Kennedy has written an excellent summary of how Call Transfer works; he has also provided his own "free-for-non-commercial-use" Skype Call Transfer Example utility which can also be obtained as a Skype Extra. (Call Transfer is also available as a feature within Pamela 3.5.)

Call Transfer from Skype Name to Skype Name is free. However, Call Transfer for Skype Name to SkypeOut or for SkypeIn to SkypeOut require that you purchase Skype Pro -- as a complement to SkypeOut offerings either on a per minute basis or via Skype's North American Unlimited Calling Plan -- at $3.00 per month. The amount is simply deducted monthly from your Skype Credits balance. The good news is that a 12 month SkypeIn subscription is reduced from $60 to $30 if you are a Skype Pro subscriber and Skype Voice Mail is included as a Skype Pro subscriber.

In addition, as a Skype Pro subscriber, you are eligible to have a Skype-To-Go number. This recently announced service allows you to obtain a local number for calling a remote Skype user such that you can call that friend, wherever s/he is worldwide at their designated phone number. There are two costs associated with a Skype To Go call: (i) the local carrier charge for use of your phone to the "local" number and (ii) the Skype calling rate to the remote number. Skype To Go is limited to one number worldwide per Skype user. An added benefit -- you can call that "local" Skype To Go number from either a mobile or landline phone.

With your Skype To Go number, you can call your friend from any phone, anytime you want. You can also store your Skype To Go number on your mobile phone and talk to that special friend no matter where you happen to be.

And, returning to Call Transfer, note that within the Skype 3.5 client you can make a Call Transfer to a single destination. However, as demonstrated in Don's SCTE program, the API set is such that:

The above Call Transfer example program also has an automatic transfer check box, so that you do not need to manually transfer the call. Also the Box that says “Or Enter One Skype name or Phone #” now supports multiple Skype names and/or phone numbers, separated by a comma, so that you can do Group Call Transfers using any combinations of Skype names and phone numbers separated by a comma.

This Call Transfer functionality has been long awaited by many of Skype's (prospective) Partners, such as OnState and partners considering implementation of Skype for Salesforce.com (written for Skype by Pamela), who needed this functionality to make market disruptive service offerings. How much disruption? I have spoken to several partners who are about to come out with offerings that will eliminate the need for any PBX in a small office; in some cases (such as I overheard today at an eBay Live booth) we are talking six figure numbers.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Starve Skype.
A pricing attack.

Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström was quoted as saying Skype would drive down the price-per-minute of phone calls to zero by 2010. Sounds like a threat to me.

Local and long distance phone companies could slash per-minute, unlimited, and international rates below Skype's In/Out costs. If done quickly, Skype and its cousins may not have enough non-minute cash flow to cover operations.

Skype's sales run rate was around $50 million per quarter at the beginning of the year, apparently covering cash flow. Skype's non-minute cash flow comes from Skype Certified licensing, affiliate product sales, voice mail, SMS messages, and "customization" sales.

Skype has a few potential new revenue sources:

• Skype Find yellow page advertising. Skype Find is all potential now, mostly empty, not useful or fun. Skype must make it more attractive to use Find than to Google. Advertising sells attention, and Find must earn some.

• Skype Prime fees and commissions. Delivering services online is the biggest opportunity. Prime could evolve to be as big as eBay. Right now it's a service nobody but a risk-averse financial controller could love.

Starving Skype would mean putting yourself on a diet too. Would a selective diet be worth killing off Skype's value as a "minute-stealer"? Worth forcing all the other "value" phone companies to add new kinds of value, moving up the value stream?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

We told you earlier today about Google's attempt to win eBay seller support for Google Checkout, a competitor for PayPal transactions. And to convince eBay to let buyers pay with Checkout.

eBay answered by pulling all their North American advertising from Google. Valleywag puts the number around $100 million but it might be more.

Google backs out of the event...

eBay Live attendees have plenty of activities to keep them busy this week in Boston, and we did not want to detract from that activity. After speaking with officials at eBay, we at Google agreed that it was better for us not to feature this event during the eBay Live conference. Google is constantly reaching out to new users and sellers, and we are available to privately discuss any matters of concern with individuals as they relate to Google products. Interested parties may contact us at checkout-reply@google.com.

Hmmm, whoops, sorry.

For all we know, eBay may have been planning to announce their withdrawal in the next month or two and just decided this was a convenient excuse to make the change.

Will this affect their click-to-call advertising experiments? Might that affect Skype's 2007 revenue?

The next investor conference calls for eBay and Google should be a hoot.

See more:

• Google party at eBay event will protest Checkout ban - CNET News
• eBay No Longer on Google AdWords - ComparisonEngines
• eBay and Google: The Gloves Are Off, It’s Getting Ugly ProStores Scoop - AuctionBytes
• Animosity Escalates as eBay Pulls Google AdWords, Reallocates Dollars - ClickZ
• eBay vs. Google: eBay says, normal course of business… um, ok…right - Scott Wingo
• eBay Pulls Google Paid-Search Ads To Protest Google Checkout Moves - Search Engine Land
• eBay Halting its Google AdWords Advertising? - Search Engine Journal

Posted by Phil Wolff at 07:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Adding to Boston's Illustrious Communications and Sporting History:

As a baseball fan for most of my life, I have always wanted to visit 95-year old Fenway Park, see the Green Monster (Monstah in Bostonese) and soak in the fan enthusiasm and true tradition of baseball. Last night was my opportunity. Because the Red Sox are doing so well, their games are "sold out" but I was lucky enough to be able to obtain a "resale" ticket (seats which subscribers have phoned in to make their seats available for resale) 20 rows behind home plate ... always a good place to watch a knuckleball pitcher's twists and turns. Arrived in my seat and soaked in the atmosphere at one of the two remaining ball parks where legendary Babe "The Great Bambino" Ruth played. The crowd was more than animated and ready to cheer on their home town heroes; my ears were not prepared for the decibel level.

Being in the city where Alexander Graham Bell developed (I did not say invented) his first telephony devices, and having been introduced the previous evening to a Skype IM program that runs on the Blackberry, I made the first ever real time Skype communication live from historic Fenway Park to friend Alec Saunders who was at home in Ottawa rebuilding his PC. (I wanted to make this first communication with Boston-native Toronto resident but Red Sox fan and telecom analyst Jon Arnold but he was not on Skype at the time).

In the early days of baseball when travel was a little more tedious (for instance, by ground) often local radio stations would not send along a broadcast crew but rather would have someone send along game details (balls, strikes, etc.) by telegraph back to the home radio station and an announcer would "broadcast" the telegraph. As the game progressed I found myself sending along progress reports to Alec and began to appreciate the difficulty those telegraph operators would have had keeping up with pitch-by-pitch - especially since they would have to understand Morse code. However, in this case, as shown to the left, there was one-to-one two way communication. And as a final test, I had another Skype IM conversation with Jeremy Hague at Skylook in Australia; he was probably wondering what it means to say "Red Sox win!".

So where does one find this Skype for the Blackberry? Monday evening at the PayPal Beer Bash, Jennifer Caukin, Skype's North American Marcomm Manager tells me she has been trying a "Skype on the Blackberry" program for the past couple of days. After she gave me the two minute demo I had to download it. IM+ for Skype Software. By the time we got on the bus to the PayPal Blue Man Group performance, we were making a seat-to-seat call to test out the "Call" feature. Basically it goes through a callback algorithm (à la Jajah) where a callback is made to my mobile phone via a SkypeOut connection and calls the other party via either a Skype or SkypeOut connection.

Cost for the software is US$25; a 7-day free trial is available. SkypeOut costs, including connection fees where applicable, could apply twice for such calls (but in setting it up it asks whether you are on Skype's Unlimited North America or SkypePro plans). More details on various cost scenarios are here. Keep in mind ShapeServices caveat: This product uses the Skype API but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise approved in any way by Skype.

Over the past two days I have been trialing the software. It does take a few minutes to load your contact list on each connection to a cellular network; and you lose that connection in the Ted Williams tunnel or riding the underground MBTA here in Boston. You are given the opportunity to run the software in background while carrying on your other Blackberry activities. But the bottom line is that it I have used it to facilitate some meeting arrangements here at Skype DevCon as well as for a few other Skype chat conversations. Today I also made a Skype Call successfully to Andy Abramson of VoIPWatch.

For several months now I have been advocating Skype on the Blackberry in the form of a Skype IM client but using a traditional underlying phone service due to the resource limitations of mobile devices when it comes to installing and running a VoIP client as well as the limitations imposed by 2.xG wireless phone protocols. With IM+ for Skype Software, we can get some first hand user experience at how such an implementation works in practice.

P.S. - my apologies to those who have been waiting a couple of days to find out more as a result of my earlier "Seat-to-Seat" calling post. The pace has been hectic here at eBay DevCon with both presentations, one-on-one meetings and having to attend Red Sox games when the opportunity arises. Thanks for your patience and I look forward to feedback on user experiences in the Comments.

And for Mark Evans - a heavy Skype user - just as he was confessing to problems managing his Blackberry addiction here comes another drug to keep his sanity challenged!

Tags: Skype, IM+ for Skype Software, Blackberry, SkypeOut, Alec Saunders, Jon Arnold, Mark Evans, Skype IM, Skype on Blackberry, Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Auctomatic to launch at eBay Live, sans any Skypey stuff, but with a morosely funny job listing.

Google Checkout Freedom Party at eBay Live will protest Checkout ban. I love the idea of partying to protest. More from AuctionBytes. RSVP for Thursday night.

eBay and PayPal gave out Star Developer awards yesterday. Skype didn't, not really its show yet.

Peter Kalmström's Skype Toolbar for Office now works with Microsoft Office 2007. Even Access, Visio, and Project. I have to think how this fits into project communication and workflows.

Skype says 21 million "extras" downloaded in the last six months. That's Lester Madden's "Concepts to Cash" slide show on the left.

Skype's Paul Amery is hiring a communication pro for Skype's DevZone, the better to recruit, educate and retain independent programmers. Three skills that might have been mentioned: video/vlogging, social media a la facebook and myspace, and journalism. Tallinn based and budgeted.

Did you know GIPS sells their own SIP softphone? Their enterprise version just turned 5.0, using the same codecs (the program that turns sound into bits and back) they license to Skype, Yahoo!, AOL, Nortel. No wonder Skype's busy building their own codecs.

iLike on Facebook claims it's more viral than Skype. Two weeks old, 6 million users, adding 300k per day. Three eBay apps on Facebook.

Some folks use Evoca to share recorded panel sessions. It's hot here in the Bay Area; craving an iced Evoca Cola.

Nice Networkworld column on the VoSky Call Center from April. Totally missed it.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 06:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today's activities provided not only a glimpse into developments with the Skype Developer Program but also an inside view of the recipe for being a successful partner from one who has succeeded, namely, Lou Guercia and his Unyte team. While I will write up more detailed posts on individual over the next week, here is summary:

Lester Madden started off the day with a demonstration of the Skype Publishing Tool which provides not only integration for collecting payments associated with licensing Skype Extras and other Partner products but also significant flexibility for the Partner to set licensing terms, license pricing and promotional activities. Lou then concluded the session with a ten minute overview of Unyte's history and how it took Patience and Persistence to achieve the results where, with the launch of Skype Extras, they have now had over 500,000 registered users - a doubling since the launch of Skype Extras in December, 2006.

I then met with Lou for a demonstration of the new Unyte 2.5 which incorporates a peer-to-peer to mode and a well as a Remote Assistance mode for Desktop Sharing as a escalation from Chat to Voice to Desktop Sharing all within the Skype client. Speed, the handling of cross platform screen resolution and color quality improvements were all noticeable in the product as a result of the new features.

I then attended Peeter Motskula's session describing the five categories of API's in more detail along with an overview of what they could accomplish. I then had a demonstration of Evoca's new voice recording and recording management engines that provides unique hosting opportunities for incorporating voice into websites and podcasts along with other web services.

The final session today involved a presentation of Convenos Meeting Manager where we discussed the market for full web conferencing (as opposed to desktop sharing) and how Covenos has come about to be effectively positioned for the small to medium business market. Another story of persistence and patience that has resulted in recent significant success.

More on these over the next ten days but if I heard a consistent theme about Skype's Developer Program, beyond the accomplishments of the past year, it was:

• develop road maps (commercial and technical in Q3)
• the infrastructure to support e-commerce and Digital Rights Management is now in place
• Publishing Platform provides a high degree of marketing flexibility through Partner's marketing decisions and activities
• programs are coming to incorporate Partner feedback into the process of planning future developments.
• Skype is looking for Best-of-Breed products to incorporate into its Extras and Partner programs.

Tags: ebaydevcon07, Unyte, Evoca, Covenos Meeting Center, Skype Development Partner

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The eBay Developers Conference launched yesterday morning minus the Cirque du Soleil performance we saw last year. More of a "let's get down to business" aura this year. A couple of key announcements:

Kevin Lynch, Senior VP and Chief Technical Officer of Adobe announced the launch of the beta for Adobe Air (formerly cod-named Apollo). Talk about going full circle. To put things in perspective:

• Early 1980 - launch of desktop applications on PC's
• Late 1990's - launch of web-based services via the Internet
• May 2007: Google Gears allows users to run web-based apps offline but still in a web browser
• June 11, 2007: Adobe launches Adobe Air beta which brings web-based apps to the desktop running in their own window, independent of any web browser

This was followed by a presentation by Alan Lewis, Project San Dimas Product Manager, who introduce one of the first Adobe Air applications, namely a desktop app for your eBay activity. When offline you can, for instance, set up auctions; when online you can manage all your auction activity. TheSan Dimas application is being tailored to provide some unique features in managing your eBay activity. Click here to sign up for the beta program.

Lunch was followed by Paul Amery's presentation on Skype as a global opportunity; a full review of Paul's presentation and my subsequent interview with Paul will come in a separate post. He did cover both the Software Developer Programs achievements to date - including over 21 million downloads of Skype Extras and successful outcomes for some Developer Partners, as well as the program's goals for the next year. Suffice to say that, while the presentation was sparsely attended, there was intense interest and a lively Q&A from those who did attend. We can expect to see a few new Skype Developer Partners coming "out of the woodwork". We can also expect a mashup contest over the summer where there will be a special emphasis on Skype mashups with eBay and PayPal.

So the debate about whether we will have desktop or web-based applications in the future becomes stunted with what amounts to convergence as we the emergence of bringing web-based applications back to the desktop.

Tags: eBayDevCon07, Adobe Air, San Dimas Project, eBay

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Steve Jobs showed some new iChat capabilities during his keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference yesterday. Delivery expected late Q3-2007.

Higher audio quality. iChat will use Fraunhofer IIS's AAC-Low Delay Codec. Cisco adopted AAC-LD for TelePresence, its highest end video product. 

Recording. Audio as AAC, video as MPEG-4. Podcast heaven.

Multiple active accounts per user while logged in. A little bit of Trillian for .Mac, AIM, and Jabber accounts.  

Interop with AOL's AIM. Works with text, audio or video chat. Presence. Both iChat and AIM users in one chat. AIM users can be on PCs. No word on file transfer.

Video Backdrops. Drag your presentation, slide show or movies into a live video call. Blow up the video to full screen. Then put your slides/movies in the background.

Video Effects. Apply transparency to yourself, flip the video, etc. Applied live. From the Photo Booth app.

One window holds multiple open chats in tabs. Addresses the screen clutter of many open chat windows.  

iChat Theater lets you pour multiple sources into your chat. Combine your webcam, photos, presentation slides, audios, and videos in a call. Share with both iChat and AIM users. Show your "virtual presentation room" at full screen. A little bit of Slingbox via VoIM.

iChat Theater API. Push application content through iChat Theater into a video chat session. Here's how.

TBD: Screen Sharing. See and control a desktop, audio on top, two people only. Not mentioned during the keynote but previewed earlier.

SMS forwarding. Hmmm. What's this? No other discussion of PSTN connectivity.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Newly discovered Blackberry application handles Skype functionality

Normally I speak to Skype's North American Marketing Communications Manager on Skype between our respective PC's. But when Jennifer called me via Skype on my Blackberry, even though we were only one row apart on a bus to see PayPal's sponsored Blue Man Group performance, I knew I had found an answer to my long standing request to give me Skype IM capability on my Blackberry accompanied by an underlying voice service that does not require the overhead (not to mention extra long latencies) that would be required of a VoIP client on a 2.xG mobile phone.

But it's late and my Hilton Hotel has a poor (can you say ultra-slow) WiFi connection, so more to come tomorrow along with a report on the first day of eBay-Skype Developer Conference.

Tags: Skype, Blackberry, eBayDevCon07

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Skype's front door, September 2005. Froda of hoistnow.com took this photo right before eBay bought Skype.

The product and the business have changed a lot in two years. Perhaps the hardest accomplishment was getting revenue run rates up to $200 million annually last year. This puts eBay's $4+ billion payout in perspective.

One of Meg Whitman's pitches for Skype was to think of Skype like PayPal: like a force multiplier.

Is Skype really an eBay force multiplier?

• How much is Skype responsible for eBay's 2007 commerce operations growth?

• How much has Skype contributed to making eBay markets more efficient?

• How much has Skype contributed to eBay traffic growth outside the United States and Canada?

• How much have sellers improved their operations by adding Skype to their toolkit?

• How many sellers have a Skype name in their profiles?

• How many eBay Pinks (eBay forum moderators, key influencers in the eBay Community) use Skype daily?

• How many eBay systems integrators and developers have built Skype presence capabilities for eBay posting into their products?

• Has even one eBay developer built Skype plug-ins for routing and dispatching inbound calls, turning their auction automation system into personal call center software? 

Skype's first mission is Skype. But Skypification of eBay is important too. If nothing else, eBay sellers influence lots of people, all potential Skype users.

Hmmmm. Where might you find hundreds of eBay developers this week? 

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since last year's Skype Developer Conference we have seen progress on the road map that was laid out at the time. Specifically there were two primary requests from developers: (i) access to the Skype voice channel and (ii) a call transfer API. While both features have become available there are still some loose ends to be tied with respect to the call transfer API, namely it only works on the Mac version (but is available for Windows users via Pamela 3.5) and it needs to be hooked up to SkypeIn and SkypeOut.

Today is the launch of the 2007 Skype Developer Conference (within the eBay Developers Conference) and looking forward to hearing what the new road map will be when four key Skype managers make their presentations. And I will be looking for how progress is being made on the three goals for the Skype Developer Program outlined to me during my March visit to Skype's London office:

• Building Awareness of Skype Extras
• Addressing the issue of "compete vs complement"
• Ensuring quality of services.

The building blocks they discussed included:

• Providing roadmaps, both technical and commercial
• Establishing (a) viable and appropriate e-commerce platform(s) to facilitate business transactions
• Clearly identifying and articulating the responsibilities of both Skype and its Partners for participation within the program

Looking forward also to meeting many of Skype's Developer Partners and hearing about their experiences.

Tags: eBayDevCon07, Skype, Skype Developer Program, call transfer

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 03:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bruce Willis did. People in a chat room didn't believe he was the movie star they'd seen on the big screen and DVD. So Bruce called the forum's sceptic on iChat video.

Bruce's gatekeepers keep unwanted intrusions to a minimum. A phalanx of secretaries, security personnel, agents, lawyers, publicists and-the-like guard Bruce and his family. Superstar celebrityville.

But in this case he wanted to bypass his protective walls and be known to the members of a chat room as the read deal. Lucky for Bruce, people in the room (fans, after all) had seen him in many movies and television shows. Also, he was lucky to have had roles where his face was as well known as his voice, unlike Dan Castellaneta.

So, an effective gatekeeper makes barriers one-way: rigorous inbound but easy outbound.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I reported a few days ago, Skype is a candidate in the Communications category for Webware 100 awards. Shel Israel, author of Naked Conversations and general all round marketing communications guru, met up with Rafe Needleman, Webware's Cheif Blogging Officer, the other day and learned more about how intense this voting is becoming.

Voting closes at 9 a.m. PDT Monday (June 11) -- that's noon in the Eastern time zone and 5 p.m. in London. Click here to vote.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Combined with yesterday's very foul weather here - the perfect Windows XP storm

Yesterday afternoon, tornado breeding weather passed through our region, tearing down trees and leaving other debris scattered. There was even a bit of rain -- the horizontal variety. Went to an early movie; later in the evening, after the sun came out, I received a software upgrade notice from Logitech re my Quickcam for Notebook Deluxe, so I installed it. Checked out the latest Letterman top ten for Paris Hilton's attempt to add the LA Graybar Hotel to the family lodging chain and went to bed.

Rise, feed the dog, check my email including an early morning one from a family member; check some RSS feeds and decide it's time to reboot my PC. Reboot, no Internet connection -- amongst other indications, Skype is stalled in "Connecting" mode. Look for wireless icon in System Tray -- no wireless icon. Look for Network Connections -- blank window. Huh? So I check Device Manager -- blank window. Eh? Move my Packet8 phone's Ethernet cable over to my laptop -- still no Internet connectivity. Well this is going to take a while but my backup program works across to my external hard drive, so set up a backup run while I go for my workout -- need to backup anyway since I am heading out to Boston tomorrow for Skype DevCon. Turn around to my desktop PC (running Windows 2000) and find there is no Internet connection there but at least can find Network Connections. Check in the basement -- cable modem is missing a couple of signals; cable/DSL router looks fine. Check the cable TV -- no programs. Call Rogers -- the storm knocked out some services and they need to shut down the service for a few hours to do some neighborhood repairs; estimated time for return of service is 1:30 p.m. Time to head out while doing the backup.

Return three hours later at 1:45; hear a Skype call coming in via my laptop. Run but too late -- it was one of those "stranger" calls anyway. Anyone know who Josif is? But at least I knew I had Internet connectivity. But still no wireless icon in the SysTray, and both my Network Connections and Device Manger windows were still blank. Hey, I need to manage my wireless connections while in Boston and have no access to manage them. Got to figure this one out! "ipconfig/all" tells me that I have a wired connection but not a wireless one.

Google "Blank Device Manager"; end up on a forum that is 2-3 years old. Look through the 277 messages on the forum. One that seems to work says go into the Registry Editor, find a certain key and make some changes. First his instructions (in spite of saying they were for Windows 2000 and XP) really only apply to Win2000; but can make some deductions for XP's changes. Then when I hit the "Add" button I get different window from what these instructions imply. Go fix a problem in the garden and contemplate. Come back and read another forum suggested by the first one. Maybe Plug and Play Services are not turned on but they are; well, then check out Universal Plug and Play Services. They are disabled but can Start them. Still a blank Device Manager window. Do find that someone else had a problem like this when they installed a Logitech update a couple of years ago; in fact, others had it happen when installing certain sound card drivers or USB-connected devices. Oh, and the only sure fire successful option was to reinstall Windows; not enough time before departure to do that exercise. And Microsoft tech support was of no assistance, according to some of the entries.

Go check on another PC in the house with Windows XP Home (I have Professional); find this particular key is consistent with the forum instructions after all but deduce maybe I can make some "similar" settings on my laptop. Then came an opportunity to check another Windows XP Pro laptop; found it was consistent with the Home version but I am showing something different as to the Users/Groups designations. So finally take a gamble, click on the two permissions under the category that is shown on my laptop. Check the Device Manager. Voilà! Everything is there. But still no signs of access to Network Connections. Reboot the PC and Voilà! The wireless SysTray icon appears and Network Connections are finally showing.

This type of issue is what threatens Windows. For the installation of new drivers for what is becoming a common consumer device, namely a webcam, the user must have the powers of deductive reasoning along with significant intuition and experience (not to mention access to Google and to three or four additional PC's) to determine how to diagnose and fix the problem. With Parallels available to run any program that only has a Windows version, I foresee why we are going to see a significant migration to Macs and MacBooks over the next couple of years. The MacBook has just become a serious candidate for my next laptop.

The trick? Run Regedt32 (no "i"), click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE; scroll down to "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum". Select Enum, right click and select "Permission" (in Win2000, one goes to "Security | Permissions"). Select "Administrators...." (where every other PC mentioned above had two items: Everyone and SYSTEM"), see that "Full Control" and "Read" boxes are not checked off, so check them off. Click Apply, OK and close Registry Editor. I assume the new Logitech driver cleared those check boxes. Now you know! (And make sure your ISP's Internet service has not been hit by a weather event.) Five hours of research to be able to give you this trivial, but mission critical, advice. Not recommended for the faint of heart nor if you have not backed up your registry. And definitely not for Joe/Jo average consumer.

The good news: once I had the Internet connection back, Skype did work even without access to Network Connections, etc. But I did want to spend this time writing one of my lead-up posts to the Skype DevCon instead of just making sure I had a functional laptop.

Update: I forgot to mention that, on reading through the forums, you also lose your System Restore points. I had tried an System Restore near the beginning of this exercise and, sure enough, I had lost my System Restore points.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Jajah recently had an infusion of $20million from Deutsche Telekom. That's a big deal. It may also prove interesting for Jangl, Jaxtr and GrandCentral. However what I'm reading in the press doesn't quite gel with my sense of where this is going or what the prize is. Example see this Information Week article or this The Browser overview. Each of these state that Jajah isn't out to compete with the telecoms etc. They also reference Trevor Healy “If you’re at your office, your laptop may ring, but when you’re in your car, your mobile should ring, and when your home, your PSTN (public switched telephone network) phone will ring.” I'd agree and he'd extend this to include presence. However, I don't think this represents why DT bought in. DT also got a cheap price if Jajah's user base is in the millions or regular users, although the infusion suggests their burn rate and margins are tighter than reported.

What is Jajah? Jajah is a conversation broker. It brokers conversations between two or more channels. Jajah smartly chose to use VoIP rates to connect traditional PSTN handsets from a simple web app. Thereby collecting prepaid calling cash and millions of users.

Why DT? The real prize in Jajah and similar brokers is all the other communications that can be routed. Jajah has voice and email (they know it if you opened an account) and has yet to add chat and SMS. From a DT perspective this "switch" / "broker" is outside their network. This switch could also connect every number etc on earth. It just needs critical mass. When Jajah can connect with Gtalk or Gizmo or connect a PSTN caller with a Yahoo number they have something pretty special. Add in other ways we communicate and you have an all in one communications solution.

The Challenges for Jajah

Identity: Right now my identity is the PSTN number you are trying to call. However as a Jajah user there is no reason you shouldn't just ask to connect with Jajah Stuart. The problem to be overcome is providing me with an identity that I want to use that represents all my communications. Jajah Stuart may be unique to me; the problem is there are many Stuart's out there. Identities also reveal different things about each of us. So Jajah looks well poised to add the infrastructure and make us all agnostic about the channels we use to connect with each other.

Presence: Jajah Users knows little about presence. In fact their model currently PSTN to PSTN doesn't involve devices or calls where even simple presence indicators are involved. Perhaps that's why I like the Iotum link to Jajah? As Alec knows routing calls without presence information to different devices can quickly result in disaster. However, add a change of routing function via SMS or Web interface and all of a sudden the value for a Jajah identity goes up exponentially. What's nice about this strategy is the SIP to SIP etc calls can all be free. It will also take them into the desktop. Inferring a little more ---- they already have this client built. It may need an update as it predates the current web strategy. WiFi mobile handsets make this even more attractive.

Competitors: Jajah has a jumpstart because their model for capturing paying users is almost as good as Skype's was. However, it does appear to come with a cost of infrastructure. Jajah mobile remains a little simple but works. Integrate Jajah mobile with Jaiku and additional interesting propositions emerge. In fact between registered Jajah users (I bet the calls are much higher to non registered users) there is no need to even share the "connection" identifiers. As Jajah connects more sophisticated VoIP devices they can pass their own information on who's calling. Now Jaxtr has already proven this is possible (they recently extended it to email). Jangl appears to have a less efficient model for building numbers (just guessing).

There are also a number of mobile upstarts. Fring, Nimbuzz etc that are enabling users to connect and share presence. They are connecting so many different communication channels on the mobile that they are headed to being the Trillians with Voice for the mobile world. The downside is lack of handsets and users that get it. Jajah's mobile strategy for now is low cost and almost zero development while working on any web activated handset. TalkNow has integrated it with a mobile directory on the Blackberry. In the end this is more attractive in some countries than others depending on the users mobile plan.

Could Skype still upset Jajah plans? Technically yes. They could move quickly into this market (almost surprised they haven't). They are ahead on "handles" and "profiles" and would solve their mobile issue in a new way. They have rudimentary presence. It would undercut the Jajah model on price for many calls while enabling new Skype users without Skype apps.

Trust:We know we already have a "telecom" in the middle when we make a traditional call. There are also plenty of govt regulations that apply to telecoms. That's where I get a little more worried about how "security" is engineered in. Conversation Brokers connect both ends of the call. FreeConferencing brokers conference calls for us. They provide recording capabilities too. Whether it is Jajah in middle or someone else you want to make real sure that you "trust" the relationship. As these brokers become more capable of managing more than just PSTN channels the data they will have could be much much more. Until now most of us never trusted our Telecom with our email address. Our Email account POP is usually separate from providers for IM and mobile. We've had some comfort while they are separate. However they are converging and becoming more complex. In the end I'm not sure I want to support this potential new "man in the middle". While I like the idea that one point of contact could broker all my communications I really want it to be under my control.

In the end small change for a Telcom. No surprise to me that it is European rather than American.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 06:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Skype in UK election campaign. Could have phoned it in, but Skyping with video for town halls and stump speeches is more effective.
  

• Diagram of features in Gizmo. I like the built in slide effects, call recording, and Google maps mashup. via Matti via Julian.

• Ambient Intimacy. Leisa Rechelt's talk from Reboot via Dave Weinberger.

  "Ambient Intimacy is a term to describe that sense of connectedness that you get from participating in social tools online that allow you to feel as though you are maintaining and, perhaps in fact, increasing your closeness with people in your social network through the messages and content that you share online - be it photographs or text or information about upcoming travel."

  A new metric? 

• The Rise of Social Infrastructure by Simeon Simeonov via Emergic. "Three trends we are likely to see: The opening up of social networks, a battle for the ownership of user data, the introduction of social economics." What is Skype's role in a constellation of opened, vertical, interoperable Facebook-like social networks?

• EvE and Transparency of Metaverse Governance via Terra Nova. Opening up the books to users.
  

• Skype Pro comes to Australia. Unlimited 6c Australian landline calls for $3.20 monthly. 

• Skype Extras Gallery goes to a quarterly update schedule. Seems bizarre to me
  

Posted by Phil Wolff at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We really don't know for sure. But Philip Baddeley of Equity Fingerprint took an educated guess at the distribution.

Using publicly available data, and his experience designing equity roadmaps for entrepreneurs, Baddeley finds venture capitalist Tim Draper did best, picking up around $80 million directly and $106 million for Draper Investment Co. and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. You can pore over his assumptions but they seem on the money, excuse the expression.

Technorati Tags: dfj, skype, ebay, equity, entrereneurship, equityfingerprint

Posted by Phil Wolff at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dan York, over at Disruptive Telephony and a permanent participant in the Skype 3.x Discussion public chat, has just pointed us to Skype's announcement that the limit for participants in Skype Public Chats has been raised to 150.

Dan is perplexed (and I am also) as to why we often see the actual number of participants in the Skype Developer Public Chat is over the limit (whether 100 or 150). At 8:56 EDT this morning he saw (using the "/info" command in a Skype chat client) 201 "members" on the chat, yet less than an hour and twenty minutes later I get only 157. Did 44 members sign off within 75 minutes? (FWIW, I am running Skype 3.2.0.158.) Seems like the counter is having some difficulty. Or is it another "real time presence" issue?

BTW, if you use Pamela and upgrade Skype to this build (3.2.0.158) make sure you also upgrade Pamela to its latest version 3.5.0.54.

Tags: Skype Public Chat, Dan York, Pamela

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Webware is a c|net website that talks about "cool web apps for everyone". Recent posts include review of Netscape's Social Browser, an Adobe Acrobat update for Vista compatibility as well as a remote printing feature and Sclipo, another potential player in the Skype Prime space. Industry veteran journalist Rafe Needleman is the Chief Blogger. "In the three years of writing the [Catch of the Day] column [for the original Red Herring magazine] he interviewed more than 1,000 startup CEOs. Most are now out of business. Make of that what you will."

At this time Webware is selecting its first "Webware 100" Awards winners. It's down to the finalists and, in the Communications category Skype is a finalist. From a Skype press release today:

Skype was chosen as a finalist for the “Webware 100” Awards from more than 4,000 user-submitted nominations. Winners will be announced on Monday, June 18 and posted on Webware.com, a CNET site.

The “Webware 100” Awards recognizes the best Web 2.0 sites, services, and applications that are leading the next wave of innovation. Voting is open to the public from May 23 through June 11, where the top 25 finalists in each category will be listed.

Candidates in the Communications (email, chat, VoIP) category include: GMail, Google Talk, GrandCentral, Twitter, Windows Live's Hotmail and Messenger and 18 others.

Here's why I will be voting for Skype:

• Most contacts. With over 9.5 million users concurently online at peak times and a nine figure number of registered accounts, it is one of the most pervasive in terms of finding your own network of friends and business colleagues. Personally I have over 200 contacts; only MSN Windows Live Messenger comes close and even they mostly overlap with my Skype contacts. As Michael Arrington stated at mesh 2007, networking has value.
• Most complete set of real time conversation services: voice, IM/presence/chat, conference calling (up to 10 participants), video, file transfer, SMS, voice mail, SkypeIn/Out (with North American unlimited calling)
• Most cross platform: Windows (of any ilk), Mac, Linux, PC-Free phones, (remember the Sony Mylo that had such great voice quality!)
• Most embedded: Skype for Email Toolbars, Skype for Web Toolbars, etc.
• Most Voice 2.0 applications: Unyte Application Sharing, Skylook - Outlook integration with archiving of conversation activity, Pamela - a personal communications assistant, High Speed Conferencing for larger conference calls, Crazy Talk for Skype (review coming) for avatar creation and animation, OnState ACD for Call Center, Convenos Meeting Center and all the other Skype Extras.
• Easiest to install, activate and use. Yesterday I helped a mid-80's lady acquaintance get Skype installed and running, along with a CyberSpeaker-W handset, so she could talk to a friend in England. Her friend had sent an email asking "Do you Skype?"
• Bottom line: Most land-based conversations for my activities

And, I guess, having performed a Twitterectomy, Ken Camp won't be voting for Twitter unless he suffers severe Twitter withdrawal symptoms.

You can vote here; voting closes June 11. Vote early, vote as you like, but, based on an actual test, I don't think you can vote often.

Update: Note that there is a separate Mobile category where I will be voting for Google Maps. Why? Because it's available for every mobile platform I have and has gotten me out of difficulty many times when lost in an unfamiliar location.

Tags: Skype, Webware 100, Twitter, Unyte, Skylook, Pamela, High Speed Conferencing, OnState ACD, Convenos, Crazy Talk

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Guest post by Luca Filigheddu, from Italy's Abbeynet, makers of Sitofono.

Dear VoIP players out there,

I would like to ask you a big favor. Please, please, don't give me more FREE calls. I don't want them. I have always been used to pay for phone calls, it's not a problem. Fair rates of course, but not free. I don't want it. And you can save your VC's money. It's a bargain for me and for you. Please, don't keep offering me FREE calls.

On the other hand, I want something more from you. Give me new services. Give me GrandCentral. Give me Sitofono for my company. Give me Iotum. Give me Roam4Free. Give me MORE. I don't want FREE calls, I want MORE.

I pay: €30/month for my DSL connection; €36/month for my Satellite service; about €50/month in mobile traffic for my wife; about €100/month in energy at home; and something else I don't remember now :-) I'm willing to pay for phone traffic, but give me more services.

Now, Gizmo+GrandCentral is one of my preferred services. Sitofono is from my company, so I cannot give more comments of course (more here). Iotum TalkNow is a must-have, but I'm waiting for a Symbian version.

In conclusion, dear VoIP company, give me bundles, give me flat rates with a lot of services included, give me MORE! I would really appreciate.

Sincerely,

Luca

Posted by Guest Blogger at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

“Will Congress let us do it?
You bet they will —
cuz we don’t call it
cashin’ in.
We call it
‘deregulation.’ ”

-- departing AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre at his farewell address

Sooooo glad I'm not worthy of serious public ridicule.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

twitter4skype is another working prototype of a twitter-to-Skype gateway. Robert Sanzalone is sharing this simple service that shows your twitter stream.

Add twitter4skype as a contact.

As I'm showing in the picture on the left, register by IMing:

/account
yourtwittername
yourtwitterpassword

Dan York thinks twitter should use OpenID for account access; this would avoid sharing your twitter login/password with a third party. Jim Courtney brought this up in connection with the Mobivox launch that lets you talk to a Skype client via your mobile phone. There's a lot of trust in sharing your login info with strangers.

Must say I'm groovin on twitter4skype. Unlike most of the desktop clients for twitter, Skype keeps a full, searchable record of the twits. And I live in my browser and Skype most of the day.

Prior art: Hans Blaauw's sKwitter plug-in that used Skype's mood message to update Twitter.

This is a topic of the day, so join us in the Skype and Twitter public chat.

Posted by Phil Wolff at 05:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What do we do when our communication systems keep fragmenting? Alec and Ken comment of Skype losing relevance. The key point is "cost". What made Skype work was free P2P telephony that worked. Now the same proposition is emerging everywhere.

The result is even more highly fragmented communications. A colleague complained to me last week that I have too many numbers (time to try out GrandCentral again!) and they were right I do. In fact I have way too many "handles" from phone numbers to messenger accounts and mail services. Really nobody needs them all. Yet what should I hand out? Often it is defined by the perceived relationship. Setting it right later may add to the confusion. Concurrently callerID becomes more irrelevant because it doesn't effectively represent me when I use a different number to call them. Don't believe me - then check out emerging profile aggregators.

I too have a sense that many in the early adopter group have moved on from Skype. With Wi-Fi handsets GizmoVoIP and Truphone have proven to me that I don't need to wait for Skype on the mobile. Also, massive exposure to shared presence (broken today) doesn't enable better access control. Nor does it enable you to manage your availability selectively. Yes a few companies are working on it.

Like Alec says. There is still huge potential in leveraging the desktop. I agree. While Twitter is broken, the opportunity for shared context has never been greater. Presence information will become disintermediated from the communication channels. There is absolutely no reason to think that your presence service should or must tie to a specific communication channel. What it reveals and to whom is another matter. As presence breaks off "numbers" go back to being numbers. The "Presence Dialer" will be under a user's control. This works when an "Abstract Identifier" emerges (Eg OpenID or similar with better authentication).

Sharing availability on the mobile is even more important. It's more personal than the desktop; even more intrusive when the wrong person calls at the wrong time. Skype provided a view that was part of the way there and has completely missed the boat on mobile. As such its "handles" will never become the number of the future. "Click to talk" is what we want. IM lists prove it. Jaiku Mobile takes this a step closer (but nobody keeps using it - another post in that!), while Skype and other IM presence data is too simple to be meaningful. Available says "channel is on", anything else means the "channel is off or may effectively be off". We don't live in an "on" or "off" world. You just have to sniff out the open channels for communications.

Thus what Ken and Alec really allude to is their connections have shifted. They are more available now on new connections and perhaps less available on others. My guess is they don't talk or message less. Probably it is more than ever; without the shackles of cost.

So when Alec says he's abandoned Skype for technical reasons, he's made himself a little less available to some. He's also making more use of "mobile" solutions that are more useful to him. Eg Jajah . I've done the same. There are some workplace issues (don't install that program on your PC) that encourage Meebo and the newer Yahoo Messenger on the Web. Skype doesn't have a solution for these.

So relevance relates to communications needs; Skype remains relevant although its lack of reach into mobile makes it less and less relevant when I am on the move. We underestimated the general goodness in the handset and the impact that "handsfree" with a bluetooth headset can provide. So when "free" communications are now available to me from any WiFi hotspot on my Nokia I pull the phone out before booting up a PC. I do the same at home.

Posted by Stuart Henshall at 06:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the past few years Live Chat, along with Click-to-Call, have become common tools embedded in marketing and e-commerce websites. To be effective the chat or voice session has to assume site visitors have no other tools beyond the browser to act as a chat client or voice device. Live Person has become one of the top Live Chat tools over the past couple of years, accelerated by its addition of a Click-to-Call feature last year, but there are several others.

While live chat and click-to-call tools have evolved in the Skype ecosystem, they usually assume both parties have Skype installed. Live chat as a marketing tool within the Skype ecosystem would require that a site visitor be able to create a chat client window "on-the-fly" when clicking on a live chat link with no special skills, "dedicated" tools or, most significantly, no Skype installation.

Late in February OnState Communications launched their OnState ACD for Skype 3.0, offering a call center solution bringing over 20 years experience as executives of a call center solution provider to the Skype ecosystem. However, delayed release of Skype's long awaited Call Transfer capability has slowed adoption and roll-out; as a result the OnState team has carried out development activity that has resulted in a Skype-based solution for the traditional "live chat" market.

In particular OnState is announcing OnState ACD Chat Support which permits Skype-enabled call center agents to hold visitor-initiated chat sessions with any website visitor. Best part is that the visitor does not have to be a Skype user, making OnState's live chat offering, as with legacy live chat offerings, totally independent of the visitor's PC configuration (other than the requirement to have a web browser). The website owner simply installs a "Live Chat" button at an appropriate location on the website. Visitors can then click on the button to request a chat session with a representative (say, sales agent or customer service rep); a web-based chat window, as shown on the right, will open up on the visitor's PC. The agent will see a chat request on their Skype IM client and can then initiate a chat discussion with the site visitor. Of particular note are:

• The site visitor does not need to be a Skype user nor is there any client to download.
• The chat window can be embedded or floating
• The agent can pop-up a chat window while the visitor is browsing.

Alternatively the visitor can be presented with some basic questions via a chat robot to obtain, say, the visitor's name and contact information, etc. This information, along with the visitor's IP address, is then presented to the Agent's Skype IM client, as shown on the left, prior to initiating the chat discussion. While there is some flexibility as to the information gathering dialogue, more sophisticated tools such as SalesBuilder can be used for deeper customer profiling. At a minimum one wants to have basic contact information, along with a short description of reason for the call, prior to initiating a chat session (or voice call).

Agents can be selected by the OnState ACD based on matching the customer's information to their individual skill sets. They can be handling multiple chat sessions concurrently; there will also be options to escalate a chat session to a voice session or, during a voice session, to turn on the Chat-ACD feature. Should there be a need to view the caller's desktop to facilitate training or support, agents can readily invoke Unyte's (or other vendor's) desktop sharing application. In its final scenario, the OnState offering will provide a full multi-modal enabled service incorporating voice, chat, call back and multi-party conferencing. Think of its as spontaneous real time business conversations -- your way.

To try it out, click on the three buttons to the left to take you to On-State's home page that has the same three buttons where clicking an individual button will connect you to the related real time conversation mode.

Working with Skype and incorporating a universally accessible chat feature provides a low cost, easily implemented Voice 2.0 solution to small and medium enterprises that found previous Live Chat offerings too cumbersome and expensive. According to Pat Kelly, OnState's CEO, the combination of OnState Chat-ACD's feature set and pricing will result in a very competitive offering.

OnState Chat-ACD is currently in beta mode with release expected in early July. OnState will be exhibiting this feature through an eBay partner at eBay Live.

Disclosure: OnState has become a consulting client; the author offers professional services based on previous experience with the implementation and operation of Live Chat services.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 05:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's confirmed. We've mentioned Mike Volpi before last week: He sat on Skype's board before eBay bought them. He joined the FON board of directors along with Joost founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis in February 2006. And now's leading Joost.

He was one of Cisco's M&A experts so he knows what buyers want and how to put Joost into shape for flipping. And for buying.

See also:

• Brad Stone: Ex-Cisco Executive to Lead Joost, Internet TV Provider. "Traditional television as we know it is gradually going to go away."

• Om Malik: 5 Questions for Joost CEO Mike Volpi. "On the issue of network neutrality, we have a totally legitimate service and the carriers shouldn’t have a reason to block us. I don’t think the regulatory environment (in US and elsewhere) will allow for the blocking of competitors to the carriers."

• Liz Gannes: Joost Confirms Volpi as CEO. "This vortex of funding, anticipation, and beta launches in the Internet TV space is getting intense. The latest signal is competitors telling us tales about advertisers grumbling about the performance of their ads on Joost."

• Paid Content: Joost Unveils Volpi’s Appointment As CEO. "Founding CEO Fredrik de Wahl will stay on as chief strategy officer."

tags: skype fon joost skypejournal volpi cisco mikevolpi

Posted by Phil Wolff at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Published presence pointers drive sales and customer relationships. Demand will grow for putting click-to-call and Skype Me buttons on web pages as people figure that out.

The good folks at WebAssist make extensions to Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Expressions Web design tools. Their new, free, Skype button maker makes it more convenient for their 100k users to embed Skype presence buttons into web pages.

Simple, easy, fast. "Click, skypename, click, click, done" said Skype's Scott Miller.

The product, said Joseph Lowery, WebAssist marketing VP, responds to demand for Skype features from their non-US customers, about half their business. It completely hides html from the user while putting the feature within easy reach.

I'd call it a great 1.0 release.

Is this a first for any of the web design toolkits? Could be.

Unfortunately it doesn't solve five problems designers face every day:

• Customization of buttons to use graphics consistent with the customer's site instead of Skype's images

• Substitution of text for graphics

• Localization of SkypeWeb's status text to different/multiple languages using a parameter passed to the web page by the server

• Button behavior directing Skype to text chat, voice call, video call and show a user's Skype profile, all options of Skype's presence service

• Parameterization of the output so the Skype ID on a page is pulled from a site's database, allowing each user/account with a Skype name to show presence. In other words, dynamic vs. static web content.

Skype has been kind enough to show anyone how to build buttons:

Basic button builder.

Advanced button builder.

Skype's SkypeWeb presence service protocols.

Skype's pages offer a simple roadmap to showing Presence 1.0 on a web site. The Communication Toolkit for Skype nicely replicates Skype's Basic button features.

I'd have approached this problem differently, if I were in WebAssist's shoes.

• More than Skype. I'd have generalized the tool as a one-stop Presence Indicator Builder. I'd offer presence indicators for all providers starting with Skype, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, QQ, MySpace and Jaiku. Supporting the right ones for a given client is a screening criterion, and this misses out.

• Community. Open up the graphics library so designers can share sets of call-me buttons mapped to each status ("away","busy","at Starbucks").

• Extend. I'd make sure the wizard checked for updates, so you expand that list of web services and improve the logic as each service becomes more sophisticated. The smartest wizard wins.

Download the Communication Toolkit yourself. What do you think? Good enough to be handy?

News release below the fold...

FINAL

FREE SKYPE INTEGRATION TOOLKIT FROM WEBASSIST WORKS WITH ADOBE DREAMWEAVER AND MICROSOFT EXPRESSION WEB

The WebAssist Communication Toolkit for Skype makes it possible to integrate Web 2.0 communication in seconds

Encinitas, CA. – June 4, 2007 – Today, WebAssist announced the availability of a free Skype extension for Adobe Dreamweaver and a free Skype add-in for Microsoft Expression Web. This integration of Web 2.0 communication makes it easy for web designers, developers and small businesses to integrate Skype Me!™ buttons into their existing web pages so that when the web site is published, people searching the site have the option of clicking the button to call the company directly using Skype.

The WebAssist Communication Toolkit for Skype extends the Adobe and Microsoft web designer and developer solution tool chests by combining the world’s fastest growing Internet communication software with the most popular tools for creating web pages.

“Skype is changing the way people communicate with each other all over the world,” said Scott Miller, Director of Business Development at Skype. “The WebAssist Communication Toolkit for Skype provides a great way for businesses, large and small, to quickly and easily integrate Skype’s affordable communications into their web experiences. By leveraging the industry standards for web design, we know WebAssist’s tool will have a great impact in furthering the adoption and integration of Skype software.”

Once downloaded from WebAssist’s web site, the Communication Toolkit for Skype integrates seamlessly with Dreamweaver or Expression Web, allowing users to add Skype Me!™ buttons to pages in seconds. A wizard guides them through the process for associating the button to their Skype account and provides options for the style of Skype button that will appear on their web page.

After the Skype button is inserted into the page, visitors to the site can take advantage of the rich functionality of Skype that is already enjoyed by more than 196 million registered users. This enriched communications experience will allow users to send instant messages, make voice and video calls as well as transfer files to other users anywhere in the world in a simple and more productive way. If visitors to the site do not have Skype already installed, they will be prompted to go the Skype home page and guided through the download process.

“Our customers have been asking for Skype, and we’re thrilled to be able to give them the option to easily pop Skype onto their web pages,” said Joseph Lowery, Vice President of Marketing at WebAssist. “Leveraging the massive Skype community provides our users more flexibility and added ways to communicate without tacking on additional cost to their existing investments in web tools.”

For further details please visit: www.webassist.com/go/skype

WebAssist’s free Communication Toolkit for Skype is now available at www.webassist.com/go/skype. The extension is compatible with Macintosh and Windows platform Dreamweaver CS3, Dreamweaver 8, and Dreamweaver MX 2004. The add-in is compatible with Microsoft Expression Web.

About Webassist.com Corporation

WebAssist makes the Web work with market-leading extensions (software add-ons) for the Adobe and Microsoft platforms in eCommerce and web authoring productivity. Through custom integration services, WebAssist empowers businesses to extend their product's reach into the world-wide developer market. WebAssist.com hosts a self-service developer community with over 200,000 members registered. WebAssist's partners include Adobe, PayPal, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, and Affinity.

WebAssist.com Corporation
http://www.webassist.com

# # #

Posted by Phil Wolff at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Normally when I head out on the road, I find a hotel with a free Internet connection and, if it's wired, use my Linksys Travel Router to create a wireless access point so that I can run not only my PC but also my Nokia N800 and N95 over WiFi. This combination gives me world wide access to telephony, not only over Skype but also Truphone (N95) and GTalk (N800). I should also mention that a six-outlet, surge protected power bar is constantly in my luggage.

Andy at VoIP Watch, a self-confessed Global Nomad, has provided, in his Working Anywhere blog, the "Complete Guide for Hotel Managers" when hosting the technologically-enabled road warrior as a hotel guest. But I'm surprised he overlooked the need for an in-room wine cellar complete with "Shiraz on Tap"!

In reserving my room for the Skype Developers Conference next week, I did find a new hotel service: Hilton Hotels now offer their new "Stay Connected @ Hilton program available for $12.95 plus tax per 24 hour period. Includes wireless high Speed Internet Access, Unlimited Local Calls and Unlimited Long Distance Calls within the Continental US." Looks like VoIP and Internet connectivity for the rest of the world that does not lug along their PC and associated hardware. (Included with the basic room rate is wired high speed Internet).

A resort with which I have had an affiliation for several years has seen their once very profitable long distance revenue drop off by 95% over the past few years due to both mobile phones and guest-triggered VoIP use in the hotel room. Seems like Hilton has figured out a way to recover some of that revenue from at least the non-technologically enabled.

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While there was no official mention of Skype at last week's mesh 2007 and it seldom, if at all, came up in the various "fireside chats" and discussions, there was an undercurrent of attendees who have deployed Skype into their daily activities and have developed an appreciation for Skype's real time conversation tools It did come up in a couple of interviews; several attendees came up to me to tell me about their experience with Skype and how it has become a part of, and maintains relevance to, their daily activities:

For small business owners and startups Skype has been a key tool to manage geographically dispersed operations. One of the best example's is b5media, whose Vice-President Content is Mark Evans - also a co-founder of the mesh conferences. At b5media they have not only staff personnel in Canada, U.S. and Australia but are also building up a network of bloggers around the world. Skype has been key to keeping their real time interactivity up while keeping communications costs down

Typical of those who came up to me was Kristina Mausser, who runs Digital Word providing copy writing services for websites. Not only do you find a Skype "Call Me" button on her Contact page; she also comes up with a Plaxo vCard that can readily be inserted into your Outlook Contacts.. But Kristina, who obviously uses a Mac for her business operations, makes so much use of Skype that she has gone out and bought the Linksys CIT400 Dual Mode Internet iPhone for Skype (not to be confused with the forthcoming Mac iPhone!) and written about it (prior to last month's release of Skype for Mac 2.6):

Thanks to the CIT400, I am now able to manage all of my calls - landline or Skype - through one cordless phone. If I'm talking with a client on a landline, the call waiting feature kicks in for any incoming Skype calls and my long distance calls can either go through SkypeOut or my telephone provider's service plan. Best of all - no more annoying echos. I can now trust SkypeOut for all of my business calls ..not just the ones to my ever-patient friends who also happen to be my clients ..."pity da fool(s)"!

Kristina's enthusiasm for, and dedication to, Skype stands out more when you realize that one really has to dig to find a Canadian source for these dual mode cordless Skype phones, that, in my opinion, have been well underpromoted in the market. She also appreciates the benefit of using a dedicated Skype phone where calls are not interrupted by other programs on a PC taking over the processor.

In a previous post I mentioned Amber MacArthur's use of Skype Video on her MacBook as the video source for some of her "Live On Location" interviews at CityTV. She usually does at least one interview via Skype during her bi-weekly Webnation production. As an additional matter of interest, a couple of people came up to me saying they like the Skype for Mac client better than Skype for Windows, partially due to the overall Mac user interface. One person manages 25 Skype Chat sessions through her installation of Skype for Mac due to the Mac UI -- a claim that would be difficult for a Windows user.

Michael Arrington, in my interview with him, had found shortcomings with Skype due to lack of a "naked Skype"; however, it remains his primary tool for making overseas calls in the course of operating TechCrunch. More importantly, in his fireside chat, Michael mentioned that value for a startup can be derived from either technological intellectual property or building a network of users.

But the permeation of Skype really came home as I was walking to the nearby parking building Wednesday evening and encountered someone on the sidewalk looking for directions. He saw Skype Journal on my name badge -- "Oh, I use Skype all the time to talk with my friend in Australia".

So, Ken and Alec, Skype may have lost relevance for you, but many others have found Skype to not only continue to be relevant but also to become an essential part of both their personal and business lifestyle. These encounters at mesh 2007 show that Skype is alive and well, certainly in the social networking world.

And, looking back on Michael Arrington's comment on creating value through network building, Skype maintains its relevance relative to other VoIP offerings due to the size of its network of users. I can go to Google Talk, Gizmo Project and others only to find the same eight to ten people as contacts -- but they are all also amongst my over 200 Skype contacts.

And, Mark, as you can see above, those "spaces in between" sessions were one of the key benefits of attending mesh 2007.

Tags: mesh07, Skype for Mac, Linksys iPhone, Amber MacArthur, Webnation, Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, Digital Word, Kristina Mausser, b5media, Mark Evans

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

by Julian Bond, CTO, Ecademy

Inspired by Twittervision, I've been thinking too much about "Enhanced Presence".

I really want two displays and approaches. They need a Twittervision style display as well as a plain old text, web display. (And lots of REST/RSS APIs and desktop apps)

• Static Snapshot. Where are my friends? What are they doing"
• Dynamic. Which of my friends have recently updated something.

The first one is a display of all my friends at once with their last update.

The second is the most recent 20 or so updates from my friends on constant re-display.

But this stuff can go much further.

• Skype and other IM systems know if I'm online.
• Google Calendar knows what I'm doing.
• Loki.com (and my cellphone) know where I am.
• Twitter has my latest thought

  [1] Which again raises the need for a universal ID translator and ID aggregation. What's the Skype ID for this Facebook ID? What's the Twitter ID for this Google Calendar ID? And then a "Friends" aggregator. This ID has these IDs as friends and those IDs as followers via these SNs.

• Any number of Social Networks know who my friends are.[1]

I can feel a mashup coming on. ;) In the short term, there's a automatic Loki to Twitter App to be built.

Key to all this is that as much as possible should happen automatically from stuff I'm already doing rather than having to specifically think "I must update that".

As usual I'm chucking this idea out and hoping it will stick somewhere. I've tried with the Skype community but they seem to be obsessed with privacy and keep saying "Yes, but". There *are* privacy issues. Some people don't want to play. Some want to show one thing to their mates, one to their boss and another to the world.

But I think Twitter and Twitterlike systems (and before that Plazes) show that there is a large number of people who do want to play.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 03:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As mentioned previously, installing the Skype Web Toolbar for Firefox provides an opportunity to directly turn phone numbers into Skype Call hyperlinks with a single click. Let's do a Google Local search for Barnes and Noble in Berkeley, CA:

Note two locations for phone numbers: one the store listing on the left and also on the store banner that pops up near the geographical location for the store. But the store listing on the left includes a Click-to-Call button from Skype's Web Toolbar. One click and your call is on its way to your PSTN (or Skype) destination. Use of the "phone" links in the banner on the right is a multi-click process. But with Skype there is "No Call Back, no waiting telephony".

Oh, and (i) this works for locations worldwide with no "call back"! involved, whereas the Google feature requires that you be on a US-based wireline network, and (ii) it works using single click telephony via Skype! Keeping it simple!

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm in the United States and searched for a Berkeley, California, Barnes and Noble. Here's the results page, as usual.

Looking at the store, next to the phone number is a link: "call".  

So you click...

Enter your phone number (it will remember from last time) and press the "Connect for free" button.

Your phone rings and so does the store's.

If there's a problem, you get the chance to try again.

Not available everywhere.

What do you think?

Who benefits?

Where will this lead?

Posted by Phil Wolff at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Take a MacBook with embedded webcam, add Skype video and mix into a WiFi Connection

Amber MacArthur is a local Toronto-based technology reporter who not only does daily television broadcast reports for CityTV but also has her own CommandN.tv online video podcasts. Last Wednesday at mesh 2007 I found her in one of the conference hallways broadcasting live to CityTV's local cable information station, called CP24, being interviewed by an anchor back at the studio. The viewers would see the anchor while Amber appeared on a display monitor beside the anchor (unfortunately I had no way to capture the actual broadcast).

As her video source she was using her MacBook's webcam, capturing the picture via Skype for Mac and sending it out over the conference's WiFi network back to the CP24 studio where they were receiving the video on another Skype client and putting it up on the flat panel display monitor in the anchor's studio. Because this was a live broadcast, she did use a mobile phone for the audio as they could not risk any audio degradation due to packet loss, etc. She did say that had it been a recorded event, they would have used Skype as they can then edit out any audio problems.

Amber uses Skype for Mac quite extensively for her own podcast interview recordings and has a Cyberspeaker for Mac to assist with these recordings. CommandN is produced weekly every Wednesday and can be uploaded to iTunes for viewing on a PC and is also available in several other formats. Recently she launched Webnation, another weekly technology show produced for broadcast on CityTV but also available for download via iTunes; once again Skype plays a key role in its production.

I'll be watching for a future opportunity to capture an actual broadcast as viewed over my cable service. And there should be a contest for the most innovative application of Skype; this would be a winner!

Tags: Amber MacArthur, Skype video, Skype for Mac, webcam for TV, mesh07

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Posted by Jim Courtney at 06:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)