What mashup should/can you build? I've been looking for models to help Skype Journal's consulting clients understand the range of integration opportunities.

For context, start with The Anatomy of a Call:

Three stages:

• Before the call. All the elements that bring the parties together.

• During the call. Augmenting conversations, switching or combining communication modes, handle interruptions, changing the parties, choosing privacy policies.  

• After the call. Records, analysis, feedback, repurposing of recordings for social media.

And the two transition points:

• Start the Call. Making connections, choosing devices, deciding to start or defer.

• End the Call. Prepare for disconnect, plan for follow up, disconnect smoothly.

Diving deeper, we can explore goals and strategies associated with each step in the timeline.

Let's look at Discovery, one of the things you do before a conversation. Discovery is about finding strangers, or groups of strangers, to talk with (or people you know but didn't think of for this call). 

Six discovery strategies:

1. Follow a thread. As you surf the web/email, something catches your eye. You follow blogrolls, author links, comments and forum threads. As you surf, your intentions strengthen, so when you discover someone worth talking to, you're ready to initiate contact.

2. Search. "White pages" search lets you look up a person by name. Today's "people search" offers more attributes, including education and career histories, publications and citations, geography, and biography. "Yellow pages" business search

3. Communities of Interest. Online has always been full of places where people gather around topics. I started to write "Communities of Practice" but CoP is too specific to the workplace. Interest applies to many contexts.

4. Matching. Some "market maker" services specialize in finding mutual matches. Job boards bring job seekers {offer: knowledge, sklils, abilities, experience; wants: type of work, compensation, location} with jobs/employers {offer: workplace, roles/responsibilities, compensation; wants: fit, competence}. You see the same thing with dating/romance sites, activity/partner sites (seeking an intermediate tennis partner for Tuesday evening practice), language learning communities, free-agent gig sites, etc. "Mutual" is what makes this matching, not search.

5. Introduction. Referral. Turning social networks into social capital starts with referrals. Who better to trust than a stranger referred by a friend?

6. Accident. Call it Serendipity, a happy chance. Did you click the wrong name, mistype a web address, leave your IM handle on a blog post? Love stories are full of "cute meets" and we're seeing the same thing online.

Each discovery strategy brings its own set of tempos, user goals, contexts, values, and measures of success.

• Can you continue discovery during the rest of the call? Help discover and invite relevant people into an ongoing conversation? Promote a conversation's archives to attract more people to the next conversation?

• Can you improve on Skype's directory? On your company's directory?

• Can you make it easier for people in your communities to discover each other and launch into 1-to-1 or group conversations?

• How can you combine discovery methods to improve relevance and fun?

As with other "before" strategies, discovery is only as good as its integration with "Start the Call."

We always want our product's scope to be right every time. Experience Opportunity Maps like these help Skype-connected applications find sweet spots and market opportunities. If this topic interests you, you can always Skype me, or join others with similar obsessions in Skype Journal's public chat or the Skype Mashup chat.