GigaOM

Are Blue Skypes Turning Gray?

I know there are people other than me out there who still do things like picking up a handset and talking on a real live telephone instrument. (okay, it’s not really “live”, I hope) But for the rest of the…

[...] While video functionality is great, I’d actually much prefer the ability to share applications (browser, powerpoint, excel, etc.) through Skype, making it significantly more useful for business calls. In other grumblings, Om Malik ponders whether independent developers will continue to build for Skype, since they tend to subsume the better ideas (Festoon, Skylook, etc). Tags: skype, video, voip, techcrunch, web2.0, web+2.0 Categories: Profiles, VoIP | Bookmark this post with del.icio.us [...]

[...] Among the critiques were some critical thoughts from Om Malik… [...]

Skype 2.0 With Video (Mac Users Need Not Apply)

As you’ve no doubt already heard, Skype 2.0 Beta supports video and (finally) grouping of your contacts. But just like Google, the Skypers seem to be forgetting that many of the best beta testers aren’t using Windows - they’re on …

[...] I just looked a memeoradum, and pretty much all I find is people complaining about Skype 2.0. Paul Kedrosky asks why this is a .0 release: “While Skype 2.0 isn’t a step backward, as is all-too-often the case with idea-less companies, it is still hard to see why this rates a new .0 release, other than maybe it was a contractual obligation from Skype’s new owner — call it Ebay-told-me-2.0.”Come on guys – it has video. That alone makes it a worthy .0 release. He also bemoans the “the dearth of new ideas in telephony.” Yep – I agree – nothing to see here but a way of people talking to each other. Nothing innovative about that. Kind of like the phone, radio, tv, microwave, automobile industry in the last fifty years… what do you expect? A new form of human-to-human oral communication? Teleportation? It is called telephony for a reason for Christ’s sake.Om Malik likewise bemoans the death of third-party plugins that allowed for video conferencing on skype. Skype, which is “is short on new ground breaking ideas,” “is running the risk of alienating the very community that made it great.” But the consumer doesn’t care about the plugins. How many regular users every used a skype plugin (how many even know there is such a thing?)? What made Skype great was that it workd, it was free, and the sound was good. That’s why it was adopted. Technorati Tags : skype, skype+2.0 [...]

[...] Skype 2.0 BETA [...]

[...] VoIP Watch reveals that things are a bit more dire than even I had reported earlier. [...]

Skype 2.0 beta still doesn’t do it for me

The other day I wrote about how disappointed I was with Skype and how ineffective it was getting for me. Hurray, Skype released a 2.0 client in beta a few hours later (coincidence). Now Ive installed it and here

[...]  Om Malik has some interesting comments on this and do countless others, so everything I could say about this has already been said. Although, I would suggest to eBay to make a Skype (2.0) version for smartphones, etc. 3G + Video Calling (through the camera of the phone) = awesome [and hopefully with Skype, less expensive]. [...]

[...] Anche Om Malik se la prende con Skype e le ultime scelte del nuovo acquisto eBay in merito alla piattaforma di sviluppo che, a suo parere, sta perdendo valore per i programmatori a causa delle nuove features introdotte che sostituiscono diversi plugins già esistenti… The Video calling feature seems great, except when it starts getting mass adoption, it will start to choke the upstream part of your broadband, and for some odd reason that really makes incumbents mad! Tt also raises some crucial questions about the future of independent developers. As Skype continues to subsume great ideas implemented by its developer community, is it running the risk of alienating the very community that made it great. Today three companies that offer Skype plugins get impacted - Video plugin maker Festoon and DialCom that offers Video4IM. Skype now offers a new Microsoft Outlook toolbar which impacts another independent developer, the Skylook. Archiviato come: Software VoIP Articoli Correlati: [...]

[...] As a result of Andy’s post, I went back and reread Om’s post on the Skype 2.0 beta.  One point Om makes is that Skype continues to gobble up ideas that independent developers bring to the table: The Video calling feature seems great, except when it starts getting mass adoption, it will start to choke the upstream part of your broadband, and for some odd reason that really makes incumbents mad! It also raises some crucial questions about the future of independent developers. As Skype continues to subsume great ideas implemented by its developer community, is it running the risk of alienating the very community that made it great. Today three companies that offer Skype plugins get impacted - Video plugin maker Festoon and DialCom that offers Video4IM. Skype now offers a new Microsoft Outlook toolbar which impacts another independent developer, the Skylook. [...]

Skype v2.0 Beta

Skype has recently launched its Skype v2.0 beta with an interesting mix of enterprise and consumer features.

Skype v2.0 has the following new features:

Video: Skype 2.0 Video seems to work well. It did recognized my old Logitec…

[...] This is definitely good news for consumers. However, as Om Malik mentioned in his post, this is no breakthrough. Here are couple of ideas that would have been interesting. [...]

[...] Triggered by the piece I wrote this morning on Skype’s platform business, and Andy’s and Om’s postings, Jim Courtney took the time to write a lengthy piece illustrating how Symantec’s approach to Microsoft won the day over Quarterdeck’s approach.   [...]

“Actually Israel is getting pretty serious about giving Skype the shank. So are other Gulf states!)”

Israel is not a gulf state. No Gulf for hundreds of miles around.

Om: just FYI… Gizmo is NOT an open source project. It uses the standard SIP protocol but that’s it. OpenWengo, on the other hand, is multi-platform, standards based and is licenced under GPL, so it’s REALLY open source!

no ‘mac’ version! c’mmon skype team must be really kiddin!

I don’t develop extensions for Skype, but do facilitate a community of developers around a developer network (a similar principle to what Skype are doing here).

From the outset, I felt it important to ensure that the community didn’t feel its ideas and developments were ripped off. Mechanisms were put in place to ensure that this didn’t occur, and that it was clear that we are playing fair. These included explicitly stating that the developers maintained IP rights over what they produced.

Enabling your expert userbase to extend your product/service is perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of the otherwise dreaded web2.0 meme. However it’s a privilege, not a right.

If you don’t want others to provide true value-added services that could potentially eclipse your own base-product, than perhaps you shouldn’t provide an API. To allow others to pioneer new market opportunities around your product, and then march in over the top of them the moment it nears a critical mass is arguably objectionable.

Being a true “Web2.0 business� it not about having a fancy API but about being happy to let go of some of the control and power you otherwise hold over your product.

(These are my personal views, of course, and not those of my employer)

At least Apple first tries to buy out a company of the ecosystem. See iTunes for example. Unless of course the feature is so obvious and trivial that there is no particular case to buy anyone.

And when will Skype support SIP, Skype 3.0?

Om,
We integrated Jybe with Skype and won an award for our efforts. However, there was never a promise that Skype would not take our functionality and I know of two other companies who had issues with this - contact me if you want more info. Also, I agree with you about the ecosystem of Skype - it is open, but only to a point and the independent developer had better beware.
Best,
Brian

I think we could say it was pretty obvious since the beginning of Skype that Skype would add video and that video was naturally part of the core offering.

Keep it simple…that is the mantra I stick with in today’s featured filled market. Those who are doing so have succeeded thus far (including, to this point, Skype).

So many people still have never even used Skype (or Gizmo Project, etc.) and have yet to experience the rebirth of Internet telephony. Why make it more complicated and potentially more troublesome (in the case where its not getting the bandwidth it needs or simply hogging the bandwidth)?

Have you bothered to consider that there could be very good reasons Skype has released its own video client, licensing the technology from On2 Technologies and not just buying one of the off the shelf developer community products you mention? One good reason might be that the video compression technology they licensed is superior to anything the Skype developer community could provide and also better than anything the major competitors to Skype can offer.

Also, in checking around it appears that On2 video compression technology is establishing a substantial footprint through the likes of AOL which uses it for their Triton (AIM with video) and Tencent (largest IM service in the world operting in China)which recently licensed it for their service, not to mention that GIPS, purveyor of the audio compression used by Skype and a large number of other VOIP services, has recently integrated VP7 support into its SDK offering. It probably also doesn’t hurt that it also looks like Macromedia is using On2 technology in Flash 8 and from the sounds of things I have been reading probably will be using it in Breeze as well.

I’m thinking longer term considerations of interoperability and potential standardization take precedence for Skype over supporting a polyglot of incompatible, developer community produced, video plugins. I think your prespective is extremely narrow.

It’s funny to me that the conservative set either can’t or refuse to see that the internet is a breeding ground for hydrae. Microsoft crushes Netscape, up come Opera and Firefox. The RIAA kills Napster, up come edonkey and gnutella. If enough people block Skype, some things even better will rise up to take its place and the only one hurt will be eBay.

>And when will Skype support SIP, Skype 3.0?

Never. SIP is already obsolete.

(link)

I do not think that was a fair statement to make. First, these seemed like a very natural extension of the product, and secondly, lets face it, 90% of users would not download festoon to use video on skype. The only way to really drive adoption of skype as a video platform was to build it themselves. MSN had that for a gazillion years back, limited as it maybe. And as one person commented rightly, that is how the market evolves. A platform goes from being a platform to an app developer for that platform. Buttt… i do understand how the skype developers are gonna feel right now, and i just hope they keep innovating!

Interesting collection of comments and observations. I’ll be blogging more on the 2.0 failure. It’s at best a yawn and suggests many deeper problems at Skype. There was no need for Skype’s video to be me too, (btw the quality is hardly best in class and the bandwidth and CPU requirements excessive)with many opportunities to differentiate it from competitors and break new ground. Simplest example. Introduce video messaging concurrently and then work out how to send that to cellphones at the same time.

On developers there is no doubt the small guys are cynical. There’s also “safe” developments and areas that are more risky. Developers should continue to use Skype as a prototyping platform.

Soon the other IM systems will offer API’s. It stands to reason that Skype’s message response API elements will be adopted by others to get their name on all the devices that are being made.

Om -
Thanks for highlighting Israel’s possible shanking of Skype. I blogged on the topic Thursday.
(link)

Have you tried the new Video conf feature in MSN messenger 7.5 ..its really good. The voice quality rivals that of skype and the video is very good. I just tested out Skype video and its as good as what MSN offers but maybe slightly on the lower side since I could see some video quality distortions which never happened with MSN. Sadly MSN being a MSFT product ..it does not get the same press coverage as say a Skype or Google Talk. Google Talk is crappy compared to the rest. Skype undisputedly has best voice quality and Yahoo is best through firewalls. But Yahoo seems to be loosing out in that race..its new “voip” feature isnt anywhere as good as MSN or Skype.

I like skype2.0!
(link)

i love Skype 2.0

here is more about skype2.0.0.63 (link)

i’m a (proud) mac user and it sucks that skype 2.0 can only pe used by people with pc platform

I love big butts, I just cant help myself, I know alot of ppl out there will disagree with me, But I just love them. For me I just gotta have them

Skype core would die if it tried to offer a basic vanilla software with 3rd party “pay” add ons to support their developer community while competitors offer full features for free or as part of their basic offering. It seems everyone forgets the customer in all of the griping. If there is no desire for the core product, then ALL developers are SOL. A failure to grow new ideas and offer new value add earns any business a quick death…not just lazy add-in developers. Time to change your nappy and grow up. (btw: I wouldn’t even give Skype a look until v2 and without some of the devs offering their basic products for free, I wouldn’t be looking now.

I have skype 1, and when I downloaded ver.2.0 my Olympia telephone died. I had to reinstall the old version. can anyone tell me if I made a mistake, or is the newer versoins not compatible with old ones?
thm4855skype
Norway

is beter for 2.5

hey, rly good discussion and usefull info. i just wanted to ask about the hacking, is it possible to get away from that and how? i mean if id like to chat with family that live abroad how can i do that without getting my documents stolen?

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