Comments on: Skype Kills Extras (and Its Developer Ecosystem)

By: Om

Om — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 00:51:18 +0000

Om,

What is the current status of the Skype Extras? Can I reach you by phone or e-mail?

Thanks, Rosalind Rock

By: Shawn

Shawn — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:33:04 +0000

Great point about GVoice “getting there” before Skype. There’s definition something there, and it will be very interesting to see what happens with Wave this fall.

OnState (also a horn toot – http://www.on-state.com) is in a very similar place to Fonolo. We make virtual call center and virtual PBX software that is platform independent, but Skype was one of our original platforms of choice, and remains a reliable underlying source of communications for us and many of our clients. So while the impact of this move will not negatively affect us, it remains a bit of a head-scratcher nonetheless. I’m hopeful that this is a move by Skype to rid themselves of non-productive “partners” (not all the dissimilar from what they did to the partners section of their website back at the end of April) and come out with an enhanced version later. Some insight on this would be helpful, though.

By: Mishan Kontroll

Mishan Kontroll — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:10:26 +0000

On a recent project, the company I was consulting for used it for conference call meetings among dispersed developers. It worked okay, except when it didn’t.

By: Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments

Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:47:08 +0000

Skype has to be very careful because Skypeout is by far not the cheapest solution for internet phone calls. If Skype allows developers to treat the call function as a service inside of other applications, they will use Skype only for inbound calls and for the free Skype to Skype calls. Outbound calls to phone networks (PSTN) will be channeled over Skype competitors who offer cheaper prices for their SIP services.

Why Skype maybe right about killing its Extras developer program and being careful with APIs
http://www.goebel.net/technews/2009/09/why-skype-maybe-right-about-killing-its.html

By: Nacie Carson

Nacie Carson — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:14:03 +0000

Love your blog, and posts like this really illustrate why. Thanks for sharing, and keep up the good work!

By: jk

jk — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:59:58 +0000

Christophe – I was wondering about Pamela – thanks for clearing that up. I have found Pamela a very useful tool.

By: Christoph

Christoph — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:07:26 +0000

Whatever caused this misunderstanding in Skype’s information: Pamela and PamFax for Skype will NOT BE AFFECTED by this change in Skype, as Pamela does not use the Skype Extras system at all.
See http://www.pamnews.com/2009/09/11/no-skype-extras-anymore/ for a detailed explanation.

-Christoph
Pamela Team

By: Kristie Wells

Kristie Wells — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:48:45 +0000

While Extras isn’t Skype’s only developer facing effort, this was certainly their most visible – a way developers could work with its API to extend functionality of the Skype application to users.

With a lot of invested Skype developers now left out in the cold, I wanted to highlight what we’re doing at Ribbit – we’re encouraging developers to extend our entire telephony platform to their own users. No matter what a developer builds, they are always inheriting the value of our communications platform, but are never in a position of competing with us.

So with this, we say come one, come all to the thwarted Skype developers. http://developer.ribbit.com/blog/ribbit-open-telephony-api-for-skype-developers/

By: powel

powel — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:23:37 +0000

the skype buyers now just want to flip the company for decent roi, nothing else. they don’t care about the technology or even the user community. increasing decline in call quality is getting worse, especially for int’l calls. lbos just want to sustain it long enough to hype & flip.

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:58:42 +0000

All that I can say is that Skype could have been iPhone for the desktop – think 75K apps, thriving marketplace (eBay, anyone?), thousands of developers, tremendous proprietary lock-in. Then again, eBay could never figure out the 1+1=3 wrt Skype+PayPal+eBay so it shouldn’t be surprising.

Golden opportunity missed, as I noted in my original post on the potential for Skype when the original eBay acquisition was announced:

Another Spin on eBay-Skype – http://bit.ly/3DiqZv

Check it out if interested.

Mark