Dan York: 1. "This is a global service, whereas traditional pay-per-call services are limited to the local nation in which you live.  Hmmm... think the regulators in various countries might not be entirely thrilled about this?  (Since they're conceivably losing their tax revenue to Skype?) Interesting to note that if you are an EU resident, you'll also be charged a 15% VAT tax." 2. "This allows pay-per-call video calls... and the security guy in me immediately has to wonder about the usage of this for the sex/porn trade.  Calls to 900-number-type-of-services - with video - from the privacy of your PC... and all encrypted across the Internet.  Seems like a rather obvious use for that industry." [Dan gets the first-to-blog-it prize.]

TDavid: "As Yogi Berra might say, 'it’s BitWine deja vu all over again.'"

Amit Agarwal compares Skype Prime to "the Ether service that makes it easy for you to bill clients who want your expert advice over phone." Ether 's commission is 15%.

Pete Cashmore: "The percentage taken by Skype, however, is hefty: 30%. Last time I checked, Ether only took 15%. That high fee will probably console Ether: Skype may be on every desktop, but are serious consultants really going to accept an extra 15% off their wages for routing the calls through Skype rather than a phone?"

Tom Evslin: "Many people will set up Skype Prime based call services. They’ll put information in their profiles which attracts telemarketers. Telemarketers will learn who the best prospects are both from the profiles (some of which will be lying) and by accumulating lists. You’ll adjust the rate so that you’re pleased, not annoyed when you get a telemarketing call." [Editor: New term: SPITbait!]

Stowe Boyd: "I bet it will rapidly become phone sex for fee. Which is a huge market, after all."

Luca Filigheddu: "It won't be successful. Over the internet, people are used to communicate for free, they can barely tolerate a few cents for a PSTN call. Or, they are used to use emails. Unfortunately It's not always possible to take something which works for traditional telephony and make it work over the internet."

Dameon Welch-Abernathy: "In addition to offering another telco-like service, they are charging rates for it that remind me of what a telco would charge. And they appear to be providing even less value for that money than the telcos of old."

Darren Rowe: "Looks like a product with real potential for bloggers wanting to offer consulting in their area of expertise."

Bryan Bartow: "The next logical step is for eBay to provide sellers with dedicated virtual stores from which services and/or goods can be provided. This seems to be the most logical implementation of the "power of three" integration. The question is, will people use this and will the average user be as apt to buy a conversation online as they are a good or product. I hate to toot my own horn, but I predicted this some time ago."

Dave Taylor: "I have long since learned the value of not keeping track of time. ... I believe that the 'non-business chat' that accompanies any consulting call is critical to the success of the coaching, because it establishes trust and creates a human connection, a bond, between the client and consultant. If the meter's ticking, however, then you'll skip all of that to ensure that every minute counts! This is, at least in my opinion, a high price to pay for what is at best a quasi-efficient call system."

Pat Phelan: "I saw this on Phil’s blog and thought my eyes had deceived me. This is a 1990’s technology which is probably the cause of 90% of all calls to the telecoms regulator in any country. I cant see where this could possibly come into any business plan and I cant for the life of me remember the company that launched this a few years ago and had a huge belly up.
$30 minimum, time to practice my heavy breathing I think."

Absoblogginlutely: "I think i'd spend more time talking someone through setting up a beta version of skype than I would solving their problem - although it would stop people asking me for free support"

Peter Cooper: "The sad thing about that is that Skype, like most communications programs, doesn’t make it particularly easy to maintain multiple profiles or accept communications on two different profiles at once (I don’t think you can run two copies of Skype at once?). I don’t think grandma or mom and pop will be too impressed with their daughter’s profile"

Bitwine's Alon Cohen, in a comment to Luca's post:

Dear Friend

A large portion of the world economy is based on paid services. In our days many of those services may be delivered over the Internet.

Premium services are similar to a Blog, the better marketing you have, the better content you provide the more readers you will have and higher monetization.

Information is free, knowledge is not. Customization of the flood of information to a nice answer for an urgent unique problem worth money to people who don't have the time or the skill on a particular subject matter. They are the people paying for the services.

If you have the time and skills get the knowledge you need for free. No premium call system will change that. To save time, use BitWine.

Try using the BitWine Widget on your Blog.

Thanks
AC