Om says all the money in VoIP will go to device makers. Aswath agrees, saying the VoIP carriers and directories will be frozen out of value adds. Andy Abramson says "it's in add on applications and new services. The infrastructure costs have to be revenue neutral. Look to areas like access, identity/directory and new apps..." Kevin Delaney says "Value-Added services such as content delivery maybe, but that's not going to be the big winner. It's going to end up like cell phones. People want the pretty ones with all the extra features. It will become like computers where you buy addons to improve your service and what you can do with it."

Don't miss what Skype's doing. Forget about SkypeOut and SkypeIn revenue. That's piddly, and Om's picking the right industrial analogy for carriage, at least. The value in VoIP is in doing what JyvePro is doing now, what eBay/Skype/PayPal are building now, and where everyone else will follow. The money is in operating markets for conversation. eBay is the right analogy.

eBay knows how to bring buyers and sellers together, Skype knows how to conduct the conversation, and PayPal knows how to get sellers paid. As they shift to conversation markets, all three will be learning new skills and tweaking their services, but that's the deal. Bringing language tutors, babysitters, medical advisors, divorce lawyers, stock advisors, personal trainers together with clients. Assuring a safe, high quality service delivery. And payment as promised.

There will be modest markets in third-party:

• authentication (the Kentucky Bar says you really are a lawyer and in good standing),
• obfuscation (yes, this person can pay you but doesn't want you to know her name because she doesn't want her employees to know she's learning French),
  
• profiling (we can tell you that this person has an eBay score of 2507, a Technorati score of 352, got a 1430 on the SAT, has a valid California drivers licence with two moving violations),
  
• social proximity ranking (you have 33 close contacts, 2 friends, and one family member in common), and
  
• integration with personal management tools, a la Getting Things Done, and business applications, like QuickBooks and Salesforce.com.
  

The huge market will be the small tax you pay to SkypeBayPal or its rivals for hosting conversations that pay. 

After all, the money isn't in the bits, it's in the message.