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CES notes: Microsoft Live Messenger
on January 6, 2006 03:22 PM Microsoft demoed Windows Live Messenger (WLM) beta on the show floor. (Snapshots coming soon.) Better looking than MSN Messenger 7.5 (lots of cutesy user interface removed, panes better organized) but it's a small point. One rep claimed the Messenger Beta is better than Skype because:
- audio quality ("we played with the codecs"),
- integration of identity and contacts across the Live family (hotmail/live mail),
- third party apps delivered through the system, and
- having more users (about 200 million) than anyone else.
I have to agree with him about the convenience and power of a common Passport/Live identity. The convenience of single sign-on is a great draw. And having more people in your ID cloud and in connected clouds (like Yahoo!'s someday soon) builds critical mass. It is unclear, by the way, if the IM interop agreement with Yahoo! extends to voice.
Someone in the crowd pressed him on the number of users, asking specifics on the number of active voice/telephony users. He didn't know. I suspect, given the low emphasis of voice in past UIs, there is an infinitessimal but quickly growing body of MSN voice regulars. Helping the average MSN user become multimodal (text to voice) will be a challenge as steep as Skype's (voice to video).
Two other points: Windows Live Messenger voice calls will not support voice conferencing. And users must cut a deal with MCI for call-out services. Both put Microsoft at a disadvantage vs. Skype.
But I'm not worried for Microsoft. Most Microsoft products take years of iteration to mature, and their move to thrice yearly release cycles will help Microsoft overcome these weakness. Their platforming tradition may prevail over short-term walled garden opportunities. What's more, the power of incumbency is real, as is their willingness to explore new ideas. Skype's race for users, features, and new ideas is still a very high stakes game.
See also: the blog, the product page, the faq.
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Live Analysis of Phone Conversations
on August 12, 2005 11:47 AM "When will Skype open access to their codecs?" Doc Searls asked me at the Always On picnic. It's not clear they will. If they do, the Jerk-O-Meter is an example of the kind of application you could build. A project of the MIT Media Lab, it analyzes voices during the call, telling users how much they are paying attention. Per their project page, "The current version of the application runs in Linux on the Zaurus VOIP phone. It uses Ron Caneel's code to extract the activity and stress levels in real-time."
The Skype API doesn't expose the audio stream; you must work through the operating system to get at it. The same is true of the upcoming Skype Video.
There's money in analyzing and transforming media streams, whether for call centers (like the Jerk-O-Meter), annotation services, call/video quality boosters, semantic content detectors, translators, relay services, or simple stress/lie detectors. The Skype API should safely expose the media streams, and provide mechanisms for user authorized manipulation and substitution of that media by a friendly application.
It won't be easy, but the market value is huge.
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